[This is part of the sexual assault series.]
[Also, I’m sort of just spinning my wheels in this run of posts, if you want the gist of what I’m saying, maybe skip to the overview one.]
Picking up from yesterday –
[I know we’re tangenting from flying here… [And I know I’m sounding a liiiiiiittle crazy-ish(?), but all of this stuff really added up; gah!]]
Aaaaanyway, continuing to try to explain something that, to me, feels so hard to explain –
Even how I’d try to sleep against the seat in front of me (as I do often do on planes), he’d pull me in to lay on him. And that part’s fine, I guess.
I felt a little weird about intimate stuff, especially in public. But… we’re pushing to get back to the status quo, baby! So, putting his hands on me, or leaning me on him I thought was fine. I wasn’t gonna ask him to stop being into me, as that seemed like a road to “normalcy,” which I thought was what was gonna save me and take away flashbacks and nightmares and everything.
Anyway, enough of that tangent. The point is, when he’d lean me into him… then he’d take off my hat. And I’d put it back on. And he’d take it off because I’m “always covering my beautiful hair” or whatever. But I always sleep with a hat on a plane. I like to pull it down to keep light out of my eyes to make it easier to sleep.
But it didn’t matter what I wanted, or what was comfortable for me, because it never mattered what I wanted or what made me comfortable. It matter what he wanted, or what girls were “supposed” to be like, or if I matched up with all the very exact and specific details he had in his head of what a quasi-relationship was “supposed” to be and, the role a woman played in it.
And it might sound “fun” or “convenient” in some instances. Like, “What? I never have to put my bag above my head again, or order my own food (since he’ll pick it and order for you), or press any buttons on machines [etc etc]. How easy.”
But think about the fact that you’re a grown adult person, used to doing all that stuff, enjoying feeling autonomous. And think about the fact that you never get to reciprocate it. “Oh, I’ll just get his bag this time.” No you won’t, lest someone on the airplane view him as less of a man for “letting” a woman do that.
There’s a reason there are whole movies about super rich people who are like, “I wanna live! I want to go amongst the world!” It’s ’cause nobody wants to be babied their whole entire life, and be “protected” from living, or what have you.
And some people out there might be thinking I’m being “too 3rd wave feminism” or whatever. Like, “Daaaang. Girl can’t even let a man carry her bag.”
But can we just think for a second about who I am?
I know that even those of you who’ve read every single blog post over the past 5 or so years aren’t with me every day of my life. You don’t know who I am outside of this.
And even I’ve said, as we’ve been talking about all this, that I have purposely not talked about relationships on here. That hadn’t interested me at all. That part of my life, generally (other than all this mess), I’ve always considered private (and probably will in the future). So, you may not know how I am on a date, or traveling with a partner.
But if you have been reading the blog all these years, you at least kinda know me. Do you think of me as someone who, back when I lived, in LA would be some raging misandrist who’d yell at a man for holding my bag? Or do you think that I was more like, [*gratefully*] “Whoa! You’re driving me door to door instead of me taking an uber? Talk about some princess treatment up in this joint! Oh me, oh my!” [It was the second one, in case that wasn’t clear.]
Do you not think that when a man in LA went out of his way to make vegan freaking dinner for me (when he’s a meat-eater), that I didn’t talk about that for months? (I still talk about how much I loved that!)
I love to be appreciative. I love to put on my little imaginary tiara and be [*tilts head up toward the sun, and puts a silly smile on, and holds hands on my heart*] loooved and cared for.
To my knowledge (as much as I can remember), this has never been a problem with a man before – especially because even if somehow anyone has ever crossed the line of kinda babying me a little toooooooo much, I give them a smile with a tiny laugh, maybe a little wink, and flirty nudge and say, “You know I know how to buy my own subway ticket right?” And then we have a little laugh, and maybe even a little kiss about it.
People have always backed down, if I push back just a little. It’s not hard to communicate and find a good balance with each other. It’s never had to be a fight. I’d never been yelled at just because I don’t want to sit (when he gets to stand) in a tram that has boatloads of room. I’ve been allowed to be a person – which doesn’t feel like a lot to ask for.
Aaaaanyway, after aaall of this, there’s more tomorrow!
[And/or you can read more on the sexual assault series.]