Content Warning:
sexual assault
In my last post, which was mostly about running, I briefly
mentioned my experience of being attacked on the street by a stranger. I did not go into detail, as the post was
about running, and it didn’t seem necessary to extrapolate.
And then came the Kavanaugh hearings, and with that
came the flurry of social media activity that comes with such things.
And along with millions of Americans, I found myself
stewing, boiling, trembling, and remembering.
And along with millions of Americans, I find myself
compelled to share.
I was 20. I was
riding the bus home from the center of Nantes, France, to my host family’s
house a few miles out of town. I’d
ridden the same bus dozens of times, sometimes in the wee hours of the
morning. It was a nice neighborhood
outside of a quiet city. I was nearing
the end of my semester-long stay, and this evening was our school’s farewell
party. It was around 1 in the morning
when I got on the bus, after a dinner and dance cruise with my friends and
teachers; we sang ‘New York, New York’ with a table full of French
strangers. I was wearing a floral
lavender skirt and Mary Jane shoes with a 1” heel. I carried a black leather purse over one
shoulder. The lights in the bus were
bright and I casually glanced around the blue seats to see who else was riding
home after midnight. My eyes lingered on
a man whose vest reminded me of the vests my boyfriend (now my husband) liked
to wear. I might have smiled slightly, lost in
my thoughts of being soon reunited with my love.
I barely registered the fact that the stranger looked back at me.
This is my stop. I
get off the bus. As I begin walking, I
hear footsteps behind me, just a little faster than I’m walking. I don’t look back. It’s a free country. He can walk as fast or as slow as he
wants. The footsteps speed up. He sprints.
He throws his arms around my waist, hands clumsily reaching for my pelvis as he
drags me to the ground. I land hard on
my knees, and I think to myself as time stands still:
“This is happening. This is
the moment when I get raped.”
I scream. With 10
years of singing and acting classes to support my voice, I scream: “Arrêt!
Laisse-moi!” He instantly
releases his hold on me as I watch the lights in the houses along the street turn on. The entire neighborhood is awake
now. He runs. His footsteps get farther and
farther away until I can no longer hear him. I stand up and take inventory.
The purse, which had been dangling loosely on my shoulder, is still with
me. I’m unharmed. Even my stockings aren’t ripped. He ran away. I'm okay. It didn't happen.
I decide I’m not a victim tonight. I refuse to run. I walk the rest of the distance to my host
family’s house and let myself in. They
are awake. They heard the screaming, and
they feared it was me. I tell them what
happened. We all thank our lucky stars
it didn’t end worse. I go to bed and fail to sleep.
I reported that attack the next day. My host parents took me to the police station
where I pored over hundreds of photos of men who all looked very similar to my
attacker. None was him. I’m sure he was never caught. When I returned to college in the states the
following semester, I began taking Tae Kwon Do (I later also dabbled in Muy
Thai and Kung Fu), swearing that the next time I was attacked by an unarmed
man, I’d make sure he didn’t get away. I never did more than a year or two, and I'm far from having lethal hands, but I could break a nose if I needed to.
I am a very fortunate person to be able to say: that was the
worst aggression I’ve ever experienced.
It wasn’t the only. Of
course it wasn’t the only. I’ve been
female my whole life, after all.
There was the high school church sleepover, where one of my
classmates saw an opportunity to slip his hands into my pajamas while I
pretended to sleep, paralyzed with fear and shame. I later found out he had done the same to my
friend. Neither of us breathed a word to
anyone.
There have also been the many minor physical offenses, the drunk
older men on the Essex Steam Train who saw high school drama club students
as easy targets for wandering hands when we were performing for Halloween. There was the friend at the New Year's party who saw my festive top as an invitation to grab a handful of my bosom. In front of his wife. In my kitchen. There were the strangers in NYC who pressed themselves
against my backside on subway trains, using every bump in the tracks as an
opportunity to push a little harder. There
were the middle school boys who snapped my bra and slapped my behind as part
of some point-gaining pursuit with their cohort.
And let’s not forget the cumulative psychological effect of “micro-aggressions”, the countless
catcalls and comments: the
boss who had something to say about my ‘décolletage’ when the summer heat and
broken air conditioning coaxed my sweater off.
I haven't fogotten the boy on the bus who called me a ‘flut’ (that’s a
combination of ‘flirt’ and ‘slut’) because my blouse had slipped to expose my
bra strap. And in spite of my advancing age, I still get calls from bros on the
street shouting out of their cars, thinking it’s hilarious to make some comment about how lucky my bicycle
is because it’s between my legs.
So. If sexual aggression and assault are so common, why do women refrain from reporting?
Because. Because it's SO common it's normal. Because the aggressors are often our friends, our family, our colleagues, our
bosses. Because it will hurt the community. Because it brings up shameful and embarrassing feelings. Because for generations we’ve
been taught that it’s our fault. Because we’ve
been conditioned to see feminine sexuality as dirty, and male sexuality as
predatory. Because we’ve trained women that it’s
their responsibility to protect
themselves from men’s uncontrollable desires.
And when women do report, they get dragged through the press and social media, and frequently nothing happens.
Of course it’s not all men.
But it’s so many women.
So. Many. Women.
Is it any wonder we’re finally choosing to speak out?
