I could see the man staring at me through the haze caused by the street lights and drizzle. He strode toward me, opened his mouth to speak, and then stopped short, perhaps deterred by how engaged I looked.
I was talking with a friend and waiting for a bus to go to a show and I watched him very carefully out of the corner of my eye. I did not break my chain of thought, did not break eye contact with my friend. As usual I was doing that woman thing of having half my mind on what I was doing, and half my mind on my surroundings, like a duck sleeping with one eye open. I thought of moving over to another place at the bus stop, but I was not alone and there were lots of people milling around in front of the bar next to the stop.
After a pause in our conversation, I risked a subtle glance over at the man. Yep, he was staring at me. Crap. He collapsed into a cafe chair that was out of the rain briefly, then stood up and began pissing against the wall, watching me the whole time. I silently prayed that he would not start jerking off, forcing me to take action and admit that something was happening. I hated this intrusion on my mental space, on my feeling of safety that I had a moment before.
He meandered around a bit and I put him out of my mind briefly, until he passed in front of me and my friend, not too close. I felt relief that he was moving on. Suddenly, he swooped in toward me touched my arm.
“Hey girl, what’s up?”
“NO,” I said, facing him and looking him in the eye. “Do NOT touch me.”
“What’s the problem, what’s the problem, I just want to talk,” he said. He seemed a little fucked up, but wasn’t really slurring or weaving.
“I don’t want to talk,” I said. He kept trying to talk to me anyway, and I kept repeating myself, hoping that he would give up. I was raising my voice and holding my hands out toward him, NO, back off, and the other people smoking in front of the bar and standing at the bus stop were starting to take notice.
“Oh, you can be Helen Keller,” he said. “I’ll still talk to you.” He kept repeating everything. Helen Keller, Helen Keller. “It’s all right, girl, I’m from Alaska, I’m from Alaska.” What did that have to do with anything?
“Leave me alone,” I said, forcefully.
“Hmpf,” he said, his face twisting slightly as he looked me up and down. “You know, you’re voluptuous, but your face ain’t that cute.”
“Okay,” I said. I still felt nervous, and uncertain of what he was going to do, but it looked like it was taking a turn into a very familiar place, where I would be called a bitch, or an ugly bitch. I was “voluptuous” so it looked like I had escaped the old chestnut, “fat ugly bitch.”
He went back to telling me he was from Alaska. Was this some kind of code? He was starting to piss me off, risk or no risk.
“So what? I’m from Michigan. Get away from me,” I said. He started talking about Barry Sanders. “I don’t know who that is,” I said.
“Bitch, you ain’t from Detroit!” No, I’m really not. He sneered at me again and looked at my companion. “Get that money, girl, get that money,” he said to me. Great, now I was a prostitute.
I took my phone out and told him I was calling the cops.
“I can see in you, bitch,” he said to me. “You a derelict, JUST LIKE ME. GET THAT MONEY, GIRL,” he shouted at me.
The bus came and I got on. So that is how reclaiming my space is going.
I am so sorry. I just…wish I could say or do something. I’m sorry.
What the hell is wrong with some people?
If you want to come down to the Academy and learn some stuff that might make you feel safer.. or hell if you just want to choke somebody, let me know.
I’m okay! I just wanted to write it down. Thank you.
J.B. Thanks. Sometimes I would like to choke a bitch, as the kids say. I have been considering krav maga for a couple of years now, actually (which I know is not what you do).
oh my. skin is crawling just reading it :(
(btw a good friend of mine is a mad keen krav maga person, if every want to chat to her she is always up for a chat about it) xx
perhaps he was thinking of a real woman ;-)
What is it about bus stops that attract the grabby ones? I had a guy want to discuss my ethnicity and when it turned out we had some in common he hugged me. I boarded the next bus that arrived even though it was going totally the wrong way.
When I was still in college I’d gone out with a friend of mine to buy comics and eat Indian food. It was the first real, solid food I ate after getting my tonsils out 3 weeks previously, I was feeling kind of out of it from the long trip, and my throat was hurting again from the rough act of swallowing actual food.
I was, in short, in even less of a mood for random dickery than usual.
So when some foul smelling man started trying to hug me while telling me I looked beautiful, at the train station, I told him to go away. He called me racist for not wanting to hug him (we were different races, yes, but he also smelled like several liters of cat urine and, again, was an absolute stranger). I told him that I’d been sexually assaulted recently and didn’t like touching ANYONE, let alone absolute strangers. He kind of lost control of his facial expression, like he didn’t know what to do with his mouth and eyes, and wandered off.
My companion congratulated me on telling such an awesome story to chase the guy off. I told him that no, it was true, I’d been sexually assaulted recently but whatever. I was dealing with it.
Coincidentally, that was the last time he wanted to hang out with me! Funny how that goes, eh?
ANYWAY: what the fuck is it with dudes thinking the lay-deeeez are desperate for them to throw hugs around? Seriously. KNOCK IT OFF YOU JERKBAGS. My current tactic is to loudly say I DON’T KNOW YOU, PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH ME. Loudly, but calmly. Nobody has ever actually, you know, intervened… but they look over and frown some and grab their bags tightly.
I know one person who intervenes, but I wasn’t with him.
And, Brigid, I can’t tell you what you got out of your experience, but I feel like that’s a common cause-effect. Tell what happened, and you’re “angry” (BAD! SCARY!) or you’re the one who needs to be shunned somehow.
I remember having to fight guys like him off when I was around 12 or 13. I was more developed than other girls my age and I have always acted older than I was as well. Being 5’9 and having the typical Barbie look- tall with big breasts, long blond hair and blue eyes- made me a target.
I’ve found that they have a sense of entitlement. We don’t know what we want or we’re just as devious sexually as they believe themselves to be but we don’t want to admit it. And when we shut them down, they have to save face by trying to make us feel bad about ourselves. I shut down a 30-something Marine once when I was almost 14 and his retort was that I would be better off “working the poles” in town because “bimbos like you don’t have too many options”.
And now- well, now I’m a bitch and I don’t make eye contact. It’s just easier that way.
This sucks hairy nutsack. I am sorry you have to deal with shit like this, sorry that no one had the balls to come and make sure you weren’t being dragged off by some hormonal lunatic, and mostly I am sorry this sort of thing happens. I started being grabbed and such at such an early age that it took me a long while to figure out that I had a right to my own space. Now days I will screw up my face and say some scary shit to a guy to get him to go away. I still start out polite and, luckily, I don’t usually have to get scary. Also, TOTES cute in the face! >:(
We all {as women} have to be aware and careful. Unfortunately, the same is true for some of my gay, guy friends. You’re right to be aware of your surroundings and, obviously, your instincts were/are right on. I’m in agreement with Brittany, no eye contact. Bottom line…again, we all have to be careful. Side note, you are beautiful, voluptuous, intelligent and a good person…don’t let the fucked up street scrum get to you. I hate to be that way, but I think we all know that there are those that exist among us who take certain liberties with our personal space and sense of safety … some for the sheer joy of it {WTF} and some because they honestly believe we should be flattered that they look your way. You handled yourself well and protected your space. Just continue to be aware…don’t let him get to you. Never travel without your cell phone {on}… and a good friend close by.
Bugger’s advice is good, too. Be strong and act crazier then they are…like loud and confident crazy. Most are like dogs…if they sense fear, they get more turned on {and agressive}.
Even being a zaftig lady, I get my fair share of comments from dudes. My favorite was a black guy in his 40s that told me I was looking beautiful that day. He was wearing a suit and jewelry, and I was wearing a ripped ATHF “got meat?” shirt with Meatwad on it. Winter tends to be the worst; it seems the more layers of clothing you’re wearing, the filthier the comments are.
I am absolutely fucking flabbergasted that he would PISS right in front of you and THEN try to chat you up. Depending on the number of people around, I would have made fun of him for that.
When I first moved to the suburb I live in now, I moved with my then boyfriend, a large, scary looking man, who ultimately drove me half mad by his inability to believe in the “women live life like a sleeping duck” thing. No-one hassled him, he couldn’t understand it was because he looked intimidating and he actually thought I lied about various things that happened to me.
Within weeks of moving, I was grocery shopping alone in the middle of the day in a crowded store, when a guy came up to me. He’d have been in his early to mid-20s I guess, seemed perfectly sane, looking like he took his Eminem listening a little too far, but nothing out of the ordinary.
He told me he thought he knew me from somewhere, and asked if we’d gone to school together. Stupidly I answered no, I’d just moved to the city. Suddenly he was asking for my phone number, telling me he wanted to have coffee, show me the neighbourhood. I told him I had a boyfriend. No problem, he said, he just wanted to be friends, so my boyfriend couldn’t have issues with that.
I found myself flustered and actually half considering giving him my number just to get away and then deal with it later, something I had actually done a few years earlier and regretted.
I started to walk away, when he caught up with me and said ‘Hey! I’m not trying to do anything here, it’s just that…well, we don’t get many BIG girls around here’. I stood there, people walking past, having just had a complete stranger call me fat to my face…AND I GIGGLED. I could have punched myself. I giggled like a little girl, like what I thought he said was cute, and then I walked away. I was so mad at myself.
It sounds to me like you handled a shitty situation really well and actually managed to communicate to him that a) you wanted to be left alone and b) what he was doing wasn’t cool.
I just wish there was no reason to share stories like this. Once thing I know for sure is that if I have kids, and they’re girls, I’m going to teach them that speaking up and making the two points you did isn’t a bad thing to do.
Hmmm…I probably give off serious do-not-talk-to-do-not-approach signals (I’m a tomboy, don’t dress sexy, walk like a dude, have a relatively tall and strong build, and only give aggressive/fearless eye contact if a guy tries to get my attention)…I still get approached, but not often.
And I have to throw my hat in the crazy ring. A girly girlfriend and I were walking home one night at 4am in Florence. It was absolutely deserted except for us and these 2 guys who started following us. 3 blocks back, then 2 blocks back, then 1. We were lost and were taking turns that didn’t make sense if you knew where you were going. So were they.
So at 1 block…a distance too far for them to use weapons if they had any…I started yelling at them at the top of my lungs to back the fuck off, stay the fuck away from us. And didn’t stop. My girlfriend kept saying shhhh, shhhh, and was embarrassed. Well fuck that. If I had to wake the damn block up at 4am and have everyone think I was another stupid American (Bush era, fun time to be in Europe!), at least I wasn’t getting raped/killed in the street in a strange place.
It worked. They followed about another 20 seconds until they realized I wasn’t going to stop until people were looking out their windows.
That’s also the same trip where on a crowded bus in Rome I had a guy brushing up against me while masturbating until I noticed it. I moved to the other side, he continued, openly, while staring at me. Had to evade him at the stop because he tried to follow me.
Ugh. Why are men such horny, abusive creeps. And is there a difference between the US/Italy/Europe? Haven’t experienced the same forwardness from most men here (not including these over-the-line instances), but have only spent significant time in smaller cities like Madison/Milwaukee.
I live in a rural area now so these sort of things are blessedly infrequent. But I’ve had my fair share of encounters. I hate that people do that, I hate the feelings it gives you and I hate how everyone mostly ignores the whole thing. My reaction is to now to “interfere” in some way or another when I see it happening to someone else. Thanks for writing about it.
Gross.
I tell you, one thing I like about getting older is the increasing invisibility. In another couple years I’ll be able to rob a bank. The other night walking home through downtown, and a pub had just closed and some men were spilled out on the sidewalk. I’ve never been particularly frightened here because I could pretty much squash an unarmed man without getting wrinkled, but anyway I was walking and what I mostly felt like was Roger Murtaugh. And I apparently radiated my too-old-for-this-shit to such a degree that a path was actually cleared before me. Either that or they were afraid of breaking my old lady bones.
I’m sorry that happened to you. I’m delighted that you were as awesome at that as you are at pretty much everything else; I mean there’s no way to get through that shit without feeling dirtied, but I like how you kept your head up. I’m glad your girls are growing up with you as their mother.
Scary. I like the way you handled yourself in an impossible situation.
@Meinva: Nice victim blaming! Any more “helpful” tips?
I know you’re ok.. still sucks.
Krav Maga is very effective. It’s world view is a bit dark for me though.
Apparently there are some very good practitioners here in town.
If you want to learn something GO! These things take time, so don’t run yourself out of time thinking and planning.. DO IT!
Choking people is very cathartic.
The offer still stands.. the first class is always free.
All right friends, let’s be cool. Some of us are in different places with our feminism.
Anne: A friend of mine shaved her head when she hit her late 30s and said it was liberating to be free of all that galumpus. I want to look traditionally feminine for myself, but some days I wonder if it’s worth it.
JB: for me it’s a budget thing at the moment. I will see what happens when I finish this book and am looking at working full time again.
Aw fuck, I’m so sorry that happened. If I lived nearby I’d offer to show you a couple of things, gratis. Barring that, I’d look for a copy of Judith Fein’s “Are You a Target?”. It’s an older book, but there are some good how-to’s in there. Maybe you and P and the girls can do your own Self Defense Family Night.
Obviously I’ve seen these sorts of discussion before. I’ve been in Seattle since before Mia Zapata. I went to Evergreen. I’ve had these conversations and done my reading and spelled women with a “y” and all that. But I still tend to feel like the paradigm — Schrodinger’s Rapist — is inaccurate. Useful, maybe, but not accurate and not descriptive of how most women live. Yes, I know, I have a penis, where do I get off, etc.
I think it boils down to my observation that having bad experiences, and therefore having reactions to your environment that are fear-and-caution-based, is a function of where, when, and how you have lived, more than it’s a function of who you are. If a woman and a man live in the exact same circumstances, the woman will be harassed more often than the man will. But when you start looking at the variables more closely, it has less to do with vaginas and boobs than it has to do with other correlative indicators that suggest vulnerability; size, build, style of dress, visibility of valuable items, etc. I have a male friend who’s 5’4″ and weighs about a hundred pounds, and he and I may as well be living on different planets, for all our day-to-day experiences on the street resemble each other. Though I still tend to be more observant about street danger than he does.
In general, with most of the women I’ve known, I notice armed people on the street before they do. I notice henky body language before they do. I’m more cautious about showing weakness on the streets — counting money, having bags or clothes that restrict my movement, wearing shoes that make it hard to run, wearing or displaying anything that looks valuable. I’m cautious that way because it’s a good idea. If I were a woman, I’d say it was because I was a woman, but that wouldn’t make it true because here I am a dude, and I still do it. And I’m much more paranoid and cautious than most of the women I know who don’t come from my background.
I could tell a bunch of stories here. I’ve got one to match pretty much every one that you or one of the commenters has told. Some of them would even involve women I’ve never met before doing totally inappropriate or threatening things, because that happens. Some of them would involve people pointing guns at me, or jerking off next to me, or hitting on me in ways that are wildly inappropriate. But this isn’t really about specific incidents, is it? We’re illustrating the point with specific stories, but that’s not what it’s really about. We’re talking about things in aggregate. In aggregate, it’s a weird dangerous world, and you never know when or why some horrifying fucked up shit is going to happen to you. No matter what kind of genitals you’re sporting. Is my observation.
And just on to the “not how most women live” thing — in my life, whenever I’ve bought into the “every man is a potential rapist” thing, or the “women are harassed constantly in ways that men can’t even conceive of,” thing, women start popping out of the woodwork to tell me that isn’t what their lives are like. Ultimately, I think most of the “silent majority” types — people who live in suburbs where they rarely walk and there aren’t a lot of random street encounters — just don’t think about this stuff much. It’s not part of their life experience. If you were to ask them if they have a fear of rape, the women would say yes and the men would say no. But the women are answering in the hypothetical and the men are describing the world they live in, where that sort of thing just doesn’t happen to able-bodied adult males (though it may happen to boys). If they lived in a world where men they knew actually *got* raped, their answer would be very different. But in practice, neither group is probably as cautious as a large, intimidating male who has lived his whole life in the city.
Shitty. The duck with one eye open and often lack of understanding of that from the opposite sex brings to mind one of my favorite quotes on how different we feel about these things on a fundamental level: “men are afraid that a woman will embarass him.women are afraid that a man will murder her.” the actual quote is more eloquent than that but you get the idea.
I stepped in to assist a women being harrassed on the street once.
Got stabbed (nothing serious – it was a small knife in the shoulder… but still).
So I genuinely don’t blame people who won’t step in and assist in situations like this…
It’s risky.
I’ve stopped to assist women on the street many times, but I always ask before I get involved, specifically to avoid that getting stabbed thing. “Miss, do you need help?” I know a lot of women are reluctant to say “yes” in front of an angry boyfriend or something, but I’m not going to put my hands on some guy only to get a bottle upside the back of my head from his girlfriend.
My apologies if anyone interpreted my comments as “victim blaming” … couldn’t be further from what I was saying. What transpired was creepy and disgusting, at best…and TOTALLY unwarranted. There are NO circumstances that would make that behavior acceptable…and I believe that she handled herself AND the situation very well. I hope that clarifies things.
I’m with Anne – old enough to be fairly unharrassable. And fat to boot. It actually cracks me up sometimes to see “unfuckable” flick through a guy’s eyes before he disregards me completely.
But I went through those years and I learned serious, hardcore self-defense to deal with it. I scared some dudes over the years when they got in my space or grabbed me…it wasn’t pleasant, but it felt good to own my space.
I knew one guy who could never get it through his head that women weren’t there for his conquest. He thought every woman who was nice to him in any way was asking for his attentions – waitresses, librarians, anyone. He had a whole list of how they were coming on to him – looking, smiling, turning a certain way, stretching, fixing their hair – basically anything that wasn’t screaming FUCK OFF ASSHOLE was considered an invitation to continue.
This whole thread sucks. I hate what happened to you. I hate that women have to go through this. I, too, had my share of inappropriate and unwanted comments while just minding my own business. Chicago was way worse than NY. I had to shout at one guy who was following me and talking to me in broad daylight. I shouted, “DON’T TALK TO ME.” He stopped dead in his tracks and yelled, “Tell that to Jesus when he comes!” If he hits on me, I will.
Yeah, I would turn down Jesus too, especially if he was wearing Axe.
Ew. Though the idea of Jesus wearing some styling gel could be entertaining.