I wasn't aware of his exact age at that point, but a part of me obviously knew that he was older. One drink turned into three but I was still "careful" enough to hold myself together. Towards the end, my current ex friend convinced me to leave with him. She was also leaving with her own Chris. It was going to be fun, it was going to be okay, and we were going to share each other's locations.
I wasn't thinking. She wasn't thinking.
We were placing our lives in the hands of literal strangers.
As we were driving to the place he had booked, I felt a mixture of the most unsettling feelings. I was scared and foolish, though I refused to let the alcohol become an excuse for the foolishness I felt. I was in the middle of nowhere, being driven by someone I didn't know, and I desperately needed to leave.
While frantically texting my ex friend, I was trying to figure out the right words to say. The menstruation lie was an old one and it hardly ever worked. Where would I go? How would I get there? And how willing would he be to simply let me go?
When we got to our destination, I immediately told him I needed to leave. There was no specific reason or drastic lie. I just made it known that I had to leave.
He smiled, placed his hand on my waist, and gently pulled me towards him. We would just hang out, he said. I didn't need to worry.
Stepping into that room felt like stepping into my own demise. We had never even planned to leave with these men. It was supposed to be a girl's night out.
My roommate had invited my friend, who then invited me, and I, in turn, invited another friend. My roommate also had some of her other friends there, so we all came together. We were never going out to look for men. We were simply three friends, spending time together, and enjoying being in each other's company. We did not go there seeking anyone. We were, in fact, approached.
People tend to shame women in these situations because they assume every woman is looking for their bill to get paid. We weren't, we had never been, and it's very important to make this distinction.
Even if we had been looking to our bill to get paid, it doesn't remove the meaning of consent. It doesn't remove coercion, as a concept, thriving on the absence of consent.
I had made it known when we had arrived that I needed to leave. Even as we entered into the room, I was clearly uncomfortable. Despite this, he took off his clothes and laid on the bed. I stood, frozen and completely at loss of words.
I proceeded to ask him what "hanging out" entailed and he smiled, yet again, and asked me to move closer to him. I said no. Again, he told me not to worry. It was going to be fun like my ex friend has said and she still had my location.
I refused multiple times, and the particular moments that led me on the bed, with his body hovering over me, are a complete blur.
I know I wasn't attacked in the sense that it wasn't physical violence. I didn't have any bruises and my body was still fully functional, but I had still said no several times.
He refused to let me leave the room. He stood by the door, butt naked, urging that we "fix things" and that he never intended to pressure me. He wanted me to calm down so we could speak and "clarity could be established," but I couldn't. I had to leave.
In this desperate attempt to leave the room, I pulled out my phone and threatened to call the police. I knew I was fragile and that he could easily grab my phone, and so I told him I would scream.
If he went as far as moving or attempting any physical violence or any form of altercation, the neighbours would be woken up by my scream. I fabricated lies about a family member of mine being the Station Commander of a particular police station, and that should anything happen to me, his jail time would be guaranteed.
This shocked him in as much as it shocked me, but it was a necessary act to ensure my own safety. This is because men, by nature, operate in codes of dominance. The more dominant you are, whether this is physical, materialistic, or gendered dominance, the more likely you are to be freed from consequence.
He could've easily taken by phone but I asserted my dominance with the possibility of a scream. The possibility of an exposure where people would leave their rooms to witness the kind of man that he was.
The cops could've also taken time in responding adequately but I asserted my dominance by alluding to an idea of being related to a Station Commander whom I could easily and directly call.
In that moment, I was more of a man than he had ever been because I used the very same dominance he had used against me. He didn't listen to me when I had repeatedly said no, and he kept trying to make it seem like it was "all in my head".
He assumed I would be meek, scared, and passive. That we could somehow talk and it was all a "misunderstanding".
It wasn't and he knew it.
He still knows it.
Asserting Dominance
When I returned to Res, I couldn't stop taking showers. I'd leave, halfway through class, to take multiple showers.
It was a very strange psychological effect but I wasn't just trying to "wash him off" but I was also trying to return to whatever feeling I felt before the encounter. I felt wrong for even describing what I had felt, and so I'd shower - over and over again.
What he did is something people do on a daily basis. It renders itself as a huge part of club culture. And when women speak about it, they're told to pay for their own drinks. Even those that do pay for their own drinks - they're asked what they had even expected.
You leave with a man. What are you expecting him to do?
You don't leave with a man. Why would you expect anything from him?
You sit by yourself. Why are you ignoring that man?
You sit with your friends. Why aren't you calling him to you?
You assert dominance. Everyone is shocked.
I'm proud of her for standing up in the way that she did because she left the room with no one else's help but her own.
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