So like I said before....is it determined by appearance? Like I'll get comments no matter how I'm dressed and that kind of thing?
When did I first experience street harassment? I think it's when I was about 7 years old, maybe 8. It was these young boys, maybe 13 years old, who came up to me and told me they wanted to fuck me and stuff like that. I didn't know what "fuck" meant, and they said something like "your parents fucked." Then I remembered this book I had found in the library when I went in there alone at age 7: on how babies are made. I had seen another book like it in a store before that. So I had; I understood. To think of my parents doing that made me sick: but it also made me want it. So suddenly it registered what they meant, like when he said "stick it in me" I thought does he mean his finger, but I kind of knew. And I laughed. I was afraid, to be sure.....I didn't know what to feel. I was alone in a field outside summer camp waiting for my mother to pick me up. The boys left, I think.....don't remember. Now, they're grown up, probably married with children. Maybe this was just a phase for them, maybe not. If not, that's a scary thought.
Then later when I was eleven, my friend and I used to take the L in Evanston to school, and there was this guy at the booth who asked me if I wanted to meet him for coffee when I turned 16. It sounds harmless now, but my friend and I were terrified of him.
Then around age twelve, that's when it started. I think that the younger-looking women are the biggest targets: for them it's non stop. I think in my own experience I stopped wearing super short skirts, fixing my hair, wearing a lot of makeup.....all because I would be looked at in a way that felt sick to me, like dirty. Then came the guys who tried to seduce me, and I found out later they had wives or girlfriends....that tiny detail they forgot to tell me.
When I first really came into my own I was fourteen, and I went out in this red dress. My hair was lighter by that time, as it was summer. A guy yelled at me in the street, "I want to fuck you baby!" And why didn't that feel flattering, but rather dirty?
Also, ok, there was this whole debate in SHP about "ghetto" and street harassment which I don't want to get into, but basically this girl brought in a borderline racist agenda once. I know it's white guys in suits who harass women as well, I know, I know, it's all over. I think it is more common in some cultures than others but it's hard to say that without coming across as racist. I know it's white guys who do it, and I've been harassed by groups of frat boys, like recently. So.....well....I don't know. In Germany I think it's different but women from there have complained of it as well....but I still don't remember getting it as much there as, say, in Paris or London. Or maybe I'm wrong. I don't know.
I would be lying if I denied sometimes having darker thoughts about SH, women, society and even assault on women. I do feel envious of other women who get male attention, and angry...Sometimes I do think, well, maybe she's desperate/a tramp/was asking for it/didn't know how to say no/didn't stand up for herself; that kind of thing. And I'm feeling gross that I'm thinking that, cause, I know, it's supposed to be a random thing, and I don't know if it is or not. I really don't. I can't deny sometimes feeling jealous of other women who get harassed, but I also am disturbed when it happens to me. And I noticed that when I go out in my glasses and pants it's drastically reduced, but when I'm in a skirt even a long skirt it's far more prevalent. And it's not supposed to be some kind of measure of our attractiveness, but it is, sadly. It's not something we're really in control of. When guys do want me I'm always, I can never really relax with them, especially at first, because I'm thinking is he just using me, am I just the one girl who will give him whatever he wants? Even if I'm feeling pleasure another part of me is feeling lonely and frustrated, because it becomes like a game, a darker one.
