Thursday, October 19, 2017

#MeToo

I have a few #MeToo Stories. If you're unfamiliar with what I'm talking about click here to get an understanding. It's all over social media, and on the news.

I'm fairly an open book. By telling my story it will help others to open up to. Anyone that has been assaulted is not alone.

I do agree with Alyssa Milano - We need to talk about sexual assault. There are a lot of grey lines.

Story 1:

I was in a group in Science class when I was in 7th grade. I was with 2 boys.

I never kiss a boy yet, and was pretty terrified to even talk to the opposite sex.

1 boy in my group put his pencil upright on my chair, refusing to let me sit down, and kept saying, "Come on sit and spin!" I pushed him away and said, "STOP! Let's get to work." He then put his hand on my upper leg and kept saying, "You know this is what you want." The other boy laughed. I said, "No! That's not what I want!" I kept shoving his hand off my leg, and he kept putting it back.

Towards the end of class I went up to my male teacher and said, "Is it ok if I switch groups? I'm with 2 boys, and they keep saying and doing inappropriate things to me."

The teacher didn't ask questions. He let me switch groups.

Two things happened that day: I became all the more afraid of guys. I also met one of my best friends. She was in the group I changed to. I'm still friends with her today.

During high school that same friend mentioned above that I'm still friends with today was skinny. A group of guys used to walk behind us and would say, "I bet if I had sex with her, I'd break her in 1/2."

Story 2: 

When I was in high school I took a few old school photography classes. On the first day of class my favorite teacher said, "Girls do not go into the dark room alone, or be in there with 1 guy."

What he said stuck with me.

I was in the dark room timing my prints. Photography paper is, and was really expensive. There were about 5 people in the room with me. All the sudden my fellow high school peers started walking out of the room. I was left in there with one boy. I was almost done with what I was doing. If you've never taken a photography course, timing is everything! If you take the paper out of a chemical too quickly then you can mess up a print.

In my mind I was thinking, "Time hurry up! I'm not supposed to be here right now!" What I should have done, opened the door, and shouted for someone to come back in the room. I didn't think of that.

I was standing at the chemical bath just waiting impatiently.

The boy that was in there was a few years younger than me. I had talked to him few times. About the only thing I knew about him was that his name was David Story. David came up behind me, grabbed my boob. I elbowed him hard. He held on saying, "Come on you know you want this." I shoved him hard, and left the room.

My heart was racing. I did what many woman would do. I did nothing. Why did a do nothing? Because I was told not to be in the dark room with a guy alone. I felt like it was my fault.

There are more stories, but those stuck with me the most. Overall most guys were respectable. Anything that did happen was mutual. I'm thankful that I was never raped, or brutally attacked.

I do wish that more people talked about this subject openly. Maybe then at time I wouldn't have felt so alone, or would have stood up for myself more. 

5 comments:

Theresa Mahoney said...

It's sickening what us women have to go through because males think they can get away with saying and doing whatever they please. I have never been physically touched inappropriately, but I have had more than my fair share of inappropriate comments flung my way. If I had boys and found out they disrespected a woman with filthy talk, I'd seriously pop them in the mouth.

Going along with my earlier statement, I suppose they feel that way because when rapists don't get fair punishments for rape because a judge doesn't want to ruin a boys future for "a little bit of action" I can see why sexual harassment is so rampant.

An Apel a Day said...

Theresa you certainly have some great points.

mail4rosey said...

I think we all have a story or two to tell, and it's awesome that people are telling them out loud these days. Working with the kids in the higher grades, I too, take care to ensure no single boy and girl end up in the same area alone. One teacher put a student in the hallway (punitive measure) and another boy (hall pass to go to the bathroom) tried to force her to kiss him, pulling her chin up to try and get to her lips. All I could think of was hurrah that he got caught!

Mandy said...

I feel so bad that you had those experiences with guys and so lucky to not have had those experiences myself. I mean – especially the darkroom bit. I spent countless hours in the darkroom in college and never once thought about any of the guys that were sharing the darkroom with me. Also, never had a problem. I almost feel like the photography teacher, in that case, was responsible. I mean you were in high school for goodness sakes. Couldn't they have had a student helper in there when he couldn't watch both the classroom and the darkroom? Or an assistant? Or paired your class up, so you were always working with someone? I feel like there must have been something the teacher could have done to prevent this…

An Apel a Day said...

My photography teacher was one of my favorites. I'm not going to point fingers, except for pointing my finger at the jerk who grabbed me.

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