This past weekend, I took a trip to Ireland with two of my girlfriends. We enjoyed local music, a few pints of Guinness, and the beautiful cliffs of Moher. However, we also had a number of less-than-pleasant experiences that, unfortunately, only happened to us because we are women.
Here’s a run down of an unwanted sexual advance and my unexpected reaction.
We were in Temple Bar, a famous Irish Pub known for its live music and authentic atmosphere, and there were a lot of people. So many, that at first I was unaware of what was happening to me. I could feel the warmth of this man’s body rubbing up against me, but I assumed that it was an accident and that the man behind me was being shoved by the crowd and felt just as awkward as I did about his genitalia being forced against my backside.
Feeling embarrassed for the man and myself, I turned to the side so that my hip was touching him instead. I thought that this was the end of the awkward experience and dismissed it to be the result of a crowded bar… it wasn’t.
Next thing I knew, the man was behind me again in the same up-close-and-personal position. With this being the second time, I started to think that it might be intentional but still wasn’t sure. So, I moved about ten feet away to the other section of the bar, feeling relieved to have escaped such a weird encounter. I finally got the attention of the bartender and was ordering my drink when I felt this stranger’s body rubbing up against me again.
I felt confused, powerless, and speechless for the first time in my life. Other than a few more lame attempts at turning my body away from him, for the most part I did not react. But rather, I pretended that it wasn’t happening.
Amid all of the music, the crowd, and a foreign environment, I did not react to the level I hoped I would. I stood there, defenseless, trying to ignore him. His genitals were rubbing up against me and I did nothing. This was a reaction that I still cannot wrap my head around. I am confident, empowered, and consider myself a feminist. I attended the women’s march in Spain for women’s rights and the fight against domestic violence. Yet, despite my attitudes and past experiences, I did nothing.
It wasn’t until my roommate saw me from across the bar and noticed a 40-year-old man squatting so that his genitals were at an appropriate angle and height that I found relief from this unwanted, cringe-worthy experience. She quickly grabbed me and took me to the other side of the bar to see if I was okay. We laughed about it, trying to play it off like it was funny or something and that he was just some drunk creep. But the more I think about this experience the more I realize that it isn’t funny and no one should have to feel the way I felt.
As women, these kinds of experiences happen to us all too often; we either laugh it off or accept it as a normal part of our everyday lives. We tell ourselves that it isn’t a big deal- that because we don’t have bruises, weren’t raped, or nothing “extreme” happened to us, that its best to just forget about it and move on. I have no explanation as to why I had this kind of a reaction but I am nevertheless disappointed. I am ashamed that I did not have the strength to face him and ask him why he thought it was okay to do something that was clearly unwanted by my five previous relocations. I wish I had turned around and given him a spiel about his blatant lack of respect for women, or personal space. I wish I had stood up for myself and for other women. But I didn’t, and I don’t know why. All I know is that I hated that feeling of helplessness. For the first time, I did not feel like myself and I am disappointed in my actions. So, I refuse to ever let myself feel that way again.
As a result, I now believe that these types of experiences need to be shared and brought to light. So, I asked a few friends to share some of their experiences. Some of these are incidences that we normally wouldn’t give too much thought to, others are more extreme and evidently classified as wrong. But I encourage everyone to re-examine ALL of these incidents, even the ones we normally wouldn’t give a second thought to. Ask critical questions, even if the answers might make you uncomfortable.
“In the story that you just described, I remember that when we were walking home and talking about how wrong it was for stuff like this to happen to us just because we are women, a group of guys overheard us and screamed at you “bit*h, you need to suck a d*ck… the catcalling was also out of control in Ireland.”
-An annoyed friend, Age 20
“I was on the beach part of a club in Barcelona and my friend was giving me a piggy back. Randomly some guy came up behind me, grabbed my underwear and pulled it up out of my pants, and then ran away…Many other times that weekend at the clubs my ass had been grabbed unexpectedly and uncalled for by other passerby men.”
-A girl caught off guard, Age 21
“My sister got her haircut in the city last year and it was a good place and had good reviews. She’s so particular about where she gets her hair done/shops etc. and she was one of their last appointments so it was late and it was only her and two men who worked at the salon that were left there. One of the guys went into the back and she was left alone with the one guy who was working on her hair and he was touching her weirdly. Like her shoulders and stuff and then when she was done getting her haircut he opened her blouse (she was wearing like an easy to open top) and touched her boobs. She said she literally didn’t say a word and was frozen and felt similar as to what you’re describing as being really disappointed and angry with herself for not saying something but she said in that moment you are so taken off guard and she was terrified because it was only her and him left in the salon and so she didn’t say or do anything. She also didn’t go to the police or ever do anything about it. I think this is because of two reasons: one being out of fear – she didn’t know who this guy was… what if he was a psycho and heard she was pressing charges or something and came after her and two – just realistically she knew he would get away with it and that’s the problem with stuff like this… it’s really just her word against his and she realistically knew that it wouldn’t lead to any actual consequences for him.
I think stories like yours and my sisters are important also because it shows another side that people are really quick to judge. For instance, we watch SVU and hear stories of people not doing or saying anything in those situations… someone who hears my sisters story about a man literally opening her blouse after working on her hair and touching her boobs would probably think ‘omg why would she not do or say anything’ but until you’re in that position I think you really don’t know how scared you must feel and how hard it is do something about it and to be honest I probably would’ve froze like she did too.”
-A concerned sister, Age 22
“I’m sitting at a bar with my friend when a random guy comes up to me, leans in with a nudge to my arm and offers to buy me a drink. I politely declined as I had just ordered one and it was sitting full to the brim directly in front of me… his follow up question was, “So, wait. You don’t want me to buy you a drink?”… I then re-direct his attention towards the drink that was now in my hand and repeated that I had, in fact, just ordered and paid for a drink”…his friend approaches and jokingly asks, “Hey is this guy giving you trouble?…he then turned to his friend with a smile but puts his hand on my knee… then slides it firmly up the inside of my thigh and continues until I had to physically scoot back in my chair to limit the unwanted gesture any further”… He looks back at his friend and with a wink says, “no of course not, but this girl wont let me buy her a drink”… he walks away and his friend sits down and “puts his hand on my leg with another unwanted run up my inner thigh and says, “so what if I buy you a drink?”
-A woman who can buy her own drinks, Age 24
“I’m not the girl to confront cat-callers. I don’t want them to see a rise out of me. I feel like it gives them what they want. But at the same time, not saying anything lets them say whatever they want- it allows it. That being said, I’d never had too many situations I couldn’t handle by myself in the moment. I’ve walked away from guys that dance too close. Moved their hands off of me. Said “no” when I didn’t want to do something. Ignored men and boys who thought screaming derogative words would make me feel happy that I was noticed. Situations that you can’t handle are scary. I’ve had a few of those too. In mid-February I was walking home from my sorority house up the hill to my apartment on a Monday night. I was sober. It was before 10pm. I was walking a straight line up the hill, I can literally see my apartment from the porch. That night was also a game night for my school. This meant lots of people walking around after the game had ended, maybe people were drunk – just an extra amount of people walking.
On my way up the hill, over halfway to the front door, I felt someone grab me. “Grab” is the nicest way I honestly can put it into words. Someone reached under me, between my legs, and forcefully tried to shove their finger into me all in one coarse motion – under my backpack, under my large winter coat.I stopped and whipped around, expecting to, very seriously, see just a friend of mine playing a joke. I had a few faces that I expected to see. I was ready to smile and laugh and tease them that they’d scared me. But I didn’t know the face of the person who was behind me. And then I didn’t know how to react. He smiled at me. Actually smiled. Disgusting. “Emily?” he asked. I kept looking at him, trying to put his face to a name, trying to make him someone I knew. I shook my head and took a step back. He moved forward, walking around me and asked if I was “Emily” again. I held my hands in front of me and shook my head. He said “Oh, sorry.” We’d switched places, him standing over me, in my path. I said “It’s fine”still with my hands out.
It wasn’t fine, why did I say it was? I wanted to look down, but actually knew I wanted him to know I’d seen his face. He said, sorry again, really without emotion, and walked away. I stood for a second, letting him get a ways in front of me. That’s when I got nervous – once he was gone. I wasn’t afraid until the threat was gone and I still find that bizarre.
The anxiety really set in once I was home, when I could really think about it. I called my friend, told her what happened. I had another friend come over because my roommates weren’t home. I couldn’t stop being nervous.
Now, I was mad though. Why hadn’t I said something. Why didn’t I yell at him? Why didn’t I slap him or push him? Why didn’t anyone say anything when they saw? There were so many people on the street. It made me so mad I wanted to cry – but I still felt silly.I felt open and I didn’t want to be.
The next day I called my sister. I told her what happened. I told her how silly I felt. “Silly” being the stupidest word to describe it. Being the psychology major that she is, she told me how common it is that women don’t know how to react and wish they’d done something. There’s actually a theory behind it called the Alligator Theory. The consensus of the theory is that when you take an alligator and flip it on its back and rub it belly – it freezes, not knowing how to react. This refers to what’s called “tonic immobility” and it mostly occurs in a animals and humans that experience a threatening situation. Think about it like being “shocked into immobility.” The animal has never been in that situation before, and therefore it has no idea how to respond or defend itself. This 900-pound animal is frozen and it won’t move until you flip it back over and let it go.
The same thing happens to some women who are assaulted for the first time. They freeze. They’ve never been in this situation before and there is no way to know how to handle it. Just like how cops during training are given bullet proof vests and actually shot at so they don’t freeze the first time a gun is pointed at them and the trigger is pulled. They’ve done it before, their body knows how to react… I didn’t know how to react, so I didn’t. I can’t describe how much that bugs me.
I wish I could go back and scream at whoever that man was, or hit him, or do anything. I’m not an object to be taken or a thing to be commented on. It doesn’t matter if I am a drunk girl at a bar in a bad area at 2am or a sober girl walking home with two coats and a backpack at 9:30pm. I’m not to be taken or touched or spoken to in a way that doesn’t value that I am a PERSON. And the worst part is that this isn’t the first time I’ve been put in an uncomfortable situation with a guy where he’d known he had the power of the outcome. I have been there, trapped in that feeling with limited ways out. I still won’t take long trips on buses (another story). I still get terrified to walk up that hill to my apartment- daylight or not. I jump when people pass me from behind when I’m walking. I froze when a man in New York City came walking over and jokingly asked “Louise?”
It’s a trigger. It’s all triggers. And they suck because they put me right back in that moment. I wish I did something to stand up for myself. F*ck him. Actually what a piece of sh*t he is for leaving me feeling like this…for leaving me to be nervous and scared and violated…for possibly doing this to more girls than just me.
But this isn’t a pity-me story. As nervous as this man made me, I’m okay. I’m more than okay. I’m a happy person who lives my life and, through the anxiety, is doing her best. And knowing that so many girls out there have gone through so much worse, I have to be okay. Just know, if something has or does happen to you, and whether you have the instincts to react or you don’t, you’ve got this. You are a gem and it isn’t fun but in no way do you deserve that. There’s no such thing as “asking for it”- and unless that that means you’re “asking for respect” – that excuse is a goddamn myth.
– An extraordinary woman, brave and kind, Age 20
All of these stories are important. All of these women deserve better. The reason I collected and shared these stories is because I, too, temporarily felt as though what happened to me in that bar was no big deal. I didn’t think it was worth writing about. Like I said before, I wasn’t bruised, I hadn’t been raped, and physically, I was perfectly in tact. But the problem I had was the way in which I felt afterwards…the way in which I reacted. I knew that if I, being the confident, strong woman that I know I am, had this reaction, then I knew that so many other women must also have experienced the same helpless feeling that no one deserves to feel. My intention in writing this was to shed light on these kinds of stories, to tell women not to beat themselves up if they have this kind of a reaction. It’s not their fault, and no one should blame themselves or be angry that they froze.
Like the concerned sister mentioned above, before this incident in the bar I also thought that if something like that were to happen to me I would no doubt stand up for myself. But, until these situations occur you really don’t know how you would react. I ask that you stop judging victims for not standing up for themselves and rather judge society for making this kind of thing acceptable. Encourage men to have respect for women.
I encourage women everywhere to share their stories. It helped me to know that other women, strong and confident women, reacted similarly. To know that I was not alone in feeling this way and that I shouldn’t beat myself up over my reaction, or lack thereof. Support each other; love each other, and hopefully some day we wont have any stories like these left to tell.
***If you, a loved one, or friend has been sexually assaulted, there are resources available, such as RAINN, Sexual Assault Hotline, and more. Never be afraid to report the incident, and always know it was never your fault****