What I Was(n’t) Wearing

[teaberryblue]

I don’t remember if I was twelve or thirteen. I do know that it was sometime during Bar Mitzvah season, the spring of seventh grade or the autumn of eighth. I’m pretty sure it was after someone’s Bar or Bat Mitzvah, and I’m pretty sure that it happened at a synagogue, even though my memory tries to replace the space beyond archway where I waited that night with the backdrop of my high school. But I remember fairly well that I was underneath a brick archway, the kind at pickup spots, where you can wait in the rain for your ride to come.

And I remember what I was wearing.

It was a black satin sailor-style outfit– one piece, with a high neckline and long, knee-length culottes instead of a skirt, white piping on the collar. It was dressy, and conservative, and appropriate to wear to a Bar Mitzvah service. I also thought it was very grown up.

It was dark, and most of the guests had left. The parking lot lights glowed overhead, but it was well into evening and the sky was dim. There were just three of us there, waiting for our parents to come pick us up. I was standing against one side of the arch. The two boys, both boys from my grade at school, were standing against the other side, chatting. I went to a small school, so while I wasn’t friends with them and wouldn’t say I knew them particularly well, I knew who they were, what classes they were in, that sort of thing.

The funny thing is, all these years later, I cannot for the life of me remember who the second boy was. I don’t remember if he did anything or said anything. I know there was a second boy there, that’s all. The other one, I remember vividly.

I don’t know how it started, but they came over to my side of the arch, and I think they chatted with me a little bit. Harmless, casual chat. I don’t remember that either. I do remember that I was downright shocked by the question the boy asked me.

“Can I touch your breasts?” he asked, suddenly, out of the blue, out of nowhere.

I felt like I’d had the wind knocked out of me. “What?” I asked him, and I hunched my shoulders over to make my breasts look smaller. They were already extremely large; I was already self-conscious of them. “No,” I added, once I came to the full realization that he had really asked that.

He seemed undeterred. “Please?” he asked. “Why not?”

I remember being mostly incredulous that he asked that. I think I laughed. I asked him if he was joking, and told him no again, more firmly, and probably with whatever kind of strong language passed for a swear in my very stuffy preteen mind.

He told me that he just wanted to see what it felt like.

I told him no, repeatedly, and in no uncertain terms. I am pretty sure I told him that was gross.

And then he reached out, and grabbed my breast, and squeezed it, with all five of his fingers. And then dropped his hand, and described it to his friend, as if I wasn’t even there anymore, now that he’d gotten what he’d wanted. I remember him saying it didn’t feel any different from any other body part, and sort of squishy.

I remember my face going completely hot, and I remember being struck dumb. I’d told him no, over and over again, and he didn’t listen.

I was lucky, I guess, that we were in a public place, even if it was fairly empty, and that my parents were on their way to pick me up, and that all he wanted was to touch my breast, because if he’d asked for something else, he clearly didn’t seem interested in taking no for an answer.

I have never written out this story in detail. I have mentioned it in passing a few times. I did drop out of peer tutoring in high school when I was assigned to tutor him. I couldn’t bring myself to tell the advisor why I was dropping out. I just explained that I was too busy.

I was wearing knee-length culottes and a short-sleeved top with a high neckline. It was black, and dressy, and conservative. It was not low-cut, or high-cut, or tight, or fitted. Because men (and boys) don’t take our clothing as an invitation. They take our existence as an invitation. A man who wants to humiliate a woman, or touch a woman in a way she doesn’t want to be touched doesn’t think about a woman as being a person with feelings and wishes of her own to be respected. He doesn’t care what she is wearing.

This wasn’t the last time this happened to me, although it was certainly the most shocking. That outfit was only the first in a line of outfits that I have taken home, and crumpled up on the floor of my closet, and been unable to bring myself to wear again. Because even when I know the things I’ve said above, girls are taught that it’s either something they’re wearing, or something they’re doing. I know it’s not. But it’s still easier to blame it on the clothes, even when the clothes were knee-length, high-necked, black, dressy and conservative.

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.

Comments

[i-17bingo.livejournal.com]

"Women's bodies are viewed as public spaces," my wife has been saying a lot lately, in response to the way folks find it appropriate to touch the wall of tattoos on her back or move the straps on her dress out of the way to get a better look at it, all without asking. As a man, I'll never know what this feels like.

There's so much more I want to say, but this isn't about me; this is about you and your piece, and how powerful and uncomfortable it is. Thank you for writing it.

[teaberryblue.livejournal.com]

It happens with my hair very regularly, but I find that that seems to be more the "exoticism" of my hair than anything else-- I don't know if it would happen if I were a man, though!

I am fortunate that my tattoo is on my ankle and out of the way. When I get my next one we might start having issues, uh oh!

And thank you for reading and listening.

[lenora-rose.livejournal.com]

I just don't get this. At all.

I touch my friends' hair all the time, and I can usually, by warning them with a word, do things like touch/move clothes to look closer at a tattoo, or offer a backrub. This is because they are my friends, they know me, I know their boundaries and have their permission. I know who doesn't like having his/her hair touched, I know whose back is so problematic a normal backrub by an untrained friend might hurt her/him, and who just doesn't like being touched too much.

Yet.

I would NEVER do that to a complete stranger. It's just something one doesn't do. They don't know anything about me. I don't know anything about them. I might ask, "Can I see your ink?", because that doesn't involve touch -- but I can't even imagine asking to touch their hair or skin out of the blue, never mind just reaching out.

Being pregnant, I'm waiting for the big belly effect to kick in.

[lenora-rose.livejournal.com]

To clarify the first line - I accept and believe (and loathe) that people touch each other unwantedly.

I know that a sad amount of this is the privilege of the powerful on the powerless - men groping women, white idiots touching "exotic" hair. This part, the powrer dynamic that fuels it, and the culture that tries to blame the victim, I do kind of understand, even as it's the part I detest most.

What I "don't get" is the disconnect in otherwise clueful people about lesser touches also being inappropriate. Where people who would completely understand why a sexual assault such as the OP is wrong, fail to grasp that touching a stranger's hair is also not okay, that touching a woman's belly is inappropriate, that brushing aside clothes to get a closer look at skin is brushing aside consent.

[rosefox]

People (both men and women) do this to pregnant women a LOT.

[i-17bingo.livejournal.com]

I've heard about that. And also about the hair thing. It's unfathomable to me that people would think this was okay, but they just don't seem to think at all when it comes to this kind of thing.

[dulcinbradbury.livejournal.com]

That's one of the things I'm dreading about becoming pregnant.

[rosefox]

One of these shirts might help some.

[lenora-rose.livejournal.com]

Can I get one?

[rosefox]

I have no idea where kate_nepveu got one or whether she made it.

[pernwebgoddess.livejournal.com]

It is possible you'll never experience it. I live in a very closely knit community, where a large portion of the people here know me, at least peripherally (lots of grannies who knew my parents, that sort of thing.) and I was fortunate to avoid it. That could also have been because of my "I'll tear off your hand if it comes to close" vibe.

[the-xtina.livejournal.com]

I can't tell whether I'm not looking forward to that aspect of pregnancy, or I am looking forward to reacting a whole lot like this.  I've already warned Josh that he may want to not accompany me in public sometimes.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I first read that as "Women's bodies are viewed as public services", which seems true, too.