Why I didn't tell.
May. 10th, 2010 06:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sarasvatiThere's been a lot of talk going around (at least on my reading list) about sexual harassment and the "why didn't you do something about it" attitude that people tend to throw in there. Many people have said what I want to say a lot better than I could say it, so this is not an entry containing my own thoughts on the matter.
The posts have, however, made me relive my own brushes with sexual harassment. None of them were as horrifying as a lot of the incidents that I've read about lately, and for that, I'm extremely thankful.
But regardless of how minor it was, each incident stands out clearly in my mind, and each one has had its effects on me, whether that effect is a momentary flash of anger and disgust or a long-standing fear of men who look a certain way.
I'm going to talk about them now. People who don't like to hear of such things are free to skip it all, and I'll feel no offense. I will cut them for everyone's benefit, and I will warn that some of the incidents may be triggering for some.
The first incident.
The first time I can recall anything like this happening to me was when I was about three or four years old. My cousin and I were being babysat by the girl next door, who was, if I recall, just entering her teens. She often watched us for short periods of time, so staying with her was nothing unusual.
That day, though, she decided, for whatever reason, to start playing around with genital touching. When I refused, she told me in that case I wouldn't be allowed to play with her new dollhouse. Being very young at the time, toys were more important to me than something I had no real grasp of, and so I agreed. She would touch my cousin, and then me, and alternate between us.
I wasn't scared at all. In truth, I was more bored than anything else, and I remember just lying there until she had gotten bored of doing what she was doing.
I didn't tell my parents. I can't remember whether this was because she told me not to tell anyone, or because I didn't really understand that anything happened that should be told. But not too long after that, my parents approached me and asked me questions about the incident, so I can only imagine that either the babysitter came clean or else my cousin told her parents.
I answered their questions. Nothing more was ever said. I mentioned this to my mother only a few years ago and she had no recollection of any such thing happening. This, I think, is what hurt most of all. Not the event itself, but that my mother forgot. Maybe it's just me, but if my child was ever molested, I think that would be forever burned into my memory.
I know now that it's likely the babysitter was also molested at some time in her life, and that's why she did to us what she did.
I can't say that this event had no effect on me. I really can't be sure of anything. Evidence suggests that it had a lasting effect, because I still remember the event so clearly, more than 20 years later. It's an uncomfortable memory to revisit from my current perspective, and the lack of feeling I remember may mean that it was worse for me than I can recall. It wasn't an active numbness. Just a bored detachment, like it didn't really matter what was happening, even though I know that I didn't want it to happen because I initially refused to do what she wanted. I'm not sure. I can't be sure. The only other person I know who may remember it is my cousin, and it's not the easiest thing to bring up. "Hey, remember that time the babysitter molested us when we were kids?" And what if she doesn't remember? Did that mean I made it up? But why would I do that?
And there's part of the reason why people don't always do things when they're taken advantage of. Up to the last few sentences, I had managed to type out my recollections fairly calmly. But then I get into the questions of doubt, and I really start to doubt, and to feel a rising panic that maybe I'm the only person who remembers and so am alone in this. Or maybe I made it up, but why would I do something like that unless I was sick and twisted and wanted to get someone in trouble for something they didn't do. Fear. Doubt. Confusion. Why bring it up when there's so little clarity?
The second incident.
This isn't so much an issue of active harassment or molestation, but it gives insight into why so few people may be willing to tell others when something happens. I was seven years old, or around that age, and was comfortably asleep when all of a sudden my father burst in my room and woke me up, angry and loud and demanding that I get into the living room right then.
I did so, confused and tired and afraid because I didn't know what was going on. My father glared at me while he put on his coat and then went out quickly, leaving me with my mother, whom I finally persuaded to tell me what was going on.
Somebody had rung the intercom for our apartment, in the middle of the night, claiming they were looking for me. They wanted to know, according to my mother, if I was going to fuck them like I fucked them last night.
Once again, keep in mind that I was about seven years old at the time. At this point in my life, I had only recently had the talk about where babies come from and had subsequently expressed utter bafflement about why people would do such a disgusting thing.
I didn't understand why my father had seemed so angry at me, when I hadn't done anything. I recall saying to my mother that I couldn't have done any such thing because I was in my bedroom asleep last night. My mother admitted that the person had sounded drunk, and so it was probably just a stupid mistake. She followed that, though, by telling me, "If you haven't done anything wrong, then you've got nothing to be afraid of."
Yes I did. I had to be afraid of my father, who woke me up and was angry at me for something I couldn't understand and didn't do. I was scared and confused. I had every reason to be afraid.
She had managed to get me calmed down before my father came back, but what he said to me then started the fear all over again. "If I ever find out you did that," he said, "you're going to be in so much trouble."
He hadn't been able to find the person who rang the intercom. Likely it was a drunken so-and-so who slurred a name and my father had interpreted it as mine.
But think of this. There was a girl who had done nothing wrong and yet had anger directed at her. She was then told that if she'd done nothing wrong then there was nothing to worry about, which is a tricky way of implying that if I was still worried after hearing that then I must have a guilty conscience and had done something wrong. And if this is the treatment I would get over a misunderstanding, when I had done nothing, what kind of treatment could I expect if I found myself raped one day? Would my father turn his anger on me and blame me for it? Would my mother try vainly to defend me and tell me that I hadn't done anything wrong and it wasn't my fault, so I should no longer be afraid? These people were my parents. They were the people I was supposed to be able to trust to help me if terrible things happened. But they were punishing me for the very thought that somebody might have done something to me.
The attitude of "if you did nothing wrong then you've nothing to be afraid of" is all too common, and it really does carry the implication then that worry and fear equals a guilty conscience. If I was really a victim, then I shouldn't worry about telling trusted people, but if I was afraid (afraid they'd get angry, afraid they wouldn't believe me), then maybe I did something to invite the problem and I wasn't really the victim after all.
It's a signal to victims that any guilt they feel is because they know they did something wrong. It's a way of telling victims that they aren't really victims after all.
The third incident.
I'd say this is something that every female probably goes through, but then again, maybe not. The second clear incident I have of being sexually harassed was early in my high school years, when an old friend came to visit and we stood in the hallway of the apartment building to talk. Then, out of the blue, he asked me if he could touch my breasts.
I was shocked. He'd never been a gentleman, but I thought he had more sense than that. He told me that his other female friends let him touch theirs, so it was okay, right? I felt a hot flash of anger and humiliation and displayed an uncharacteristic vehemency when I told him that he should go and ask those other friends then, and turned my back on him and went into the apartment and shut the door.
Humiliation. He didn't do anything but ask to touch me, and even so I felt profoundly uncomfortable. I felt as though he'd just spent the past half hour making fun of me somehow, like talking to me and catching up with my life was just some pretense so that he could grope me. He didn't care about anything but copping a feel.
Pretense. Rapists often say that in some way, the person they rape was asking for it, or had plenty of chances to say no if they really didn't want anything to happen. This, as intelligent people know, is a steaming pile of bull. But maybe somewhere in the rapist's mind is the thought that they're being perfectly clear about their intentions of sexual advancement, even if their victim thinks that they're just chatting about the weather and the local sports teams. Then, since the victim didn't back away or say no, the rapist assumes that it's a sign of consent, because why else would they stick around.
Then the victim feels even more guilty because so many people tell them that they should have seen it coming and gotten away from the situation earlier. And because hindsight is 20/20 and the rape so clear in their minds, they may feel stupid and worthless for not having seen it coming.
The fourth incident.
I was working at a coffee shop when this happened. One of my coworkers was getting married to one of the bakers, and so we were chatting about marriage and relationships when no customers were around. Coworker commented that her baker fiance was especially well hung, and seeing as how that was none of my business, I grew embarassed and told her that I didn't want to know that. She laughed and joked that I should just ask him how big his penis was.
She told him about this conversation. And he then proceded to ask me every chance he got if there was anything I wanted to ask him. He laughed at my embarassment, and did not stop his little game.
Why didn't I tell him to stop? I knew he'd feign ignorance of just what it was I was supposed to ask him. Why didn't I report him to my manager? Technically he had only implied something sexual, not said it outright, and I had no proof he had done anything wrong. He had worked there longer, his fiancee outranked me, and I didn't think there was much point in reporting it. Even if somebody believed me, what was the best that could happen? He'd get fired, but that would probably piss off his fiancee, whom I'd have to keep working with even if I could have avoided the baker. The best outcome was that I create for myself a work environment that was just hostile in another way.
I just suffered his comments and insinuations until the job became so unbearable from that and other issues that I eventually quit.
And as mild as that may all seem, this is the incident that left the most obvious scar on me. Years later, when I was working a completely different job in a different place, I saw somebody who reminded me of him. I have no idea if it was him or not, but his beard seemed similar, as did his haircut, and some of his facial features. Regardless of whether or not it was him, this person reminded me a lot of the baker.
And I panicked. My heart started to pound with fear that he would remember me and start harassing me again. I felt a hollow kind of heat inside me when I thought about having to endure that again. If I saw him anywhere in the building, I couldn't look at him. My gaze dropped and I flushed and started to shake and felt so afraid that sometimes I had to duck into the bathrooms and sit in a stall until I was sure he was gone and I felt calm enough to face the world again.
To this day, I feel fear of men who remind me of that baker, even just a little. The facial features, or the way they carry theirselves, it doesn't matter, but I start to panic and can't always fight down the rising fear in my chest. He never once laid a finger on me. He never said anything blatantly sexual. But he did the most damage.
My experiences were comparatively mild when you consider what other people have suffered through. But even I've learned the answers to the question, "Why didn't you tell somebody?" Nobody would believe me, people would blame me, I had no real proof, it might make things worse, maybe it was my fault all along, I should have known better, it wouldn't make a difference.
My father once told me that if somebody was trying to rape me, I shouldn't shout out for help and say that somebody was trying to rape me. I should instead shout, "Fire, fire!" People will help you if there's a fire, he said. Nobody wants to get involved in a rape scene, even if it's to stop it.
What disgusts me the most is that he's probably right.
The posts have, however, made me relive my own brushes with sexual harassment. None of them were as horrifying as a lot of the incidents that I've read about lately, and for that, I'm extremely thankful.
But regardless of how minor it was, each incident stands out clearly in my mind, and each one has had its effects on me, whether that effect is a momentary flash of anger and disgust or a long-standing fear of men who look a certain way.
I'm going to talk about them now. People who don't like to hear of such things are free to skip it all, and I'll feel no offense. I will cut them for everyone's benefit, and I will warn that some of the incidents may be triggering for some.
The first incident.
The first time I can recall anything like this happening to me was when I was about three or four years old. My cousin and I were being babysat by the girl next door, who was, if I recall, just entering her teens. She often watched us for short periods of time, so staying with her was nothing unusual.
That day, though, she decided, for whatever reason, to start playing around with genital touching. When I refused, she told me in that case I wouldn't be allowed to play with her new dollhouse. Being very young at the time, toys were more important to me than something I had no real grasp of, and so I agreed. She would touch my cousin, and then me, and alternate between us.
I wasn't scared at all. In truth, I was more bored than anything else, and I remember just lying there until she had gotten bored of doing what she was doing.
I didn't tell my parents. I can't remember whether this was because she told me not to tell anyone, or because I didn't really understand that anything happened that should be told. But not too long after that, my parents approached me and asked me questions about the incident, so I can only imagine that either the babysitter came clean or else my cousin told her parents.
I answered their questions. Nothing more was ever said. I mentioned this to my mother only a few years ago and she had no recollection of any such thing happening. This, I think, is what hurt most of all. Not the event itself, but that my mother forgot. Maybe it's just me, but if my child was ever molested, I think that would be forever burned into my memory.
I know now that it's likely the babysitter was also molested at some time in her life, and that's why she did to us what she did.
I can't say that this event had no effect on me. I really can't be sure of anything. Evidence suggests that it had a lasting effect, because I still remember the event so clearly, more than 20 years later. It's an uncomfortable memory to revisit from my current perspective, and the lack of feeling I remember may mean that it was worse for me than I can recall. It wasn't an active numbness. Just a bored detachment, like it didn't really matter what was happening, even though I know that I didn't want it to happen because I initially refused to do what she wanted. I'm not sure. I can't be sure. The only other person I know who may remember it is my cousin, and it's not the easiest thing to bring up. "Hey, remember that time the babysitter molested us when we were kids?" And what if she doesn't remember? Did that mean I made it up? But why would I do that?
And there's part of the reason why people don't always do things when they're taken advantage of. Up to the last few sentences, I had managed to type out my recollections fairly calmly. But then I get into the questions of doubt, and I really start to doubt, and to feel a rising panic that maybe I'm the only person who remembers and so am alone in this. Or maybe I made it up, but why would I do something like that unless I was sick and twisted and wanted to get someone in trouble for something they didn't do. Fear. Doubt. Confusion. Why bring it up when there's so little clarity?
The second incident.
This isn't so much an issue of active harassment or molestation, but it gives insight into why so few people may be willing to tell others when something happens. I was seven years old, or around that age, and was comfortably asleep when all of a sudden my father burst in my room and woke me up, angry and loud and demanding that I get into the living room right then.
I did so, confused and tired and afraid because I didn't know what was going on. My father glared at me while he put on his coat and then went out quickly, leaving me with my mother, whom I finally persuaded to tell me what was going on.
Somebody had rung the intercom for our apartment, in the middle of the night, claiming they were looking for me. They wanted to know, according to my mother, if I was going to fuck them like I fucked them last night.
Once again, keep in mind that I was about seven years old at the time. At this point in my life, I had only recently had the talk about where babies come from and had subsequently expressed utter bafflement about why people would do such a disgusting thing.
I didn't understand why my father had seemed so angry at me, when I hadn't done anything. I recall saying to my mother that I couldn't have done any such thing because I was in my bedroom asleep last night. My mother admitted that the person had sounded drunk, and so it was probably just a stupid mistake. She followed that, though, by telling me, "If you haven't done anything wrong, then you've got nothing to be afraid of."
Yes I did. I had to be afraid of my father, who woke me up and was angry at me for something I couldn't understand and didn't do. I was scared and confused. I had every reason to be afraid.
She had managed to get me calmed down before my father came back, but what he said to me then started the fear all over again. "If I ever find out you did that," he said, "you're going to be in so much trouble."
He hadn't been able to find the person who rang the intercom. Likely it was a drunken so-and-so who slurred a name and my father had interpreted it as mine.
But think of this. There was a girl who had done nothing wrong and yet had anger directed at her. She was then told that if she'd done nothing wrong then there was nothing to worry about, which is a tricky way of implying that if I was still worried after hearing that then I must have a guilty conscience and had done something wrong. And if this is the treatment I would get over a misunderstanding, when I had done nothing, what kind of treatment could I expect if I found myself raped one day? Would my father turn his anger on me and blame me for it? Would my mother try vainly to defend me and tell me that I hadn't done anything wrong and it wasn't my fault, so I should no longer be afraid? These people were my parents. They were the people I was supposed to be able to trust to help me if terrible things happened. But they were punishing me for the very thought that somebody might have done something to me.
The attitude of "if you did nothing wrong then you've nothing to be afraid of" is all too common, and it really does carry the implication then that worry and fear equals a guilty conscience. If I was really a victim, then I shouldn't worry about telling trusted people, but if I was afraid (afraid they'd get angry, afraid they wouldn't believe me), then maybe I did something to invite the problem and I wasn't really the victim after all.
It's a signal to victims that any guilt they feel is because they know they did something wrong. It's a way of telling victims that they aren't really victims after all.
The third incident.
I'd say this is something that every female probably goes through, but then again, maybe not. The second clear incident I have of being sexually harassed was early in my high school years, when an old friend came to visit and we stood in the hallway of the apartment building to talk. Then, out of the blue, he asked me if he could touch my breasts.
I was shocked. He'd never been a gentleman, but I thought he had more sense than that. He told me that his other female friends let him touch theirs, so it was okay, right? I felt a hot flash of anger and humiliation and displayed an uncharacteristic vehemency when I told him that he should go and ask those other friends then, and turned my back on him and went into the apartment and shut the door.
Humiliation. He didn't do anything but ask to touch me, and even so I felt profoundly uncomfortable. I felt as though he'd just spent the past half hour making fun of me somehow, like talking to me and catching up with my life was just some pretense so that he could grope me. He didn't care about anything but copping a feel.
Pretense. Rapists often say that in some way, the person they rape was asking for it, or had plenty of chances to say no if they really didn't want anything to happen. This, as intelligent people know, is a steaming pile of bull. But maybe somewhere in the rapist's mind is the thought that they're being perfectly clear about their intentions of sexual advancement, even if their victim thinks that they're just chatting about the weather and the local sports teams. Then, since the victim didn't back away or say no, the rapist assumes that it's a sign of consent, because why else would they stick around.
Then the victim feels even more guilty because so many people tell them that they should have seen it coming and gotten away from the situation earlier. And because hindsight is 20/20 and the rape so clear in their minds, they may feel stupid and worthless for not having seen it coming.
The fourth incident.
I was working at a coffee shop when this happened. One of my coworkers was getting married to one of the bakers, and so we were chatting about marriage and relationships when no customers were around. Coworker commented that her baker fiance was especially well hung, and seeing as how that was none of my business, I grew embarassed and told her that I didn't want to know that. She laughed and joked that I should just ask him how big his penis was.
She told him about this conversation. And he then proceded to ask me every chance he got if there was anything I wanted to ask him. He laughed at my embarassment, and did not stop his little game.
Why didn't I tell him to stop? I knew he'd feign ignorance of just what it was I was supposed to ask him. Why didn't I report him to my manager? Technically he had only implied something sexual, not said it outright, and I had no proof he had done anything wrong. He had worked there longer, his fiancee outranked me, and I didn't think there was much point in reporting it. Even if somebody believed me, what was the best that could happen? He'd get fired, but that would probably piss off his fiancee, whom I'd have to keep working with even if I could have avoided the baker. The best outcome was that I create for myself a work environment that was just hostile in another way.
I just suffered his comments and insinuations until the job became so unbearable from that and other issues that I eventually quit.
And as mild as that may all seem, this is the incident that left the most obvious scar on me. Years later, when I was working a completely different job in a different place, I saw somebody who reminded me of him. I have no idea if it was him or not, but his beard seemed similar, as did his haircut, and some of his facial features. Regardless of whether or not it was him, this person reminded me a lot of the baker.
And I panicked. My heart started to pound with fear that he would remember me and start harassing me again. I felt a hollow kind of heat inside me when I thought about having to endure that again. If I saw him anywhere in the building, I couldn't look at him. My gaze dropped and I flushed and started to shake and felt so afraid that sometimes I had to duck into the bathrooms and sit in a stall until I was sure he was gone and I felt calm enough to face the world again.
To this day, I feel fear of men who remind me of that baker, even just a little. The facial features, or the way they carry theirselves, it doesn't matter, but I start to panic and can't always fight down the rising fear in my chest. He never once laid a finger on me. He never said anything blatantly sexual. But he did the most damage.
My experiences were comparatively mild when you consider what other people have suffered through. But even I've learned the answers to the question, "Why didn't you tell somebody?" Nobody would believe me, people would blame me, I had no real proof, it might make things worse, maybe it was my fault all along, I should have known better, it wouldn't make a difference.
My father once told me that if somebody was trying to rape me, I shouldn't shout out for help and say that somebody was trying to rape me. I should instead shout, "Fire, fire!" People will help you if there's a fire, he said. Nobody wants to get involved in a rape scene, even if it's to stop it.
What disgusts me the most is that he's probably right.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-15 05:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-15 07:33 pm (UTC)