drinkyourjuice

Had a Real New York Moment™ tonight

[exiting the subway]
Some teenager: Hey sexy.

[ten feet out of the subway station]
Guy in his 30s: Have a good night, beautiful.

[rounding the corner to my block]
Some old dude: Smile, precious. Show them pretty teeth.
Me: Oh FUCK you.

I don’t tend to read a ton of feminist stuff on the internet, but I saw one thing the other month that really stuck with me and I’m going to paraphrase it now: a male college student was taking a class on gender. One day in class the professor drew a vertical line down the center of the board and wrote “men” on one side and “women” on the other. The professor then asked the male students what they did on a daily basis to prevent themselves from being raped. Between all of the men in the lecture hall, they came up with two bullets and they were things like “wear clothes” and “don’t wander into dark alleys.” After about five minutes the men had nothing left to say, and hadn’t come up with any more ideas. The professor then asked the same question of the women, and they filled their side of the board over the next 45 minutes. “Avoid eye contact,” “cross the street,” “hold my keys just in case I need to defend myself,” etc etc etc. I wish I could find a link to wherever this story is, but I can’t remember where I read it — regardless, the thing that stuck out to the guy who wrote it was how much time a woman has to spend in a state of defense on a given day.

I bring this up because I’m in a weird place tonight. My heart feels heavy, I’m generally lethargic and no good for being around people. All I wanted to do when I got off the train was trudge this ass home. My arms were crossed. My eyes were down. I was probably frowning without realizing it because I’m apt to do that. Of course none of that should matter, but I say it to illustrate that I was not inviting conversation. I was not sitting at a booth with a sign that said, “Reach out to me. I’m dying to know how looking at me makes you feel.”

But the mere fact that I was there, on a sidewalk, in a public space, made three separate individuals feel entitled to throw out innuendos like confetti and it’s just exhausting. And I know it’s well-worn territory, and I know the most irritating people you met at your small liberal-arts college loved to talk about this shit, but there really aren’t the right words for how awful it made me feel tonight. How I’m not even allowed to have my own shitty moments in this world because a fucking stranger is entitled to interject. And convention calls for me to walk away and pretend I didn’t hear it — to just absorb that energy like it’s something I had coming.

This is why people get old and angry. Too much of this.

Do I think those men meant to make me feel unsafe? No. Do I think that, had this happened on a different night, I might not have dropped an F-bomb on a 70-year-old? Absolutely. But do I think that, even for a minute, myself, or your sister, or your girlfriend have any less of a right to be on a fucking tract of pavement without presenting a five paragraph essay as to why we are a peer and not a pork thigh on a hook? Suck my dick.