International Women’s Day

Re-sharing a piece I originally posted on Twitter last year about my own experience of rape, with a new introduction.

‘My’ rape.

When it happened, in 1997, I wasn’t sure that’s what it was. Even now, sometimes I question it.

Generation X - my generation - grew up with the idea ‘no means no’. Women’s rights had already cemented this by the time I was *of age* in the 1990’s.

But……what if you didn’t say no?

What if you felt so paralysed, you didn’t say anything?

What if you went out to a bar alone and wore clothes that were provocative?

What if you were at first, pleasant to the perpetrator, let them walk you home?

My ideas of rape were formed from television, which in the 80’s and 90’s broadly consisted of strangers in dark alleys. Of bruises and a woman clearly saying ‘no’ or screaming.

But over the years I have come to realise, yes what happened to me, was indeed, rape.

I wish I could say it was the only time I have ever experienced physical harm or threat from a man.

But as with most women - and I don’t say that lightly - there have been many.

I have had knives pulled on me by two different men.

I have been told “I could kill you now and get away with it because I’m mentally ill”.

I have been pushed and physically overpowered to stop me from leaving rooms.

I once fell off a tall stool and hurt myself because a man was getting so close with his unwelcome sexual advances, I leaned back so much in fear.

So-called ‘inclusion’ continues to take priority over acknowledging the physical differences of men and women, but we must never lose sight of these differences.

Men are physically stronger.

Fact.

Most sexual offences are committed by those born with penises.

Fact.

The unique biological characteristics of being a woman are what have allowed us to secure the protection in law and rights we currently have.

We must keep them at all costs.

Being a woman is not fluid.

Men will never truly understand as a woman does, the unease of a dimly lit street, listening for inconsistency in footsteps, being torn between attempting to read the expression of an approaching male figure or ignoring him.

You never get to put those feelings down, take them off.

Safe spaces for women must exist. Our sisters, daughters and mothers will never feel completely safe but they must feel at least listened to and that protection in law offers them some recourse.

I’d like to say ‘enjoy this piece’, but please don’t.

Allow it to make you feel uncomfortable, to get under your skin, to have you ask yourself those same questions I wrestled with for all those years.

You can see from the photos, the sort of things I used to wear.

Did I ‘deserve it’?

Was I ‘asking for it’?

What prejudices do you still hold?

What would you say to your daughter if she told you this story?

I have still never told my mother - and part of that, is because I know the prejudices that shaped her generation were even greater than my own.

I’ll be sure as hell to tell my son about it one day though.

Raising sons is about more than ‘what it means to be a man’.

It’s about understanding what it means to be a woman.

It’s only by exploring these notions and having difficult conversations with ourselves and others that we grow.

I have grown.

I have flown.

And I continue to fly.

The Square

‘The Square’ Ayia Napa.

Yards from the ocean, neon lights dot navy night like tacky wine gums. As I approach, I squint my eyes and the vibrant strobes link to form a path to an adult fairy land awaiting me. 

Straw topped beach bars, Karaoke, holiday reps encouraging bawdy games…..

Novelty litter bins, potted palms, signs with missing letters and bad spelling.  The scrape of shoes, sound of giggling, chinking glasses and blaring music. 

“I’m a Barbie girl, in a Barbie world. Life in plastic, it's fantastic” 

It’s 1997, and the song is everywhere.

‘The Square’ is an unapologetic den of iniquity. People flock here for the same things. To drink, dance and cop off. To feel attractive,  showing off the tan they honed hours earlier. It’s refreshing that there is a place like this, I muse. No pretence. It’s direct. 

I live here. It’s mine for the taking, every single night! Why more people don’t choose this life, I’ll never know.

Pure hedonism, on tap.

My white patent block heels present me like a doll on a platform in a plastic fronted box.  Short A-line skirt, turquoise lace top that ties in the middle. Breasts jostle from my wonderbra like twin heads of distracted babies.

My red lacquer pout and flicked eye liner, are painted doll like upon sun kissed skin. I know I look good - people tell me every night as I dance. And I enjoy that - the attention, validation. So often in my childhood and adolescence, I felt plain, fat. Here I am a grown ugly duckling,  arrived, swanning around, queen.

I picture my mother’s disgusted face surveying me in my suggestive clobber. She’d once told me I looked like a prostitute.

Am I ‘easy’? I wonder. What is ‘easy’ anyway? Is “reputation” even *a thing* anymore?  I bet Justine Frischman, my Cool Britannia girl crush has no such hang ups. It’s the 90’s after all, era of the ladette. 

Sex is empowering, we’re told and I revel in it. I’m not particularly promiscuous compared to some of my peers but I’m certainly not averse to enjoying the pleasures of the flesh when it suits.  I’m single and determined not to live the nun-like existence my mum did prior to marriage. After my disastrous relationships, I’m out to have fun.

I’ve gone to the Scandinavian bar as I fancy something - someone - different. I’m sick of sleazy Cypriots and dog rough squaddies.  Word amongst those who work here,  is that Scandinavian men are notoriously more aloof and harder to pull, but tonight, I want a Viking type to hold me in strong arms and talk in sing- song tones about Abba, open sandwiches, herrings, the little mermaid, saunas and reindeer. IKEA. Bloody Dime bars. Oh I don’t know. I just crave different.

 Anyway, it’s not happening. The ‘Scandinavian Loveshack’ turns out to be severely lacking in Scandinavians.  I’m swooshing my fourth strawberry daiquiri, wondering whether to leave. I’m too blitzed to find somewhere to dance and the only pickings men-wise are the check-shirted sunburnt meat heads in packs of marauding dogs. 

I have managed to attract two lairy Brits - all Newcastle Brown Ale and football chant. They’ve lured themselves from a giant Sky Sports screen, to my table. Spurred on by each other and too much booze they get bolder, whistling and shouting things that hint at their intentions. One tries to grab my arm and I know it’s time to go. 

“Just ignore them” says a voice from nowhere. It’s soft and Scottish. I turn around and see a tall, muscular guy with short sandy hair. His glacial blue eyes are intense. He leans in towards my rowdy new fan club. “Can’t you see she’s not interested”. 

I don’t *need* help but his chivalry is welcome all the same. “Would you like a drink?” he offers. “No I’m leaving. Calling it a night.”

“I’ll walk you back, you look a bit worse for wear” he says. 

I smile and take him up on it.

“Stuart” accompanies me on the stagger back to mine; the mauling moonlight doing little to sober me up.  He helps steady me as I navigate pebbly dustbowl roads in my silly stiltish shoes.

I’m struggling to get my key in the door. It claws at the lock clumsily as I’m watched by an audience of bubble eyed geckos on the whitewashed wall, in wait for cockroaches. Finally the metal grips, it’s turning and I step gratefully into my tiny flat, the clatter of my feet on smooth floor tiles and the air conditioning greeting me like cool angel breath are most welcome.

How I can’t wait to unhook this bra, kick off my shoes and climb in bed!

I’m about to thank Scottish guy when….Woah! 

What the fuck was that? 

He’s kissing me.

Not tenderly or even passionately. This is different. He is pressing hard and I instinctively push his chest away so he gets the message. I’m not kissing him back but still he persists. I can’t think straight. 

Aqua. Weren’t Aqua playing earlier?

“Kiss me here, touch me there……You can touch. You can play.” 

I try to pull away but I’m being edged further into the room, the way sheep are rounded up. I’m worried I may topple backwards in my heels. I’m steered not by his arms but his shoulders and upper body, on to the bed.  It’s the type of strength a sturdy barrel dog has over a child.

His frame is looming, towering over me. I open my eyes and those pale blue eyes just look scary now. They are motionless. Dead inside. No longer intense but intent. His face, now glistening with sweat, is red with a sneer to it. I want to say something but every time I go to speak, the words don’t come. I’m dumbstruck. 

He must know I’m not enjoying this, right? 

Because, I’m not reciprocating, not making any encouraging noises.

He knows I’m trying to get away, he does.

He carries on.

I try to move my head to the side, but his force overpowers me.  

I’m suddenly petrified as I realise where this is going and that I don’t know how to stop it. He’s like a engine at full throttle, one goal.

I start to think about saying something at this point but he is so rough I worry he will get rougher. So I lie there.

Frozen.

“If you lie there, it will soon be over”

I tell myself.

Thankfully, I’m right.

The next couple of minutes, it’s as if I leave my own body and see myself from above, like watching a film.  

There I am, a lifeless doll, a vessel- my hair like black cotton wool against the crisp white sheets.  Hardly any of my clothes are removed. Just what he deems necessary to have access to pound me, conquer me.

And he does.

The song again.

“Make me walk, make me talk, do whatever you please. I can act like a star, I can beg on my knees”

He ‘finishes’ and I’m filled with his toxic essence. It clings to my thighs,  an unwanted sticky calling card.

He says nothing as he zips himself up, then “bye” and goes home. 

As soon as he leaves, I get in the shower. It seems such a clichéd thing to do. It’s what women in soap operas always do.

Yes, I’m sure that’s what Sheila Grant did when she was ….

Have I been, though?

Dare I say it?

Name it.

How do I claim it as that when I didn’t say “no”?

Is that not an insult to all the women who did say “no”?

Am I not an insult to all the women who weren’t drunk? Weren’t dressed provocatively? 

I’m standing under the shower wanting it to rid me of every trace of that ‘man’. I’m rubbing and wailing, my skin the shade of ripe plums from the lashings of hot water.

Has his scent vanished from me yet?

I’m hosing his cum out as if it were poison. 

Shit. What if he comes back? 

Must lock the door.

I wrap myself in a soft white towel. It holds me like a kind friend, absorbing my shock as I secure the chain.

Finally, I lie down on the bed - the bed he had me on - and I shiver. The air con feels icy now. My heartbeat struggles to regulate, flitting around finding its place like a bat in a barn as I bawl like a newborn.

I’m no longer bolshy, self serving ladette.

The spirits of Geri Halliwell, Sara Cox, Denise Van Outen and all those other brazen lad mag ‘babes’ have left my building.

I’m suddenly aware of my female vulnerability, limits.

I’m rudely confronted by the reality of being physically weaker than a man and a culture of male dominance that still prevails.

Too tired to change my sheets, I try to sleep.

Work in a few hours.