Sexual Assault Awareness Month: Saying No.

[fickle]

Last night, I was talking with an friend of mine about what her definition of rape is versus harassment is, and one of the things she brought up is how much she hates it when girls don’t say no or don’t protest clearly but then claim it was rape the next day.

So I thought that since it’s Sexual Assault Awareness Month, I’d write about a case in my life when I wanted to say no, didn’t manage to, but I really wish I had.

This was going to be an entry about how when I was seventeen, I once failed to say no/clearly show that I didn't want a guy sexually touching me. Then I reread the journal entries that I'd written at the time and realized that I hadn't ever said the actual word 'no', but I had signified discomfort in a lot of ways and tried to get away from him.

Here's an excerpt from one of the journal entries in question. he started stroking my arm. repeatedly. hoever, numa does that as well so I ignored it.

then he pulled my chair closer and trapped me in his arms. so I got up on the pretext of looking for a brush, because maybe he's just the touchy-feely type and I didn't want to overreact.

then he kept sliding his arm around my waist, so I kept wriggling to dislodge it, and complaining that it tickled since I was getting a little worried by this point in time.

then he moved it there and half-cupped one of my brests, and which point I moved to get up, and kicked him. hard.

he ignored it.

of course, I had to give him the benefit of the doubt. what if he was just keeping his hand on my waist and it went upwards because I was trying to get away from him tactfully? than I'd have attacked him for no reason.

I hate this.

where do you draw the line?

I left it like that and continued drawing while stnading up because regardless of what you may think of my artistic abilities, I do like drawing and he can help me improve my skills immensely. so I kept drawing.

at which point he started kissing my shoulder.

that would be where it becomes blatantly obvious that I do (finally) have a right to complain and stop him, so I pushed him away, and said that I have to go.

so there

question is: would I have been within my rights to stop him earlier?

Originally, I had remembered this as him touching my breast and me backing away from him. I hadn't remembered that I had fought back. I didn't remember that I kicked him, and I didn't remember that he continued with his advances afterwards.

That's not what's important here. The question is, why didn't I just say no instead of trying to physically get away from him and discourage him without having to actually talk about what was happening?

The answer's in the question itself. I didn't want to talk about what was happening.

Part of the Asian culture that I was raised in involves victim-blaming. If I had told him to stop it, I would've had to admit that he was doing something wrong, and then I would've had to examine my own behavior to see how I had caused it. If I kick him, leave the room, and then quit art class? I'm still not actually addressing the fact that hey, he's touching me, he's doing things to my body that I don't want, he is behaving like a jerk.

The next day, I had my boyfriend come into the classroom with me and sit with me. While my boyfriend was in the room, the 'friend' slid his hand onto my thigh (I was wearing shorts) and tried to feel me up.

I didn't tell my boyfriend what was happening. I just stood up.

And then I quit art.

I couldn't tell my parents why because they would've blamed me. I was the one who had chosen to take special after-school lessons, and my mother honestly believes that short skirts cause rape. My mother was rubbed up against by a guy on a bus for the entire ride home when she was a teenager, and she remained absolutely quiet and made no fuss until she got home, and then she started crying.

The Sri Lankan culture does not hold with 'making scenes'. I couldn't tell him no, because then I'd have to acknowledge what was happening. I'd have to make a scene. And that's simply not done. Even though I grew up in Europe, I still grew up inside a Sri Lankan household where if a man is taking liberties with you, it's because you've somehow signified you're open to them.

Who knows? Maybe I didn't kick him hard enough. Maybe I should've kicked him in the balls to show that I meant no.

Or maybe I should've just swallowed down a lifetime of being told to be a good, quiet little Asian who doesn't make waves and called him on it.

I was too scared to. Apart from my indoctrination into silence, I didn't know what would happen next. What if he denied anything was happening? What if he told everyone else that I'd accused him of molesting me and then laughed at the idea that he'd do anything like that with me? What if my parents found out about it?

So I kicked him, I pushed him away, I brought my boyfriend to show him that I was taken and not interested, and finally, when none of that worked, I quit art class.

But I never actually voiced the word 'no', or faced up to what was happening to me.

Strange as it may seem to some of the Western readers on my flist, I'm using this post to promote Sexual Assault Awareness concerning yourself.

It is YOUR body. You have a right to decide what other people do with it. If someone is making you uncomfortable, tell them 'Stop'. They are the ones in the wrong, not you. Facing that something bad is happening to you is infinitely preferable to trying to dodge around it, because as long as you can't stand your ground, they're going to keep pushing until they've backed you into a corner.

The last time someone groped me, I yelled at them to 'FUCK OFF OR I'LL BREAK YOUR HAND'. The man in question quickly sloped away.

No matter how shy you might be, how uncertain and scared, or how tied to a culture that keeps you very firmly passive, your body is still yours. And you are never the bad guy for telling someone that what they're doing to you is wrong. Never.

Comments

[a-white-rain.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I was able to do that. It's really amazing what talking can do. Just saying things like this and having other people help you through it and confirm that, yes, that guy molesting you was WRONG helps. Because, for all the issues I have in the US with gender, at least it's accepted here not to randomly kiss a girl after she kicks you.

[fickle-goddess.livejournal.com]

for all the issues I have in the US with gender, at least it's accepted here not to randomly kiss a girl after she kicks you

...That actually made me snicker out loud. Because yes, that's VERY true. If a girl kicks you, you've got to know that you're doing something wrong if your next move is to press her against a table and kiss her shoulder repeatedly.

[a-white-rain.livejournal.com]

I'm just really sad that it's not like that everywhere. And angry. But mostly sad.

[fickle-goddess.livejournal.com]

I know. I remember when I read about an Iranian girl who got stoned to death because a male classmate caught sight of her wrist and said that it gave him lascivious thoughts, I wanted to shake the entire religious community until the crazies fell out. Because for fuck's sake, SHE gets killed for thoughts in HIS head? That's nothing like fair, or even rational.

Also, Depression = Anger without Enthusiasm, according to the bumper stickers. So being sad and being angry are very closely linked responses, especially in this case.

[a-white-rain.livejournal.com]

I also hate how people use religion to hurt people. More often than not, from what I've seen, people take bits and pieces of religious text for their own gain and miss the entire meaning.

[fickle-goddess.livejournal.com]

There's a reason I'm an atheist. But yeah, religion gets misused a lot. Karl Marx said that religion is the opiate of the masses -- I'm not sure that opiates are the right drug, but religion does get used to justify some incredible acts of cruelty that no sober person would do after well-considered reflection.

"God told me to" might be a good plea for insanity if you're convicted of a crime, but what can you do if "God told us to" is the reasoning behind a country's laws?

Nothing. You're screwed.

And that is why I believe in the separation of church & state.

[a-white-rain.livejournal.com]

Yes exactly.

[pikabot]

I'm not an atheist, but that's exactly the reason why I also believe church and state should be completely and entirely separate. That, and the fact that the laws of the state apply to people who are not part of whatever the dominant religion is. The state has no business whatsoever dictating people's morality to them, doubly so when that morality is based on a religion that they may or may not believe in.