All Sexual Abuse Stories Count As #MeToo
Sexual harassment and assault is common, real, and almost never happens the way you’d expect.
While in my 20s, I had a one-night stand with someone I met at a concert, a man visiting town with a group of friends. He was on the prowl. I was single and feeling it. After the show, we went back to his room in a luxurious but funky-looking hotel, decked out in neon lights and lots of velvet.
The sex was fine—he was as sweet and courteous as a one-night-stand should be. After we finished I was ready to go home, shower the night off, and climb into bed, so I left. I felt good, enjoying the afterglow as I headed down the dimly lit hallway to the elevator.
It wasn’t yet daylight, and the rest of the hotel was silent. So when the elevator door called to my floor, I was startled to find it occupied by a brawny man I recognized from earlier in the night as one of the guy’s friends. I stepped inside, offering him a polite smile and a simple “wsup.”
With his eyes trained on me, he told me to go to his room and all good feelings evaporated. It came out more like a command than an invitation, and I tensed up. I was indignant. “What?!” I said. “Not happening.” But when the doors opened to his floor, he grabbed my arm and started to pull me out. I planted my feet and threw my bodyweight backward, trying to get him off of me. I shouted at him WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? LET ME GO!
He didn’t let me go. Instead, he dragged me to his door halfway down the hall as I struggled in vain to escape his grip. He released one hand to open the door, and easily held onto my arm with the other. Muttering some half-hearted encouragement, he pulled me inside the room, finally releasing me to remove his pants. By the time he pulled his dick out, I was already out the door running back toward the elevator. He didn’t chase me.
I don’t often tell people this story because, unlike many women in similar situations, I got away. I also find myself grappling with self doubt. Should I have screamed louder? Fought harder? Was it my fault I was in such a vulnerable position? If I hadn’t run out at the first chance, would I have given in?
This past month, New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey broke the story of producer Harvey Weinstein’s long history of sexual abuse toward women, spawning a wave of outrage throughout Hollywood and beyond. It was further fueled by a New Yorker feature piece by Ronan Farrow, who had spent months interviewing thirteen of Weinstein’s victims.
I was struck by how nuanced the accounts of the abuses were, particularly Asia Argento’s insistence on telling the full story of how she was fooled into Weinstein’s hotel room:
“At first, Weinstein was solicitous, praising her work. Then he left the room. When he returned, he was wearing a bathrobe and holding a bottle of lotion. “He asks me to give a massage. I was, like, ‘Look, man, I am no fucking fool,’ ” Argento told me. “But, looking back, I am a fucking fool. And I am still trying to come to grips with what happened.” Argento said that, after she reluctantly agreed to give Weinstein a massage, he pulled her skirt up, forced her legs apart, and performed oral sex on her as she repeatedly told him to stop. Weinstein “terrified me, and he was so big,” she said. “It wouldn’t stop. It was a nightmare.” At some point, she stopped saying no and feigned enjoyment, because she thought it was the only way the assault would end…Argento, who insisted that she wanted to tell her story in all its complexity, said that she didn’t physically fight him off, something that has prompted years of guilt.”
It was liberating to know that Argento wanted to relay the whole story, including those extra details — her giving in, feigning enjoyment, and eventually having consensual sex with Weinstein— that would normally make her story muddier, and less believable. In a culture where we associate sexual assault with dark alley rape, or with being drugged, or some other obvious example of force, Argento cleared a path for any story of sexual violence to count.
Like many other women who are sharing their stories now, I always felt my story wasn’t worth sharing with others because I couldn’t cleanly label or compartmentalize it in my own memory. I assumed it was common, and that I didn’t suffer enough for it to matter. I wasn’t hit over the head and dragged into a dark alley. I wasn’t gagged or drugged or penetrated against my will. Not wanting to diminish or distract from people who’ve endured more traumatic sexual assault, I kept it to myself like I had many times in the past.
I’ve been groped, flashed, and forcefully kissed against my will. I’ve been tricked into uncomfortable, humiliating situations as early as age 4, when a strange man called my house, cooing at me in a childlike voice, getting me to tell him my name, then asking me if I had a “hot pussy.” The first time I had sex was with a man who ignored me when I said I didn’t want to, and I never said anything about it because we were already naked. I felt stupid, and convinced myself it was ok because some part of me might have wanted it.
When I wasn’t silenced by my own self doubt and embarrassment I faced questions from loved ones that made me doubt myself further. Questions like, did I do something to give the guy the wrong impression? I’ve even joked about some of my experiences, chalking them up to may own naiveté.
Reading accounts from other women following the Weinstein story, including under #MeToo, I now see my silence may have been detrimental to others who’ve had their own confusing experiences. I’ve found unexpected comfort and validation hearing other women, and some men, open up with similar feelings. And though I’m fortunate not to have suffered lasting trauma from my experiences, I would have felt less isolated and ashamed if I understood that the men who did those things to me were the ones who were wrong, no matter how muddy the circumstances were.
This is why we need open discussion. We need to hear the stories — ALL of them, even the inconclusive or seemingly innocuous, and those that don’t fit into traditional narratives of sexual harassment, assault and abuse. We also need to hear stories from people we don’t traditionally see as victims, including men. Our stories can become a valuable archive of information by exposing the many complicated levels of harassment, assault and abuse. They can help people who’ve felt sexually victimized feel less alone, and educate perpetrators who don’t recognize all the ways they can, and have, hurt people.
Reality isn’t clear-cut. It’s messy as hell. If we acknowledge that, we can talk about these violations in a way that people can feel more comfortable speaking up, and the rest of us can be more open-minded when they do.
The story has been adapted from another version posted on thesexreporter.com
