Member-only story
Why Tinder Banned Me
Dating apps are useful, they’re just sexist AF
The lonely Frenchman tried to choke me.
True, he did not protest after I moved his hands. From my neck. I had to move his hands away from my neck.
My neck, where he put his hands. While we were kissing. He put his hands around my neck without asking first. Why?
Because I’m plus size, and he assumed he could get away with it? Probably.
Because he was angry, and I was there to be the receptacle of the rage? Yup.
When we had sex, he hurt me so much I’m still bleeding 9 days later. I felt him pushing too hard but I didn’t say “stop.” I had learned already that men would not want me if I had boundaries, if I used words like “no” or “stop,” if I refused to follow their dictates. I had already learned what my body was worth to them, just how little that worth was.
The blood ebbs and flows. The blood reminds me of other blood, other times. My body is clenched around memories like stones in my pelvis. The men who abused me taught me to value these memories, to hold onto them as reminders of what I once called “love.” I grew up learning to call abuse “love” and I never quite unlearned that association.
