It had to happen.

I had to talk about women and sexual assault/ harassment.  There's so much to be said and it's hard to know where to begin so this will be a multi-part post.  These are all just things I've thought about or things that have made me think.  They are based on conversations I've had with men, with women, podcasts I've listened to, echoes of my past, and books I've read.  Names have been changed

#1  Why don’t girls just tell guys to fuck off?

Jim is a single, never-been-married, no kids guy.  Jim is artistic and free-spirited.  He is progressive on most social issues.  He votes democrat and is pretty passionate politically. He's nice looking, athletic, and popular with the ladies.  Jim and I had a long conversation about all the celebrities that were being outed. Part of what Jim said was the following:

"I just don’t get it.  When I was in college, and we were out at the bars, I would grab girl’s asses.  They liked it.  Usually, if I grabbed a girl’s ass, we would end up making out.  Lots of times she would go home with me.   I don’t get why, if a girl doesn’t like it she doesn’t just tell the guy to fuck off."

My reply was this, "Jim, imagine you are in a bar, and a guy who outweighs you by 100 pounds grabs your ass.  You know your odds of being sexually assaulted is 1 in 2.  Do you take the risk that this guy is or is not the type of guy that would assault you?  Do you risk pissing this guy off?  Do you take the risk he might follow you out to your car later and assault you because you’ve pissed him off?  Do you tell this guy to fuck off?"

Jim actually said yes to my question which I found interesting.  My daughters would probably tell the guy to fuck off too.  More power to them....but I wouldn’t.

I just ignore the guy. 

Some girls smile to try to avoid provoking the guy.

Apparently, according to Jim's account of his college days, some girls end up making out with the ass-grabber.  I suspect these are girls who had been admiring Jim for a while and hoping to get noticed.  Who knows?  I can’t speak for them, but I tried to explain to Jim that culture has shifted.  Just because things were once ignored, or even accepted, doesn’t mean they should continue to be.  We can think of a million examples of this:  folks didn’t used to think anything of a man hitting his wife, or of separate drinking fountains for persons of color.  We used to have laws against birth control, and we didn’t have laws against drunk driving.  You get the point.   Culture evolves and changes, often for the better.  Grabbing someone’s ass without their consent just isn’t OK.  It never was, but many just weren’t tuned into it.   Sure, we should have been responding with a “fuck-off” all along.  But we didn’t and many times we still don’t.   And fundamentally, it's not the responsibility of the victim to correct the problem.  

Because we are still afraid. 

It made me think of my dog Clyde.  The other day he was sniffing and smelling at his dog-buddy Bert’s dog bed and then humping it. You see, Bert used to let Clyde hump him all the time.  I have no idea if Bert allowed the humping because Bert thought it was good fun, or if it was because Bert was afraid of Clyde.  Clyde is a 110 lb dog.  He outweighs Bert by 40 pounds and is pretty intimidating.  Clyde has always been the alpha and Bert has always submitted. But sometime during the past year, Bert has decided he’s had enough.  When Clyde tries to hump him, Bert goes ape crazy.  In his dog-way, Bert is telling Clyde to just fuck off.   Poor Clyde is understandably confused.  Bert always seemed to like the humping-play before.  It was all in good fun from Clyde’s perspective.   And now things have changed and Clyde has accepted that.  Bert has stopped giving his consent.   So now, Clyde just humps the bed.

Post script:  I was talking to my daughter the other night about this post.   She told me this story.  She was walking down the street one day and the wind caught her skirt.  A guy on the street saw it and walked past her and told her that was "hot" or "sexy" or something like that.   Ordinarily, she will tell a guy to fuck off.  My daughters are feisty.  But she didn't.  She froze.  I asked her why.  She said it was because she actually felt threatened that day on that street by that guy.   She said that usually when she tells someone to fuck off, she feels safe to do so.  She is surrounded by people, in public or similar.  In this situation she was alone...... and felt threatened.    

(To comment, click on header)