It’s a feisty and honestly anxiety ridden time for ladies. There is a steady rising, like a flood, a flood of intensity, of fairness, a flood of change. But when you’ve spent your life thinking one way, it’s hard to re-learn to think another way.

 

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As a girl in her twenties who put on a bachelorette party on for her friend I was “on duty”. I watched my friends dance drunk at a bar, checking my watch for when I can wrangle them up and drag their asses to the hotel to sleep. Out of nowhere, my head was grabbed on either side and pulled to meet the face of a drunk stranger. I panicked. I panicked like I never had before…or since. I pushed the man away and got away from him. And what I did next was so strange—I did nothing. I went back to waiting for my friends.

 

The campaign to express the number of women who have been raped or molested is making things visible. My initial thought: well that little thing only happened to me once. Huh. “Little thing that only happened once.” A man I didn’t know grabbed my head with strength, and pulled it towards him to kiss me. I didn’t get raped so…it wasn’t that bad right? It just happens. I told a few people and shrugged with how silly it was. Silly.

 

A man grabbed me and it was silly. If someone grabbed my sister I would fucking punch him. My friends, my friends were drunk. Who was looking out for me? No one. This is years ago, only now do I think—maybe that was a bad thing that happened to me.  Man grab me = bad         BAD     bad?     Yes bad!      ALWAYS BAD.

 

Everyone all change our brains.

*Brooke Shaden image

  • Andrew Lamplighter

    Ok, but to be fair, how many times have you drunkenly grabbed men and tried to be suggestive and touch their intimate places? Oh, none? Zero times? Huh. I think you’re on to something that should be common sense! Just some people need help getting that. But visibility is key. Thank you for sharing, love.

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