He shared his sexual preferences with me at a networking event. This was my response.

11 min readNov 5, 2018

I went to a networking event a few months ago.

It was an event with VCs, I’m the founder of Bra Theory (100% custom-made, algorithmically-informed bras) and I wanted to learn more about venture capital.

I was sipping a cocktail, mingling with the crowd, excited to hear about everyone’s ventures and to share my own, when another entrepreneur, male, replies to my pitch with, “Oh, can I tell you something?”

I nod.

He continues: “Not to be rude, but…” He lowers his voice, and when I lean in to hear better, he says, “When I do it, I like it with the girl’s bra on.”

“Ha ha,” I said, “You are not my target market.”

That is what my voice said.

But in my body, my skin crawled, my breath froze, my chest felt tight, and then I was on autopilot, no longer present, because my mind was solely occupied to one thread: a race to try to understand what had just happened.

Did he really just say that? Is he trying to flirt with me? Is he hitting on me? What the fuck? Am I in danger?

So as my mind raced, I made something up — “ha ha, you’re not my target market” — that was pleasant enough. It was a safe, humorous, and rational statement to indicate the irrelevance of his sexual preferences to my work.

But it was also a voice that was not my own.

It was high pitched.

It was a voice that was trying to be pleasant.

A voice on autopilot.

I don’t know what I said next, but I quickly found an excuse to end the conversation.

Then, as I looked from face to face, searching for the next connection in this networking event, I thought,

I’m not networking very well today. I don’t think I’m delivering my pitch that well. It’s probably too early stage anyway, maybe I should call it a night.

I packed up for the night, feeling a little down.

(Does this sound familiar?)

The next morning, a friend came in to test our a prototype bra. As she took off her coat, she asked, “How’ve you been?”

“Well!” I said, in that same, high-pitched voice. “I went to an interesting event last night! Networking with VCs, entrepreneurs… And then this guy said this thing to me, you won’t believe it…”

And then the words stopped.

Because in order for them to continue, I realized something.

I couldn’t tell the story,
I couldn’t say the words,
without a shaking in my voice,
without a hitching in my chest,
without a tightness in my throat,
so I stopped in my tracks.

I knew, in that moment, that I could pretend it was okay and soldier on.

But since it was a friend, not a VC, not another entrepreneur, not someone I had to pretend to be okay in front of?

I broke out into tears.

They flowed freely down my face, and I repeated his words, shaken, shaking.

My friend shook her head, “Ugh, some people are just messed up like that,” she said, and then we left it at that.

I wiped away my tears, and we got to work.

Icould have left it at that. I could have told no one else, and left it at that. I could be saying nothing right now, working away at Bra Theory. Five thousand times, I almost didn’t write this post, doubting whether there was actually anything to say.

After all, there’s a voice in my head that tells me this:

So what? He probably didn’t mean it, you were completely safe in that environment, you’re making a big deal out of this, boys will be boys. Don’t waste your time.

But for some reason, I wanted to tell the story again, and again, until I understood it.

My gut said, Maybe there’s something to this.

My gut said, It feels good to get this off my chest.

My gut said, Maybe if we keep digging, we’ll find something here.

I told my fiance, my friends, my mentors.

My fiance’s take?

A look of surprise, a small frown. “That’s inappropriate.”

My fiance — he is a man of few words and visible emotions. But I felt the message loud and clear.

That what that man said was inappropriate.

I realized that I needed to hear that, because deep down, I had been thinking, maybe that’s just par for the course.

Now, I thought, with the voice of another to join those in my head: Maybe that was wrong. Maybe I’m not being oversensitive or dramatic. Maybe I’m not making things up.

I wrote about it to a girlfriend of mine, a high-powered executive who worked in an industry full of men, and she said,

“What a dick. I’m angry on your behalf reading this. I believe you did the right thing though. There’s no point in spending effort educating idiots in the errors of their ways.”

Anger.

I’ve never really understood anger, because “boys will be boys”, and girls are supposed to smile and play nice.

I wanted to agree with my friend, with the women in my life who said, “Ugh, how messed up” and “What an idiot.”

But I didn’t.

My gut was saying, There’s something more here… let’s find out what.

“What do you think he was trying to accomplish with that comment?” A mentor of mine, a male VC, said. It made me pause.

I wrote, in honesty,

“My read is that he was attempting to give me perspective on the value he perceives in that product, and delivering poorly.
I didn’t think he meant harm.”

Even then, I doubted myself as the words came out. Are you defending him? You’re part of the problem!

But I’ve realized, and accepted something about myself.

I like to believe in the good of the world.

“I can’t decide if I like or dislike this about you,” someone I had been dating as a co-founder said, “you’re so naive, and so optimistic.”

Maybe I am naive, but I like to believe the best case scenario:

That a socially inept man
was walking around,
sharing his sexual preferences with women.

A few weeks later?

He writes me an email.

(I can’t make this up).

“Hope all is well with you. Good meeting you at the event. Had a good time chatting about your idea on comfort while wearing a bra, sorry I don’t wear so I can’t say much about it. But let me know if you can help you in any way or join you for any of the events in NY city area or can make any introductions!!”

Attached, was his pitch deck.

(comic sans, .jpg, pixelated)

(Again. I can’t make this up.)

I realized, then, laughing and crying inside, that he was inept. Utterly, hopelessly inept.

Here he was, a socially inept man, walking around, hurting people.

And now here he was, thinking everything was okay.

What about the next woman?

I decided to do my civic duty.

“Thanks for following up.
While I appreciated your feedback, the comment that you made at the time was inappropriate. Generally one does not share sexual preferences in that setting, even if it is user feedback related to the product.”

There.
Civic duty, done.
Feedback delivered.

My loved ones disagreed. “Why did you even respond?” asked my fiance.

“To give him feedback,” I said.

“You don’t understand. Negative feedback is the same thing as positive feedback to men. The best response is no response. Ignore him.”

Was he saying that men couldn’t take feedback?

I replied: “You make men sound like animals. They’re humans. They have brains.”

My fiance, whose opinions I respect very much, looked skeptical.

“I guess you have a more optimistic view of men,” he said.

Then, a response.

I opened it eagerly, hoping for the good in the world, and it said:

“I have my First Amendment rights. I literally told you three times I will share my story in terms of ‘bra’ exposures and you obliged it every time where I also apologized telling you that I might share something that you might not like.”

No, I thought, as the tightness returned to my throat.

Let me tell you what happened.

You asked me once, and I nodded once, within the span of two seconds.

And then you said what you said, before I could realize what was about to happen, and then —

Then, I peaced out of my body
because it no longer felt safe for me to be there
I wasn’t there, but
a voice went high and obliged.
I guess I’m sorry that I obliged, on autopilot.

I read the next paragraph.

“If you are dealing with a product comfort ability and showcase, you will expect feedback from non-users too!! It is not a big issue.”

Ah, I thought. Another wound.

(Thank you, gut, for leading me into this self discovery).

“It is not a big issue,” he wrote.

But this is what I heard:

your problem is not a serious problem
you’re making a big deal out of nothing

And because I was in my office, at my desk, and because my team is warm and loving and understands that sometimes humans cry at work,

I cried again — not because his words hurt me — but because of something else.

I cried again, because this
uneducated
overgrown
Man-child
is running around
afraid of admitting fault
assigning blame
making women feel bad about themselves.

Because this is happening everywhere
again and fucking again
in the news cycle
Kavanaugh vs. Ford
A man violates a boundary
A woman doesn’t immediately run away
(sometimes by fear, and sometimes by force)
And so she was
asking for it
obliging
she wanted it.

Mona, don’t give him any more time, said one voice.

But if no one fights this battle, who will? said another. Who will mother these motherless manchildren?

My Wall Street girlfriend, indignant on my behalf, disagreed. “What the fuck? You’re not his mother,” she said.

“I know, I know,” I said.

But it felt right.

It felt right to respond one more time, to hope that men, given negative feedback, make improvements.

“Thank you for your explanation and feedback.
I know I will need to practice receiving this type of feedback, and I understand you are trying to help me.
Please understand that I am trying to help you with my feedback, too.
When you are a man speaking to a woman at a networking event, sharing a comment about your sexual preferences, even if you say “this is awkward but,” will make the woman uncomfortable.
I suggest you avoid comments that make others uncomfortable.
Feel free to ask your friends and fellow entrepreneurs.
I wish you the best of luck.”

I wondered what he would say.

Would he accept it graciously?

Could I move this needle, for this one man who I crossed paths with?

A few days pass. An inbox message arrives.

“Well, you can walk away if that helps!! I have done that on several occasions when it gets difficult in a conversation with both men & women.
Take Care”

And then I laugh.

I laugh and I laugh and I laugh until I cry.

That’s the secret.

You fucking walk away.
I didn’t even know that was an OPTION.
I finally understood, for the first time,
That I’m so fucking socialized to entertain my partner,
to be agreeable, to be pleasant, to never say no
That I didn’t know.
You can say no.

I didn’t know,
Because my lived experience,
and the lived experience of women everywhere,
is that when you hear a catcaller and don’t say a word,
they might chase you down the street.

Still, I smiled, when I read this email.
I received wisdom.
I didn’t know I could say no
and now I’m going to say no —
— Fuck that noise.

Being a female entrepreneur?

It’s not easy.

There’s a reason why there aren’t more of us.

Things like this happen. Casually, someone shares his sexual preferences with you, maybe flirting and maybe not.

Then, when we feel unsafe, when our bodies say no but our throats are too frozen to move, the thoughts spiral into,

Maybe I’m not supposed to be here…
Maybe this is too hard…
Run away,
run away from being an entrepreneur.
Give up now.

(and humans FEEL, then reason.)

I have a friend who is tough as nails.

(She’s a lingerie entrepreneur, and she’s surviving and thriving.)

A VC had been asking her to meet in the evening, in bars. Meeting after meeting, evening after evening.

She slammed out a retort to him: “Do you want to meet in business hours like a normal person?”

She gives zero fucks.

She was a rifle instructor in the army.

I asked her one day.

How does she get the bravery, to do what she does? To be so brave? To take such huge leaps, as an entrepreneur?

“What’s the worst that can happen? Boo hoo, a bra doesn’t fit,” she said. “In the army, I had people’s lives on my hands.”

I’m not like that, I thought.

If all goes well with Bra Theory, I would be responsible for millions of women’s bodies, their relationships to their bodies, their feelings, their disappointment, their emotional and physical pain — and that scares me, because a bra that doesn’t fit can be the worst feeling in the world.

Because women’s bodies are sacrosanct to me.

I’m soft, and maybe too soft, for this line of work.
My heart is open to the world.
I cry when a bra doesn’t fit.
And I want to cry when someone says something that’s
“borderline sexual harassment”.

After all of this, an advisor wrote to me,

“That comment was…not what I expected.
But it’s also great evidence you’re getting stronger, and good prep for keeping your poise in unexpected and bizarre scenarios!
One funny way to view it is like an RPG.
In the beginning you have to combat the rude frat boy stuck in a man’s body.
After you level up from enduring him, you’ll probably have to face a lecherous lawyer at some point.
But that’s all just training to prepare you for squaring down a final boss: making a fair deal with a cutthroat CEO.”

I know now, that I have to level up.

It’s true, tears will not make bras for women who need them. Tears will not get you a seat at the table, the capital you need to fund your dream, or the respect of people who simply do not respect tears.

I have to level up, and I will mess up. There will be more of the high-pitched voice, more of the secret tears in the Bra Theory office amongst those who “get it”. I will mess up over and over again until I grow.

This is a promise, to myself, and to the world.

I will grow into who I was meant to be, if I didn’t freeze in fear.

I will not freeze. I will not flee. I will fight.

(Fight, with love, kindness, respect — for those who do not “get it” need to be taught — but fight, indeed.)

I am going to level up, and I am going to raise hell —