Fall Hunter Moon
Sexual aggression and its effects. #PussysGrabBack is a hashtag encouraging women to vote and to vote against the would be pussy grabber in chief. The Access Hollywood video tape with its lewd, rude, casually mentioned and approved sexual assault language has caused an outpouring of actual stories from women in all walks of life and of all ages.
I want to add a male perspective, not because it’s more profound, it isn’t; but, because its relative rarity can underscore the climate of fear this despicable breaching of personal boundaries produces.
When I was young, my parents not only allowed me to travel by myself, but actively encouraged it. I would go down to the Greyhound Bus Stop by Stein’s Tailor Shop, load my suitcase underneath and go up the stairs to my seat. On my lap would be a fruit basket from Cox’s Super Market. Wrapped in a colored cellophane would be apples, bananas, perhaps some grapes, food for the journey.
The Greyhound was not then the dismal transportation method it has become today, but an affordable way of moving long distances. And I traveled long distances, going from Alexandria, Indiana, 60 miles east of Indianapolis, to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. All of my father’s side of the family lived in or near Oklahoma, so this was a way for me to get to know them. And never, on any of those trips, did anything untoward ever happen to me.
It was different though when I boarded the train headed for Arlington, Texas. This was a really big adventure for me, my first time riding a train. When we reached St. Louis, I had a long layover so I put my bag in a locker (this was before the time of bombs in lockers), took my brownie camera and went out into the humid heat of a Missouri summer afternoon.
A Sunday, downtown was empty of workers and there were no tourists on the streets. I had stopped by a doorway to stand in the shade while I took snapshots of buildings. A man came back, noticed me squatting down changing the film in my camera. He said something, I don’t recall what and I replied because I was a courteous boy from the Midwest. He squatted down, pretending to be interested in my camera.
Then his hand was in my crotch, kneeding my testicles. I stood up, bolted up more like it, said, “You shouldn’t do that,” collected my camera and clutching it to my chest ran back to the train station where I remained until the train came that would carry me onto Texas. He didn’t pursue me, gave me no resistance. But I was shaken in a way that at that age I could barely comprehend. I was maybe 11 or 12.
During college there were various situations in which gay friends came onto me in a sexual manner, but I never considered that assault. It was the exploratory process, learning how to be sexual in a time of drastically altered mores, the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.
Just three weeks ago, in Minnesota, I had a very unsettling experience. I had driven for two days, leaving Conifer on a Wednesday, staying overnight in Lincoln, Nebraska, then on the road Thursday. It was about 4 pm and I was tired, my leg hurt and I was looking forward to getting to my hotel.
When I reached the intersection of Broadway and Central in Northeast Minneapolis, I noticed a Ford pickup, black with large tires that made it ride high. The driver gunned the engine, came up suddenly on cars in the lane beside me. Jerk, I thought. Then, he did it again. Very aggressive driving.
The second time he did this brought him parallel to me. I looked up, wondering what the guy (I assumed it was a guy.) looked like. He turned his head toward me. Cupping his right hand, he moved it back and forth in front of his mouth while pressing his tongue against the side of his cheek. A rude gesture, especially in a very casual, momentary encounter. He nodded at me, took his right hand and gestured again, this time to himself, then to me and indicated that I should follow him. He was much bigger than I was and had a rough looking face.
I turned my head away, looked forward and turned left away from him. He was in a lane that had to go straight. The encounter ended. It was brief and reasonably safe. I was in my own car and would have had no difficulty losing him even if he had decided to pursue me. But it didn’t feel safe, not at all. It shook me. I felt frightened and, yes, violated.
Neither of these two instances, and they were 50+ years apart, resulted in any physical damage. Both of them resolved quickly. Yet, they both left me repulsed and feeling vulnerable. They both made me rethink my normal assessment of the world as a safe place to be.
I can only imagine how I would view the world if I experienced these encounters regularly, as seems to happen to women. (I say seems because I’m not a woman.) I would feel that my world required constant diligence, constant attention to dangerous surroundings. My sense of safety in the world would probably be compromised beyond repair. And this is in the usual, the day to day.
It does not include a time when a candidate for the Presidency openly brags about such aggression, about the privilege that celebrity brings, about being able to do whatever he wants. This is a validation of sexual aggression, a lived experience for many, many of us, most women, a granting of legitimacy to these acts from a person vying to become the nation’s leading political authority figure.
Adding this abomination to the gradual accretion of insults caused by cat calls, by presumptive hands or body checking, by date rape and rape culture, makes our common space seem fraught with peril, even on a normal day. This is not acceptable. Fear is not the norm we want for our daughters, granddaughters, wives and mothers, sisters.
It’s a problem only solvable by alliances between men and women. Let’s strengthen them over the coming weeks and months.
