#MeToo

In first or second grade, I'm not sure which, a boy in my class pulls me off the jungle gym and sticks his finger in my butt through my leggings.  He looks at my face as he does it, asking if I like it.  I didn't think of my ass as sexual yet, so I was very confused.  A teacher stopped him, but I don't know if anyone ever told my parents.  To this day, I wonder what was going on in that boy's home that he was mirroring with me.

In middle school I go to the movies with two girlfriends.  And adult man its next to me, and throughout the movie starts rubbing my arm and stomach.  I am embarrassed and confused; I say and do nothing because I don't understand what is gong on, and worry I'm imagining things.  I tell no one.

In high school I go to a sleep over new years party with my friend and her boyfriend.  The girl hosting, her mother, and her boyfriend are the only other people there.  At night we all sleep in the same bedroom, and I hear the host's boyfriend pressuring her to have sex while we sleep.  She says she can't because something is wrong with her vagina.  He tells her if she doesn't, he'll have sex with me.  They debate for what feels like hours; she whispers that I'm asleep, he whispers that he'll wake me up and rape me.  I lie perfectly still as she eventually gives in, and whimpers and cries through what sounds like painful intercourse.  I feel guilty, terrified, relieved, and disgusted.  I know I should do something, but I don't know these kids well, and I'm far from home.  I finally fall asleep.

 My college roommate comes home from a party, and tells me she slept with the guy she met, but didn't want to.  Her hesitance and confusion is common as she explains that it wasn't rape, she just didn't want to have sex at first, but was okay with it during.  I realize consent is confusing when men see tricking and badgering women as viable seduction tactics, and women are trying to explore their sexuality without feeling victimized.  I realize, looking back, how many times I have had sex because I didn't want to find out what would happen if I said no.

I go visit my friend at her university, and she tells me she was raped by a guy she thought was her friend.  She tells me it happened last semester, at night after she'd gone to her room to sleep, and that she woke up to him on top of her.  She tells me her mother is in the process of trying to shame his family into getting him to leave the school, because he's still there, still taking classes and living n campus.  She tells me she is getting married in a year.  All I can think is, she's trying to protect herself.  Married women are known to be off limits from male 'friends'.

In my first full time job after college, my 50-something year old boss makes sexually inappropriate jokes in the open office.  I laugh, because I think this is the way an adult should behave.  My supervisor, who is younger and female, stops us, reminds him he is being inappropriate, and later pulls me aside.  She explains that she has to work to keep these men in check, and can't leave any room for them to question what is appropriate.  I realize how little I understand.

I am working as a manager full time and going to school part time.  My boss says racist things to me, and asks prying, personal questions, but I need the job.  One day I come to work without make up on.  My boss calls me into his office to accuse me of being hung over at work, and I try to explain.  I never come to work without make up again.

In graduate school a female friend mentions she is meeting another to study.  She explains she's worried, because he is male, and so she'll have to be careful about how she dresses, or he will come on to her.  Other women in the room echo her sentiment; that most male peers will only want to meet up if it's a pretense for a date.  I realize that being in a relationship has shielded me from this, because my male peers see me as off limits.  Because I belong to another man already.  I feel relieved and deeply troubled.

I am called into the dean of the department's office, and I am nervous.  I hope it is about a research or work, and have prepared to talk about my qualifications.  Instead I am asked about sexual harassment and assault.  "Has any faculty member offered to change your grade in exchange for sexual favors?  Are you sure?"  Eventually I convince her, and we spend the rest of the time talking about how difficult it is to be a female department head.

I am at my first academic conference, and it's going really well.  I make friends, including someone who went to my school.  We have a mutual friend, and he is successful and connected, and offers to introduce me to other people in our field, so I follow him to a party in a hotel room.  We continue the drinks we started at the conference cocktail hour, and at the end of the night he tries to make a move on me.  I remind him that he is married, and I have a boyfriend, but he is unconcerned.  I do not like this man, but he is using time honored manipulations, and I realize he is better connected than me, and my rebuff has to be subtle and complimentary.  I escape from where he has me pressed against the wall and make an excuse about being too drunk, I run back to my hotel room.  He is charming and cordial in the morning, as if nothing unusual happened.  I suppose he is right.

I am teaching at a public university and a student meets me after class to discuss why she's struggling.  She talks about her financial troubles and her physical disabilities, which are new and she is struggling with.  Then she tells me she was sexually assaulted by her roommate, and currently looking for new housing.  I talk to her, we work out a way for her to pass the class with all of her constraints.  I ask her if there is anything she needs, but she remains confident, brave.  She doesn't want help, but she needs to find a new living situation, and in L.A. affordable housing is expensive.  I later relate this to another professor, an older mentor, and she says, "Well, that's our job."  And she's right, because University faculty get training on how to handle and report sexual assault; I am a mandatory reporter.  If I want to teach economics to adults, I also have to handle the abuse and assault of my students, because that's the world we live in.

This doesn't include things that have happened with friends, times I was physically assaulted in ways that weren't sexual, all the things that happened at parties and bars, including the time a buy set his drink on the edge of my ass while I was turned toward the bar, trying to order.  All the times someone grabbed my tits or ass, or rubbed up against me or my friends, all the times guys on various dance floors wouldn't take no for an answer, or the time I was mistaken for a hooker in Barcelona and had to fight my way out.  Those are just casual harassment, and happened when I was out at bars or parties or night clubs.

I don't consider myself a victim; I think I have likely lived a less-molested-than-average life.  I often barely remember that all of these things happened to me, that all of them are inappropriate.  That these things happened to me and the people around me because of our femaleness, or because of our perceived weakness, but mostly because of the culture of toxic masculinity that has convinced generation after generation of people that consent can be bought or pressured out, or is optional.  That conquest is all that matters, and the conquerors needn't worry much about the feelings of the conquered.

When a person comes forward about sexual assault or harassment, the initial response is disbelief.  But if you look out into the world today, the number of women (and men) standing up, saying 'Me, too.', it looks like everyone has a few stories in her past, a few experiences that reminded her she was not fully autonomous, that she was capable of being controlled or violated.

For fucks sake, can we start to believe people?