I don't know if you've noticed but things seem to be getting a bit rapey of late.
What with highly publicised stories of the ongoing Julian Assange case, various statements by Republican
There's a lot to try an unpack here and it won't fit into one session, so I'm going to focus on one immediate train of thought for now and revisit other issues later.
Let me tell you a story.
A true story told to me by one of my close friends. I'll call her Carol because, for some strange reason, that was the first pseudonym that popped into my head.
A couple of nights ago, Carol went on what she claimed was "not a date" with…… Rufus. I call him Rufus because it rhymes with "dufus", not because he's posh. He used to be a soldier, which makes him even less posh and even more of a dufus.
Anywaaaay…
Somehow Carol (after a couple of drinks and up for a bit of fun following some previous man-o-drama) ends up at Rufus's place and consensually having sex with him.
The minute it starts is the minute she realises that this is FULL-ON BAD TIMES.
Alarms are going off, she's not having a good time, she's creeped out by him and she wants to get out of there tout fucking suite.
Fortunately (??) it's all over in about 10 minutes.
So Carol feigns sleep for as long as is plausible before giving in and attempting to give some direction (i.e. don't just randomly poke your fingers in me - it hurts) with no discernible response from Rufus who, once again, went from start to finish in roughly 10-15 minutes. Meanwhile, she moved her face whenever he tried to kiss/slobber her, made no noises that signified pleasure, and even kicked him when she was feeling actual physical pain. That exact same scenario happened two more times before Carol finally got out of there.
I've had similar experiences before and would bet money that a vast majority of women in the world have too.
The finer details of "when does it become RAPE" come up here. As do the responsibilities of the individual men and women involved in the scenario.
Having heard Carol's story, it's quite easy for me to think "Well, you could have left after the first time - there were night buses!" or "You could have said 'stop, I don't like it'"
BUT
I've also been the woman in the midst of sexual Grey Area, both in a relationship and as a spur-of-the-moment one night fling.
There's other stuff going on at the woman's end (no pun intended) More on that at a later date…
As I said, this a huge topic to unpack and I'm just one womb-an trying to express my personal feelings about this stuff.
What I DO know is that no amount of Tory MPs spouting carefully scripted statements about what the BBC should do about the (DEAD) Jimmy Savile, or media outrage at how George Galloway defended Julian Assange's actions will take away from the very personal experience of a woman involved in a bad sexual experience.
How I feel as a woman is that it is vital that all women tell their stories. Not as way to blame anyone else and not to be a victim, but to finally OWN ourselves as keepers of the Feminine.
The next step, it seems to me, is for us all to educate ourselves and do significant personal work that means that, if a man starts shagging us when we don't want him to, we can step into our own power and make it stop.
