Starting Over

 I need to write more. I do write by hand in my journal (almost) every night, but I need to write more in general. I do participate in NAPOWRIMO every April. Once I even managed to complete all 30 poems during the month, but I confess that I have yet to actually write one poem every day during the month of April as is the intent of the exercise. I usually do them in binges of a couple of days usually heavily peppered with haiku because they're poems and short.

I'll try to post more about my thoughts on various subjects. I'm not sure anyone particularly reads or cares about anything I put here. This is predominantly a way for me to exercise my brain and to keep my skills up to date as best I can. Wish me luck!

When the themes intersect

My TV died a couple of weeks ago. I can hear sound, change channels, change input, but cannot see a picture. I rely on the wifi hotspot from the cable company across the street, but haven't been able to get a signal strong enough to connect to the internet for streaming. When these things happened, I was pretty upset. Today, I'm actually quite grateful because I'm not able to watch Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testify on Capitol Hill.

Oh, I support her. I believe her. I respect the hell out of her. I remember the one investigative interrogation I had to sit through when my store director had twice put his hand on my knee during a car ride. That was hard and humiliating enough. I cannot imagine having to sit in front of such a hostile crowd of people whose temporary job it is to represent the best interests of the country like she is today. And that she volunteered for it, put her life on hold, put her life in jeopardy to do it...yeah, I respect the ever living HELL out of her for this.

Even for the technology I can't access right now, my smart phone still keeps me connected to the world. I catch snippets of what's been going on. I can piece together the fabric of this ugly, tattered cloak of shamefulness, and while I can refuse to wear it, sometimes I accidentally touch the hem and get soiled in the process. I often joke about understanding the Unabomber's manifesto and the need for it, but I'm a fairly social creature so I wouldn't do well living in a shack in the wilderness without a cell signal or regular access to other humans. (Yes, in that order.) It's important to interact with people, even ones I don't always agree with, especially ones I don't agree with. Echo chambers annoy me.

Now that I'm 50, I realize the importance of trying to keep as healthy as possible. This is not an easy task when one has a body with a dysfunctional autonomic nervous system. I do the best I can, and one of the best things I can do is to know my triggers. The second best thing is to avoid those triggers whenever possible because they can bring on an episode.

My episodes primarily manifest as fainting. May marked 35 years of having at least one episode a year. I called it a good year if I only passed out once. It's been at least 8 years since I've had a good year with my Dysautonomia. It's been 5 years since I've been able to work. Fainting is no fun, but ever since I started, I've been accused of doing it for attention.

Let me repeat: fainting is no fun. Your body hits a reset button which temporarily shuts your system down. For some people with Dysautonomia that means they flat line for a few seconds; their heart just.stops.beating. I'm one of the lucky ones because my blood pressure just tanks, but my heart goes on beating. My pulse has always been difficult to find. In 6th grade, one of my friends told me I was purposely hiding my pulse to try to flunk her in our health class. She was a classic Type A personality. The paramedic stepped in to make sure she was doing it right, and he laughed as he told her that he'd known me my whole life and knew I could be difficult about some things, but that my pulse was very hard to detect even for a pro. There have been times when my BP was so low it could not be detected. Imagine your computer doing a reset. The newer models tend to come back up faster, whereas the older models wheeze and gasp their way back up to functionality, not up to speed, though. So basically my Autonomic Nervous System runs on Windows 4. Bottom line, recovery from an episode takes longer and my functionality is never going to be what it was when I was fifteen, or even what it was when I was forty.

So, if you've read my previous blog posts, you know I've been through a bit of sexual trauma in my life. Only one rape, but other sexual assaults, and countless instances of sexual harassment and discrimination because it's just par for the course of being female, am I right, ladies? No big.

Except Dysautonomia keeps my body in a constant state of "fight/flight/freeze". Any woman, any person who has been in a situation where they credibly fear for their life or safety knows how that taxes the body. Mentally taxing activities also impact the body. Fright is exhausting, and trying to talk your body down doesn't always work. I get tachycardia scooping the litter box, so that becomes a weary task sometimes. My brain and heart get their signals crossed and they resolve their differences by retreating to their separate corners and doing a reboot to get back on line.

Reliving trauma also brings on tachycardia. Listening to others relive their trauma reminds me of my own. These are triggers that could possibly bring on one of those fun fainting episodes I totally do for attention. Except, I live alone, don't own a car, and don't get out much anymore. So I'm the only witness to the frivolity other than my cat, and he couldn't care less unless it means his food is delayed.

I have other triggers for my Dysautonomia. Heat, humidity, and my period are the biggest. My body also throws a tantrum when it encounters temperature extremes so I have to be careful about avoiding cold, too, but heat is the bigger problem. I seek air conditioning. I keep my feet up to avoid blood pooling. And right now, I have a dysfunctional television set to go with my dysfunctional ANS. That helps.

Sometimes, I am simply unable to circumvent the things that cause an episode. I can only guess that the constant influx of information regarding Brett Kavanaugh, Bill Cosby, the various women with credible accusations and the accompanying refutations finally caught up with me last night because my blood pressure tanked on me twice while I slept. I know this because I had two fainting dreams. I've been operating in a whirling fog, still in my pajamas because I'm saving my energy for a hair appointment and getting my grocery shopping done.

My heart is with Dr. Ford today. I literally could not do what she is doing. I'd like to think that if one of my attackers was nominated to the Supreme Court, that I would do what she is doing because of the importance of the issue. But I know I would very likely pass out, and that would be seen as weakness rather than strength being depleted. I wasn't believed for sixteen years that there was something wrong and that was why I fainted so much. I wasn't believed that my store director twice put his hand on me. I am tired of not being believed. So God bless the women who are demanding to be heard. God bless the ones who have been quiet but can no longer keep their silence because they know there is a greater cause that needs their voice, quivering and small though it may be. Even though I lie on my couch, I'm standing with you.

Rape Culture: You're not helping

Yesterday I had an interaction on a college Facebook memes page I help administer. It was with a man who claims to be a liberal and an ally. He told me that my choice of cartoon character on a meme about rape culture was someone who promoted rape culture. And I had an "oh shit" moment and asked him to enlighten me. He graciously sent me a link to a page regarding the character I had used, and I dutifully read it, and gratefully realized that the character I had used was a victim of sexual abuse. So I responded to this guy that the character didn't represent rape culture because as a victim, unless he was actively raping someone, he was simply using dark humor, as some sex abuse survivors do, to cope. Then came the mansplaining...

Oh, but he wasn't mansplaining. He was just explaining to me why I was wrong. Even after I disclosed that I'm a survivor of sexual assault, he still was trying to convince me that I was wrong because this character had used the phrase "I will rape you in your mouth" once. I was willing to have a dialog with this person because we need to exchange ideas to understand. Plus, he's an ally so this should simply be the dissemination of information between a rape survivor and someone who truly wants to eradicate rape culture. Easy peasy.

Sometimes I marvel at my naivete that I thought I could have a conversation about rape culture with a man. After an unfortunate exchange in the comments section on my "offensive" meme, I took it to a private message to address this young man and his friend who had disrespected me. I included the male creator of the meme page in the private conversation. The friend who was just a drive by troll refused to take part in the conversation. The one who had called me out went off.

He said, "But of all the characters you used in the world you used one that made you look like a hypocrite and made me seem like I didn't know what I was talking about after being asked to enlighten you on the topic. I stay by my research and word on the character. I guess I mansplain all my research. But if I was a men, women, trans or any else they could try to understand their irony. Again I am sorry if I disrespected anyone. But you really have to look at that meme and understand how problematic it is."

The page creator responded to him first saying, "we understood your point J. thanks for writing. but man, the thread was closed ok? I wanted to give Suzanne, as a rape survivor, the honor of the last word on it. your need to further explain, at that point, was disrespectful imo. sometimes it's best just to walk away from an argument even if you think you can go back and win it. your comment also incited another troll to comment and further stir the pot on what supposed to be a humor group."

So the mansplainer came back with "I didn't think it was an argument...But the meme is wrong, so wrong. And I wanted everyone to understand that."

It was my turn to say something so I said, "No, J. (The cartoon character) was a victim. Nothing on the page you sent me said anything to the contrary. Speaking liberal to liberal you shut down my voice because you have an opinion. I have an experience. I have more than one. Your continuation of defending your opinion against my experience is disrespectful and is the very definition of mansplaining."

So he countered with a clip of the show and asked me to "Please understand the character. Use the evidence and the reasoning to come to a conclusion on this character."

My response, "Again, as a survivor of sexual abuse, (I cannot believe I'm defending a cartoon character) he's likely to say some stupid shit based on what happened to him. Not condoning it, but he is a victim of rape culture which is why he would say something so stupid...This, again, is mansplaining rape culture to a rape survivor and as such is extremely disrespectful."

Nope, according to him, the meme where I said any jokes about rape culture were bad was actually perpetuating rape culture because the cartoon character who is a survivor of rape who said a phrase about rape is the poster child for rape culture. I think my favorite part was this: "The meme in it self is a joke about rape culture and no one is mansplaining rape culture to you. I am litterally using the definition of rape culture to give you an example of it. Like I said no disrespect is intend. If open conversation can't be had that is on you...And know you are using your power and privilege over me to put me on time out on a MSU meme page...you didn't want to take any my point because I am a "man". Like I am really am upset about that...and I am sorry if I unintentionally disrespected you."

Let me point out that this is a white male. Let me also point out that the quotes are verbatim from the private conversation on Facebook. The spelling and punctuation lifted directly from the conversation. I did not include names. Frankly, it's a little disconcerting that this is a self-proclaimed liberal and college student. And the sub-college of the university where he is a student is for public policy and public affairs. You'd think he'd be better at debate. You'd think he'd know that opinion doesn't trump experience. Alas, you'd be mistaken.

However, I'm old enough to be his mother, am a rape survivor, and a college graduate with a degree in English. And I do know how to debate. I know it's about swaying someone to your side, not 'this is my opinion and here's my one piece of evidence taken out of context which supports my opinion so I win'. I also know when enough is enough. Still I made one last attempt.

"Again, victims, whether real or cartoon, are allowed to use dark humor as a coping mechanism. As a victim of rape culture, (the cartoon character) can be forgiven for saying something stupid that is also a part of rape culture. Here's the thing: he's a cartoon. Honestly, the tone deaf comment was the Daniel Tosh thumbs up one because he is a real boy and he actually does perpetuate rape culture. The difference is (the cartoon) uses outlandish envelope pushing in a politically incorrect manner to push a more liberal agenda. Note how (the cartoon character) threatens to "rape" someone in their mouth. That is a knee jerk reaction because he's been pushed too far. Note how I said, "Fuck respecting you, (creator of the meme page)..." Same reaction from a real girl who has really been dealing with rape culture and her own rape since before you were born, J."

And finally he got it. He said, "Again I am very sorry about all of it. I understand your argument and very much agree." Yay! But then he went on to say, "Please, don't call me out like that tho in front of my peers. It is embarrassing. I really did have good intentions."

Damn it! It was OK for him to call me out, but it was not OK for me to make cogent arguments using my background as a rape survivor. It was OK for him to send me a link to a page where I could read up on the character because I admitted that I haven't seen the show for years and I acknowledge that characters can change over a long period of time. But it was not OK for me to use that information to argue against his personal opinion. I made him look bad. I.made him.look.bad. There was another male student who in the comments thread of the meme pointed out that the cartoon character had been raped as a child and had developed some bad habits as a result, but underwent hypnosis to root out the problem and get help. Somehow, this other man didn't make him look bad. The girl with the power to remove him from the page did.

And I did remove him from the page because it took him for freaking ever in our private conversation to admit that he had been disrespectful to me. Even then, he tried to justify his behavior. Then he tried to say it was due to his being a liberal and that the TV show in question is problematic because it's politically incorrect. And because I didn't understand the show, it made me "look like a hypocrite" and made him "seem like (he) didn't know what (he) was talking about" even though he'd sent me the link after I requested him to enlighten me. You see, he tried. I'm just not liberal enough to understand it from his very liberal viewpoint. I told him to go talk to the dean of his college about me because as luck would have it, his dean used to date my oldest sister and has known me and my liberal family since I was born.

This is rape culture. This is toxic masculinity. He's a liberal, and that's supposed to magically elevate him in my esteem. Al Franken is also a liberal, and I do hold his political view in high esteem, but that was over shadowed by women coming forward and saying he'd been inappropriate with them. As a liberal, I don't give him a free pass. I don't believe in party over country or bros before hos.

Back in 2000, I had to attend a workshop on harassment. I was a supervisor for a loan collections department in a bank and all managers were required to attend. The thing that stuck with me all these years was that harassment was not about intent, but perception. It's true that someone can have a misconception and even though it's their perception that they've been harassed, it doesn't mean harassment took place. My young mansplainer wanted to be congratulated on his intent despite my perception that he was disrespectful. My perception could arguably be considered a misconception colored by my history as a rape survivor, but that's a lousy case.

When this young man pointed out to me that he felt the character I had chosen to use in a meme about rape culture was a poor choice, I asked him to enlighten me. Thankfully, he did. He supplied me a link to a page regarding the character. I read it. I found nothing in there to discredit my choice. I actually found out information that the character was himself a sexual abuse survivor. I was relieved, and said so, but according to him, I shouldn't have been. When I told him that unless a rape survivor was actively raping someone else, it was a long road to walk to claim that the survivor was perpetuating rape culture. I was told I was wrong. I was told that abuse victims often become abusers. I explained that rape was about power and that the preponderance of abuse victims turned abusers are male because of rape culture. To be over powered is to be feminine and to assert one's masculinity, one must TAKE power over another. Nope, not a rational argument; I was a hypocrite who then used my power inappropriately by removing him from the group, that poor, marginalized white boy.

I'd feel badly about my actions if it was an abuse of power. As a matter of fact, I did contemplate whether I was being rash. Then I remembered that a lifetime of dealing with sexual harassment and sexual discrimination did not make my actions impetuous. I gave him a chance to redeem himself. He used rape culture to tell me my experience didn't matter. He offered an apology that was half-assed at best. It's the next day, and I still need to explain. Am I justifying myself? No, I am telling you that when you do what this poor guy did, you are not only not helping, you are the problem.

Men, stop being the problem. The only way you're going to be a true ally is to listen to women. You will have to take instruction from people in the know when it comes to rape culture. By and large, the people who know it best are women. Yes, men get raped, too. Yes, they are shamed into silence, too. I'm not the first woman, nor will I be the last, who has had a well-intentioned, liberal male try to tell me his opinion on this subject beats my personal experience with it. My facts trump your opinion. Sit down. Shut up. Listen. Learn.

Rape Culture Part 2 (of like, 2 million)

In my previous blog post, I addressed some of the sexual harassment, discrimination, and attempted assault I have faced in my lifetime. What I left out was the part where a guy had a successful attempt. Yes, I was raped. Yes, I am aware that this does not make me special because countless other women have been, too. No, I did not report my rape. Yes, I tried to rationalize what I could have done differently so that it didn't happen. It happened 28 years ago and I like to tell myself that I'm over it, but the truth is, I'm not and I'm probably never going to be completely, but I'm making strides every day. Those are victories and I claim them. But I'm going to confess that I don't plan to share a link to this yet because I'm still a bit of a chicken shit and I know very few people read my blog. I'm going to own my fear, but I'm not going to apologize for it.

I've stated aloud and in writing that I was raped. Only a handful of people know the details. Like I said previously, because this blog gets little to no traffic, I'm relatively certain there will still just be that handful of people who know the details. Maybe writing them down instead of occasionally replaying them in my head will be cathartic. In that case, it won't matter if anyone else reads this.

Yes, I'm digressing. I'm playing Scheherazade and telling one thousand and one tales to keep myself alive, or sane, or something. The devil is in the details. I suppose I need face the devil and state the details, but I'm going to confess that I'm afraid that I'll be illegitimized. Lately, I'm a little more fragile than I care to admit. However it is possible to be broken and strong at the same time. I just need to stop procrastinating and just do this.

I was living in a building that was like a co-op, but not. It was two blocks north of Michigan State University's campus. The building to the south of where I lived was a house that had been split up into a couple of apartments. We shared a driveway. To the right was the parking lot for my building and to the left was the parking lot for the house next door. The neighbors decided to have a party with live entertainment and the music drew me and one of my friends from the not a co-op to the small parking lot. It was the first time I'd ever seen anyone smoking pot out in the open, outside. There was an obligatory keg and various bottles of liquor and the also obligatory wine coolers. Even though I was not yet twenty years old, I indulged and had a few wine coolers.

He and I started talking, rather screaming at each other above the din of electric guitars. When the electric guitars were traded for acoustic guitars, we were able to talk without straining our voices. He was smoking cigarettes and taking my empties back to the returnable bottle bins, each time bringing me back a fresh, cold cooler. The drinks were refreshing on that late spring evening and he was so handsome and I'd never had someone that handsome approach me out of the blue and just start talking to me. He was finishing his degree and planned to go on to law school.

My voice became raw as the evening danced on. Between the yelling to communicate, the cigarette smoke, and the alcohol, this came as no surprise, but the kiss he planted on me was. The night morphed into a display of beauty and charm like I had never encountered before. It was exciting. Even though I desperately wanted him to kiss me, I was still stunned when he did. When he asked me to go back to his apartment, I did not hesitate even though I knew his apartment was about three miles away from where I lived.

We went back to his apartment and made out for a while. This turned into sex. I wasn't a virgin; I'd had sex once already. I'd been sexually active for two whole months by this time. His kisses stirred up a libido I wasn't aware I had. It was a long and fairly pleasant night. He drove me back to my place in the morning. I was happy, sated; I was convinced I was in love.

Later in the week, he called the friend I'd gone to the party with. She had a phone in her room and I couldn't afford one. She had given him her number, unbeknownst to me. He wanted to come by. I was elated and told him to come to my friend's room because mine was a wreck. He did and he and she and I talked and entertained my friend's three year old daughter. After an hour or two, he asked me if I wanted to go back to his place. I jumped at the chance. I ran back to my room to put on a pair of shoes. He came with me just to see what my room looked like. It looked like the wreck I told him it was.

We walked down the upper left line of the U that shaped my building. He had parked out front which was at the bottom line of the U. I was actually proud that my not a co-op mates were going to see me leaving on the arm of Mr. Tall(er than me), Dark, and Handsome. When we got down the stairs, he kissed me in the room that served as both lobby and living room. Then he held me at arm's length away and wrinkled his brow. "Weren't you wearing that last week?"

That should have been a warning sign. I laughed it off and confirmed that he was correct. I assured him it had gone through the laundry. I confessed that I had purposely changed into it when he said he was coming over because I kind of considered it my lucky outfit.

This was late May 1988. Crop tops and neon were in. What I was wearing was a short set consisting of a pair of jersey knit mint colored shorts, not too short, and not too long. It had a matching crop top which didn't look cropped so much as like a mistake because I'm so short-waisted, there was little gap between the bottom of the top and the top of my bottoms. My breasts were perky back then and I never wore a bra with that ensemble because the bra straps just never seemed to line up properly with the straps of the crop top. I looked fine without a bra, F.I.N.E., FINE. I was just starting to get comfortable with the fact that I had nice breasts so my foray into wearing shirts that showed off the girls was still fairly fresh. I wore black ballerina flats. I looked cute.

We got out to his car and had a brief make out session there before he put the keys in the ignition and we took off. The conversation was mostly one-sided. He expressed disappointment that I wasn't wearing makeup that night. He'd raised the issue earlier in the evening. "I've had a long day at work. Would it kill you to put on some makeup if you knew it was going to make me happy?" I told him that I, too, had had a long day at work and that was why I didn't feel like putting on makeup just for him. He dropped the topic, and I was grateful.

This night, we started the festivities in the living room. Heavy petting and kissing were taking place. He began to undress me right there on the couch. The lights were on and I was uncomfortable with it because I was still too self conscious of my naked body. I told him this. He responded with all the platitudes about my body being perfect just the way it was. He told me that if I was not comfortable with him seeing me naked, that I should close my eyes because he was enjoying what he saw. I let him remove my top, reluctantly, but I let him. I did convince him to move it into the bedroom where it was dark. He reluctantly agreed, and sent me on ahead of him. He was going to put on some music and the album he wanted was in the living room.

I walked into his bedroom a little apprehensive  and a little excited. I removed my shorts and crawled under the blankets to wait for him. He turned off the lights as he came back to join me. All I could see when he got to the doorway was the red embered end of his cigarette as he drew a puff off it. He turned on a light by the stereo so he could see to put the record on. "Do you like Clapton?" My affirmation was met with enthusiasm, even more so when I agreed that Slow Hand was my favorite album of Clapton's.

He turned off the light, walked to his bed, and undressed at the side before climbing in next to me. "Cocaine" came with an explanation between kisses. He wanted to make sure I knew that Eric Clapton had once had a serious coke problem. "Wonderful Tonight " was next. We were moving from kissing to coitus. He was inside of me when "Lay Down Sally" prompted him to laugh mid-thrust and sing, "Lay down Suzy..." He pulled out at the beginning of the next song and declared he wanted a blow job.

No fanfare. Just, "I want a blow job." I said, "No." I told him I'd never done one before and I wasn't ready to have anybody's penis in my mouth. He was straddling me, trying to cajole me into it. "It's like licking a popsicle. There's nothing to it." And I declined again while keeping my terrified eyes on that erect penis looming ever closer to my mouth. I was kind of trapped, but he was a nice guy, right?He had a beautiful apartment fully furnished with his parents' hand-me-downs compliments of his mother's need to redecorate every few years. He was in college. He was going to be a lawyer. So I tried to reason with him, but I was basically carrying on a conversation with his cock. "I licked you, so now you should lick me." Eric Clapton's "The Core" spun around the turntable while my head spun around trying to understand how the fuck I'd gotten in this situation. His penis was poised at my refusing lips.   I made the mistake to open them to plead one more time. He seized the opportunity and the back of my head so I licked.

And I cried. And I asked him to take me home. He told me that he didn't feel like driving, but I was welcome to walk myself home. My shoes and top were around there somewhere, but he wasn't going to say where. He'd give them to me in the morning. He rolled over and fell asleep. I laid on the other side of the bed, my back turned to his back. Slow Hand finished playing out then the needle found its way back to "Cocaine" and repeated what was to become the soundtrack for one of the most horrible nights of my life.

I laid there feeling rejected and dirty and somehow at fault for not being cool and just giving the guy a blow job. After a while, minutes, hours, I don't know, he rolled over and spooned me. "OK, so you don't do blow jobs. I guess I can live with that." He touched me in all the right spots and said what I believed at the time to be all the right words. So I grasped at the acceptance and let him give me a "pearl necklace" thanking my lucky stars that he hadn't kicked me out and hoping that maybe he was in love with me like I was with him.

Sunshine was forcing its way through the closed blinds when he woke me up, a lit cigarette and a glass of iced tea in his right hand, my top and shoes in his left. "C'mon, let's go. I've got to get ready for brunch with my parents." I mistakenly thought he wanted to get me home so I could change and go to brunch with them. But when we got to my building, he stopped only long enough for me to exit the car, a late model maroon Grand Prix, then he took off as soon as I closed the door.

By the end of the next weekend, I was calling both him and his car, "grand pricks". He invited my friend and her three year old daughter to his apartment complex to swim in the pool with us. I got to watch the toddler in her water wings while my friend and the guy I thought was my boyfriend flirted with each other. My period let me know of its presence by stabbing my uterus with incredible cramps. I called my friend from her deck chair to explain that I was going to need to get out of the pool and back home where my maxi pads were. He was annoyed. Why was I being so difficult? Still he mustered us up to his apartment where I asked if I could take a hot bath to try to alleviate my cramps.

I sat in the tub in my bikini resting my cheek on the cool tile while I tried to steam the pain out of my uterus. I heard the toddler saying, "Why won't she wake up?" He came to the bathroom with my friend, handed me a damp towel and said, "Don't be so melodramatic. You're scaring the kid." I had passed out in the tub, but he didn't want to hear it. I asked him to go to the store to get some pads for me. He dug around under his bathroom sink and handed me an open box of tampons. I questioned why a single man in a one bedroom apartment had a box of tampons. He said his ex-girlfriend had left them when she moved out and he didn't see a need to get rid of them. I would find out a few months later that he didn't have an ex-girlfriend. He had a live-in girlfriend who was gone over the summer. Grand. Prick.

It wasn't until 1991 when I was talking to a woman who would eventually become my fourth roommate for the year that I realized there was such a thing as date rape. I had been consoling her after what she had called a disastrous date. As she told her story and I was convincing her that she had in fact been raped, she said, "But Suzanne, my story is so similar to what happened to you and you said you weren't raped." We were in the lobby of our dorm on the way to our rooms when it hit me that she was right, that I was right, but it took someone else hearing my tale for me to grasp the reality. I had said, "NO." I was forced to perform oral sex against my will regardless. It was a revelation. It pissed me off.

It took me years to be able to listen to Slow Hand after that. One night, someone had asked me to dance to "Wonderful Tonight" and I declined. I told him I had some bad karma from that song. He was nice about it and respected my space. In the late 90s, I bought myself the "Slow Hand"CD and found I was able to listen to the whole thing without it triggering me into curling up in the fetal position like the leaves of that sensitive plant where if you brush the spine of the leaves, they close in to protect themselves from your touch. I could sing along with the songs, happily, joyfully, thankful that one of my favorite albums had been returned to my soul.

It took even longer, but thanks to the compassion and kindness of a former boyfriend, I was able to play around with performing oral sex. I came to discover that I rather enjoyed it. All was well and good til the 2016 Trump campaign and audio tape of him admitting to sexual assault. Then just after the election, while gracing a friend with a blow job, "The Core" shuffled onto my iPod. My internal dialogue immediately started telling me that I was over the rape, but my brain shut that shit down and I told myself that I didn't need to listen to that song while doing that thing to that guy who has never forced me to do anything. So I excused myself saying,"Don't ask, but I need to shuffle past this song. I'll be right back." He didn't ask. I didn't tell. It all turned out OK. And maybe one day I'll be able to listen to that song while I'm sucking on some guy, and maybe I won't, but it's all going to turn out OK. I'm OK.

The sad part is that if you asked the guy who raped me, he won't think he raped me. Donald Trump doesn't see where his behavior is that of a sexual predator. Sadder still, there are a lot of women who think I was blowing Mr. Trump's words out of proportion. Boys will be...locker room talk...it's not that big a deal...Oh, but it is. It is and we need to have this discussion because boys need to understand that girls have no obligation to reward them with sex, or even a smile if they so choose. We need to make it safe for women to come forward to report sexual assault because a big reason why so many of them don't has to do with the fact that every facet of their life will be examined and as victims they are not only shamed, but blamed. Rape isn't about sex. It's about power. It's about disrespect. It's about time we talk about it openly so we can stop it from happening in the future.

Some vignettes about misogyny and rape culture

It all started in my mid to late thirties when I had to write a two page response document because my company required that everyone be given annual reviews and in my annual review, my male boss failed me in eight out of eleven categories even though they were documented things a male co-worker had done, not me.

No, let me take you back to my early thirties when I had to turn in information about my male boss putting me in an ethically compromising position because he'd asked me to use my influence with a family member to try to hack someone's work emails and then started making comments that showed he had been following me and was aware of things I was doing in my personal life.

Wait, let me take you back to my late twenties when I was working as a cashier at a big box retailer. One day, those of us who had scored 100% on our quarterly tobacco and alcohol secret shops were being treated to lunch.  We were divvied up into various cars and I got put in the car with the head honcho of my store. On the way back from that luncheon, Head Honcho's hand "accidentally" fell to my knee from where it had been on the center console automatic gear shift of his ginormous high end Buick, twice.

That's not far enough. Let me take you back to my early twenties when I'd gone back to MSU for the second time and was living in the dorms.  The guys on brother floor had given all us girls 'beer goggle' ratings. And when I complained I was told, "Oh, you're just jealous because you were rated 'two kegs'. Ha ha. It's just harmless fun."

How about a few weeks before then and a debate in one of my English classes about whether or not a certain scene was a rape. ENG 202 v. Suz where I heard such illuminating arguments as, "she had been daydreaming about having sex with the guy she was cheating on her husband with so the salesman couldn't have raped her" and "she was already unfaithful to her husband so this was just more faithless sex on her part". The debate took up the whole of the class time. Our professor told us to wrap up our arguments. The nineteen year old spokesman decided to go first repeating the above points with others that were equally as obtuse. My response was one sentence, "I've already said all I have to say so just remind me never to date you."

No, let's try back when I had just graduated from being a teenager and was attending community college and living in an apartment with a friend and her boyfriend who was an MSU athlete. One evening, my male roommate called to let me know that one of his friends, K, (who I didn't like) would be stopping by with a "friend". He'd given this guy his key to the apartment and didn't want me to be surprised. His teammate knocked on my bedroom door to let me know he was there and to introduce me to his "friend" and another teammate, C, who had come along. I'd been hunkered down in my bedroom because the people who lived in the apartment with the controller thermostat for the whole building had very responsibly turned it down to 58* because they weren't going to be around. The owner was vacationing in Florida so the few of us who stayed there we resigned to having a White Christmas in our living rooms. I shed my comforter and came out into the kitchen because it was clear what K and his "friend" had planned after they shut themselves up in my roommates' room and turned the stereo on. I offered C access to the TV if he cared to watch anything, but I was going to take that time to wash the dishes and clean the kitchen. He opted to sit at the kitchen counter and talk to me which was all fine and good until I was done and he unceremoniously asked, "So, you wanna have sex?" I blinked hard before I answered with an emphatic NO and I stomped to the other bedroom to beat on the door, "K! C wants to go home now!"

But shortly after that, one of his other teammates picked me up off the living room floor where my roommate and I were folding our laundry. When my roommate the athlete was made aware of the situation, he literally tackled his friend off of me. I remember the conversation that took place. "You saw how she was sitting. She wanted it, man." "Nah, man! She was doing her laundry. She was just doing her laundry, man." Man to man they had this exchange as I shuddered in my roommate's arms, too frightened to even cry.

No, I have to take you back to junior high when I spent an entire semester of 7th grade as the only girl in a floor hockey class of 45 boys. My budding feminist bravado had gotten me back into the class after I'd had to plead my case to the male gym teacher who had decided to take the five girls who had signed up for the class and put them in tumbling. I went to the female teachers saying, "I don't tumble." They thought they could talk me out of making a fuss by telling me that if I could get Mr. Friess to let me back into floor hockey they'd sign off on the transfer slip. They were genuinely surprised when I turned to walk up the stairs from the locker room to the gym floor.

When he came up from the boy's locker room after making sure all the boys were out of there and presumably in their classes, I made an impassioned argument about not being able to skate well and being the descendant of Canadians and having hockey in my blood and floor hockey was as close as I was going to get to playing hockey. That not at all jolly, red-haired giant patiently listened to me and when I was done he said, "Yeah, you just want to be in this class because it has 45 guys in it." My back had been to the boys who had sat in the bleachers closest to the stairs for the boy's locker room on the opposite side of the gym. I took a deep breath, turned to look at the motley crew assembled, and turning back to the gym teacher said, "You dare to call some of them guys?" After he had a good laugh he gave me his blessing, "OK, Hemond, let me sign your slip. You're in."

I was told that no special accommodations would be made for me. When we did push ups, I was not allowed to do "girly" push ups on my knees, but straight legged, like one of the guys. Push ups were used as both a warm up and a punishment. We did ten unless somebody was a doofus and then five were tacked on until everyone's arms had been beaten into submission. Some days we did twenty, but most days we did ten. In the northwest corner, I tried to do my push ups like everyone else, although I can still feel my gym teacher's foot on my butt and hear him saying, "Hemond! Your butt is up so high you're gonna get snow on there." I tried to stay out of the center of attention because it was very clear that I was not wanted there. I had first figured this out on the day the four captains got to choose teams, I was not only picked last, but the captain whose turn it was to pick said, "Bye" as in "I decline to choose this one." Mr. Friess was speechless for a moment before bellowing, "You can't take a bye! This is a gym class and everyone has to play. It's your turn to pick. She's the only one left so you have to take her."

It became more evident in the daily greeting I got as I entered the gym. I was the only girl coming up from the basement so I was the only girl who got to see the bare asses of my classmates as they mooned me every day. I said nothing because I knew that if I did, I would be taken out of floor hockey and put back in tumbling.  And because I was the only girl, I was required to keep my shirt tucked in lest any boy "accidentally" get his hands caught under my shirt during battle. Trash talking was not only allowed, but expected. I accepted to the taunts from the 45 boys with half a smile and head nod that said, "I get it. I know my place."

One day as I was coming off the floor, one of my bottomless greeters who was in the penalty box, which was practically on the not so jolly, red-haired giant's lap, decided to tease me about my appearance. I'm 5'1" and short waisted so when I tuck my shirts in, I tend to look like somebody's grandpa who wears his pants pulled up to his chin. I was twelve, a seventh grader, and very self-conscious about my appearance, a typical pre-teen girl. When this boy kept asking me, "Hey, Suzy (I hate being called Suzy) why do you wear your shorts so high?" I walked past him to the drinking fountain and casually said, "Well, at least I keep mine on." He blanched and the gym teacher reddened in anger. When I got back from getting my drink, the boy was doubled over as if the verbal punch had struck him in the solar plexus and knocked the wind out of him. The gym teacher asked, "Is there something you'd like to tell me, Hemond?" I smiled my sweetest smile full of sugar and spice and all that other bullshit girls store up to keep the peace and make sure that some troglodyte won't take out his club and beat her in the cave later and I said, "No, sir. It's just a private joke between the two of us."

But my best friend knew. She was sworn to secrecy because she also knew that my biggest detractor in that class was also my biggest crush. It was obvious to her in that junior high language of saying the opposite of what you meant. "Nuh uh! I so do NOT like him!" And junior high hormones are evil bastards that force you to criticize when you want to compliment. "I really, REALLY like him" comes out as "What a total JERK!" She knew and kept both secrets because, let's face it, had I spoken up, I would have been removed from gym class, but he would have been removed from school.

One day the sub-basement room where the tumblers met was flooded and they were told to bring their books and do homework while the manly men (boys and one girl) had their floor hockey class. The tumbling class had a smattering of boys in it, but the girl to boy ratio was roughly the opposite of floor hockey. I was just one of the guys, the guy the other guys hated, but one of the guys. The tumblers were real live actual girls! Twelve to fourteen year old boys have figured out that not all girls have cooties so there was a lot of manly man posturing taking place. The two female gym teachers were patrolling the bleachers trying to keep their students in check while my gym teacher was piling on the push ups. "Five more." "Five more." "No, you're gonna hurt yourself doing your Rocky hand clap push ups. So stop it and FIVE MORE." My brain had stopped counting because the muscles in my arms were screaming over the top of everything else. I was one of the guys and got no special accommodations; that was the price put upon my pleading to be taken back in the class I'd originally signed up for and was removed from. Then the voice of my best friend shrieked above all the other noise. "OH MY GOD! IN THE BACK CORNER! THAT'S SUZANNE. SHUT UP, YOU GUYS! SHE'S DYING BACK THERE." While the voice of my coach, resonating like a bomb said, 'FIVE MORE!"

I remember doing those last five in silence. We were allowed to get up off the floor and break into our teams so we could play. I walked up to Mr. Friess and for the first time that semester I asked, "Can I not play today?" He looked apologetic, embarrassed as he quietly responded, "OK." I sat apart from my team. My captain had finally realized that I not only had some talent, but I was an aggressive player. He was beginning to play me more, putting me across from the talented guys on the other teams because while I was allowed to take all my aggression out on the shins of my classmates, they were not allowed to retaliate against me. Have to avoid lawsuits, you know.

I remained apart from my team, not a part of it. Just as I was beginning to feel like perhaps I was possibly going to be accepted maybe, the sub-basement flooded and I was caught in the undertow. Junior high, when my body was sculpting out my womanly form, that's when I became "other". All the examples I listed above are the continuation of that "don't tell, just be cool" secret that all girls are required to keep until the day they die. Woe to those of us who speak out. Boys will need two kegs to want to bed us not realizing that some of us will choose to sleep alone rather than be treated like less than,like other, like not good enough, like someone is doing us a favor.

We pick our battles. We keep our secrets because we have to weigh the cost of telling. Sometimes it costs us too much so we put up with the innuendo and the "locker room talk" because we are alone and have no one else to financially support us. Sometimes we brush away the hands laid upon our body without our permission because we need that pay check. It doesn't mean we're OK with it. We speak up because it's a problem and we need other women to know they're not alone. We demand that the conversation be changed to include us, not to talk about us, not to be appraised piecemeal, not to be told that we don't really mean it because we haven't spoken up til now. This is why so many women are appalled and angry by what Donald Trump has said about women lately, well, at least for as long as I've been aware of him. I'm forty- eight. I've been dealing with this I was twelve. I haven't disclosed all the details. I haven't told all my stories. Based on just these few anecdotes and the fact that I am still here, plodding along, knowing that other women have similar stories, some, God forbid, have worse stories, based on this I have to say that women are definitely not the weaker sex. And we're not going to put up with this attitude much longer.

Some vignettes about misogyny and rape culture

It all started in my mid to late thirties when I had to write a two page response document because my company required that everyone be given annual reviews and in my annual review, my male boss failed me in eight out of eleven categories even though they were documented things a male co-worker had done, not me.

No, let me take you back to my early thirties when I had to turn in information about my male boss putting me in an ethically compromising position because he'd asked me to use my influence with a family member to try to hack someone's work emails and then started making comments that showed he had been following me and was aware of things I was doing in my personal life.

Wait, let me take you back to my late twenties when I was working as a cashier at a big box retailer. One day, those of us who had scored 100% on our quarterly tobacco and alcohol secret shops were being treated to lunch.  We were divvied up into various cars and I got put in the car with the head honcho of my store. On the way back from that luncheon, Head Honcho's hand "accidentally" fell to my knee from where it had been on the center console automatic gear shift of his ginormous high end Buick, twice.

That's not far enough. Let me take you back to my early twenties when I'd gone back to MSU for the second time and was living in the dorms.  The guys on brother floor had given all us girls 'beer goggle' ratings. And when I complained I was told, "Oh, you're just jealous because you were rated 'two kegs'. Ha ha. It's just harmless fun."

How about a few weeks before then and a debate in one of my English classes about whether or not a certain scene was a rape. ENG 202 v. Suz where I heard such illuminating arguments as, "she had been daydreaming about having sex with the guy she was cheating on her husband with so the salesman couldn't have raped her" and "she was already unfaithful to her husband so this was just more faithless sex on her part". The debate took up the whole of the class time. Our professor told us to wrap up our arguments. The nineteen year old spokesman decided to go first repeating the above points with others that were equally as obtuse. My response was one sentence, "I've already said all I have to say so just remind me never to date you."

No, let's try back when I had just graduated from being a teenager and was attending community college and living in an apartment with a friend and her boyfriend who was an MSU athlete. One evening, my male roommate called to let me know that one of his friends, K, (who I didn't like) would be stopping by with a "friend". He'd given this guy his key to the apartment and didn't want me to be surprised. His teammate knocked on my bedroom door to let me know he was there and to introduce me to his "friend" and another teammate, C, who had come along. I'd been hunkered down in my bedroom because the people who lived in the apartment with the controller thermostat for the whole building had very responsibly turned it down to 58* because they weren't going to be around. The owner was vacationing in Florida so the few of us who stayed there we resigned to having a White Christmas in our living rooms. I shed my comforter and came out into the kitchen because it was clear what K and his "friend" had planned after they shut themselves up in my roommates' room and turned the stereo on. I offered C access to the TV if he cared to watch anything, but I was going to take that time to wash the dishes and clean the kitchen. He opted to sit at the kitchen counter and talk to me which was all fine and good until I was done and he unceremoniously asked, "So, you wanna have sex?" I blinked hard before I answered with an emphatic NO and I stomped to the other bedroom to beat on the door, "K! C wants to go home now!"

But shortly after that, one of his other teammates picked me up off the living room floor where my roommate and I were folding our laundry. When my roommate the athlete was made aware of the situation, he literally tackled his friend off of me. I remember the conversation that took place. "You saw how she was sitting. She wanted it, man." "Nah, man! She was doing her laundry. She was just doing her laundry, man." Man to man they had this exchange as I shuddered in my roommate's arms, too frightened to even cry.

No, I have to take you back to junior high when I spent an entire semester of 7th grade as the only girl in a floor hockey class of 45 boys. My budding feminist bravado had gotten me back into the class after I'd had to plead my case to the male gym teacher who had decided to take the five girls who had signed up for the class and put them in tumbling. I went to the female teachers saying, "I don't tumble." They thought they could talk me out of making a fuss by telling me that if I could get Mr. Friess to let me back into floor hockey they'd sign off on the transfer slip. They were genuinely surprised when I turned to walk up the stairs from the locker room to the gym floor.

When he came up from the boy's locker room after making sure all the boys were out of there and presumably in their classes, I made an impassioned argument about not being able to skate well and being the descendant of Canadians and having hockey in my blood and floor hockey was as close as I was going to get to playing hockey. That not at all jolly, red-haired giant patiently listened to me and when I was done he said, "Yeah, you just want to be in this class because it has 45 guys in it." My back had been to the boys who had sat in the bleachers closest to the stairs for the boy's locker room on the opposite side of the gym. I took a deep breath, turned to look at the motley crew assembled, and turning back to the gym teacher said, "You dare to call some of them guys?" After he had a good laugh he gave me his blessing, "OK, Hemond, let me sign your slip. You're in."

I was told that no special accommodations would be made for me. When we did push ups, I was not allowed to do "girly" push ups on my knees, but straight legged, like one of the guys. Push ups were used as both a warm up and a punishment. We did ten unless somebody was a doofus and then five were tacked on until everyone's arms had been beaten into submission. Some days we did twenty, but most days we did ten. In the northwest corner, I tried to do my push ups like everyone else, although I can still feel my gym teacher's foot on my butt and hear him saying, "Hemond! Your butt is up so high you're gonna get snow on there." I tried to stay out of the center of attention because it was very clear that I was not wanted there. I had first figured this out on the day the four captains got to choose teams, I was not only picked last, but the captain whose turn it was to pick said, "Bye" as in "I decline to choose this one." Mr. Friess was speechless for a moment before bellowing, "You can't take a bye! This is a gym class and everyone has to play. It's your turn to pick. She's the only one left so you have to take her."

It became more evident in the daily greeting I got as I entered the gym. I was the only girl coming up from the basement so I was the only girl who got to see the bare asses of my classmates as they mooned me every day. I said nothing because I knew that if I did, I would be taken out of floor hockey and put back in tumbling.  And because I was the only girl, I was required to keep my shirt tucked in lest any boy "accidentally" get his hands caught under my shirt during battle. Trash talking was not only allowed, but expected. I accepted to the taunts from the 45 boys with half a smile and head nod that said, "I get it. I know my place."

One day as I was coming off the floor, one of my bottomless greeters who was in the penalty box, which was practically on the not so jolly, red-haired giant's lap, decided to tease me about my appearance. I'm 5'1" and short waisted so when I tuck my shirts in, I tend to look like somebody's grandpa who wears his pants pulled up to his chin. I was twelve, a seventh grader, and very self-conscious about my appearance, a typical pre-teen girl. When this boy kept asking me, "Hey, Suzy (I hate being called Suzy) why do you wear your shorts so high?" I walked past him to the drinking fountain and casually said, "Well, at least I keep mine on." He blanched and the gym teacher reddened in anger. When I got back from getting my drink, the boy was doubled over as if the verbal punch had struck him in the solar plexus and knocked the wind out of him. The gym teacher asked, "Is there something you'd like to tell me, Hemond?" I smiled my sweetest smile full of sugar and spice and all that other bullshit girls store up to keep the peace and make sure that some troglodyte won't take out his club and beat her in the cave later and I said, "No, sir. It's just a private joke between the two of us."

But my best friend knew. She was sworn to secrecy because she also knew that my biggest detractor in that class was also my biggest crush. It was obvious to her in that junior high language of saying the opposite of what you meant. "Nuh uh! I so do NOT like him!" And junior high hormones are evil bastards that force you to criticize when you want to compliment. "I really, REALLY like him" comes out as "What a total JERK!" She knew and kept both secrets because, let's face it, had I spoken up, I would have been removed from gym class, but he would have been removed from school.

One day the sub-basement room where the tumblers met was flooded and they were told to bring their books and do homework while the manly men (boys and one girl) had their floor hockey class. The tumbling class had a smattering of boys in it, but the girl to boy ratio was roughly the opposite of floor hockey. I was just one of the guys, the guy the other guys hated, but one of the guys. The tumblers were real live actual girls! Twelve to fourteen year old boys have figured out that not all girls have cooties so there was a lot of manly man posturing taking place. The two female gym teachers were patrolling the bleachers trying to keep their students in check while my gym teacher was piling on the push ups. "Five more." "Five more." "No, you're gonna hurt yourself doing your Rocky hand clap push ups. So stop it and FIVE MORE." My brain had stopped counting because the muscles in my arms were screaming over the top of everything else. I was one of the guys and got no special accommodations; that was the price put upon my pleading to be taken back in the class I'd originally signed up for and was removed from. Then the voice of my best friend shrieked above all the other noise. "OH MY GOD! IN THE BACK CORNER! THAT'S SUZANNE. SHUT UP, YOU GUYS! SHE'S DYING BACK THERE." While the voice of my coach, resonating like a bomb said, 'FIVE MORE!"

I remember doing those last five in silence. We were allowed to get up off the floor and break into our teams so we could play. I walked up to Mr. Friess and for the first time that semester I asked, "Can I not play today?" He looked apologetic, embarrassed as he quietly responded, "OK." I sat apart from my team. My captain had finally realized that I not only had some talent, but I was an aggressive player. He was beginning to play me more, putting me across from the talented guys on the other teams because while I was allowed to take all my aggression out on the shins of my classmates, they were not allowed to retaliate against me. Have to avoid lawsuits, you know.

I remained apart from my team, not a part of it. Just as I was beginning to feel like perhaps I was possibly going to be accepted maybe, the sub-basement flooded and I was caught in the undertow. Junior high, when my body was sculpting out my womanly form, that's when I became "other". All the examples I listed above are the continuation of that "don't tell, just be cool" secret that all girls are required to keep until the day they die. Woe to those of us who speak out. Boys will need two kegs to want to bed us not realizing that some of us will choose to sleep alone rather than be treated like less than,like other, like not good enough, like someone is doing us a favor.

We pick our battles. We keep our secrets because we have to weigh the cost of telling. Sometimes it costs us too much so we put up with the innuendo and the "locker room talk" because we are alone and have no one else to financially support us. Sometimes we brush away the hands laid upon our body without our permission because we need that pay check. It doesn't mean we're OK with it. We speak up because it's a problem and we need other women to know they're not alone. We demand that the conversation be changed to include us, not to talk about us, not to be appraised piecemeal, not to be told that we don't really mean it because we haven't spoken up til now. This is why so many women are appalled and angry by what Donald Trump has said about women lately, well, at least for as long as I've been aware of him. I'm forty- eight. I've been dealing with this I was twelve. I haven't disclosed all the details. I haven't told all my stories. Based on just these few anecdotes and the fact that I am still here, plodding along, knowing that other women have similar stories, some, God forbid, have worse stories, based on this I have to say that women are definitely not the weaker sex. And we're not going to put up with this attitude much longer.

Some vignettes about misogyny and rape culture

It all started in my mid to late thirties when I had to write a two page response document because my company required that everyone be given annual reviews and in my annual review, my male boss failed me in eight out of eleven categories even though they were documented things a male co-worker had done, not me.

No, let me take you back to my early thirties when I had to turn in information about my male boss putting me in an ethically compromising position because he'd asked me to use my influence with a family member to try to hack someone's work emails and then started making comments that showed he had been following me and was aware of things I was doing in my personal life.

Wait, let me take you back to my late twenties when I was working as a cashier at a big box retailer. One day, those of us who had scored 100% on our quarterly tobacco and alcohol secret shops were being treated to lunch.  We were divvied up into various cars and I got put in the car with the head honcho of my store. On the way back from that luncheon, Head Honcho's hand "accidentally" fell to my knee from where it had been on the center console automatic gear shift of his ginormous high end Buick, twice.

That's not far enough. Let me take you back to my early twenties when I'd gone back to MSU for the second time and was living in the dorms.  The guys on brother floor had given all us girls 'beer goggle' ratings. And when I complained I was told, "Oh, you're just jealous because you were rated 'two kegs'. Ha ha. It's just harmless fun."

How about a few weeks before then and a debate in one of my English classes about whether or not a certain scene was a rape. ENG 202 v. Suz where I heard such illuminating arguments as, "she had been daydreaming about having sex with the guy she was cheating on her husband with so the salesman couldn't have raped her" and "she was already unfaithful to her husband so this was just more faithless sex on her part". The debate took up the whole of the class time. Our professor told us to wrap up our arguments. The nineteen year old spokesman decided to go first repeating the above points with others that were equally as obtuse. My response was one sentence, "I've already said all I have to say so just remind me never to date you."

No, let's try back when I had just graduated from being a teenager and was attending community college and living in an apartment with a friend and her boyfriend who was an MSU athlete. One evening, my male roommate called to let me know that one of his friends, K, (who I didn't like) would be stopping by with a "friend". He'd given this guy his key to the apartment and didn't want me to be surprised. His teammate knocked on my bedroom door to let me know he was there and to introduce me to his "friend" and another teammate, C, who had come along. I'd been hunkered down in my bedroom because the people who lived in the apartment with the controller thermostat for the whole building had very responsibly turned it down to 58* because they weren't going to be around. The owner was vacationing in Florida so the few of us who stayed there we resigned to having a White Christmas in our living rooms. I shed my comforter and came out into the kitchen because it was clear what K and his "friend" had planned after they shut themselves up in my roommates' room and turned the stereo on. I offered C access to the TV if he cared to watch anything, but I was going to take that time to wash the dishes and clean the kitchen. He opted to sit at the kitchen counter and talk to me which was all fine and good until I was done and he unceremoniously asked, "So, you wanna have sex?" I blinked hard before I answered with an emphatic NO and I stomped to the other bedroom to beat on the door, "K! C wants to go home now!"

But shortly after that, one of his other teammates picked me up off the living room floor where my roommate and I were folding our laundry. When my roommate the athlete was made aware of the situation, he literally tackled his friend off of me. I remember the conversation that took place. "You saw how she was sitting. She wanted it, man." "Nah, man! She was doing her laundry. She was just doing her laundry, man." Man to man they had this exchange as I shuddered in my roommate's arms, too frightened to even cry.

No, I have to take you back to junior high when I spent an entire semester of 7th grade as the only girl in a floor hockey class of 45 boys. My budding feminist bravado had gotten me back into the class after I'd had to plead my case to the male gym teacher who had decided to take the five girls who had signed up for the class and put them in tumbling. I went to the female teachers saying, "I don't tumble." They thought they could talk me out of making a fuss by telling me that if I could get Mr. Friess to let me back into floor hockey they'd sign off on the transfer slip. They were genuinely surprised when I turned to walk up the stairs from the locker room to the gym floor.

When he came up from the boy's locker room after making sure all the boys were out of there and presumably in their classes, I made an impassioned argument about not being able to skate well and being the descendant of Canadians and having hockey in my blood and floor hockey was as close as I was going to get to playing hockey. That not at all jolly, red-haired giant patiently listened to me and when I was done he said, "Yeah, you just want to be in this class because it has 45 guys in it." My back had been to the boys who had sat in the bleachers closest to the stairs for the boy's locker room on the opposite side of the gym. I took a deep breath, turned to look at the motley crew assembled, and turning back to the gym teacher said, "You dare to call some of them guys?" After he had a good laugh he gave me his blessing, "OK, Hemond, let me sign your slip. You're in."

I was told that no special accommodations would be made for me. When we did push ups, I was not allowed to do "girly" push ups on my knees, but straight legged, like one of the guys. Push ups were used as both a warm up and a punishment. We did ten unless somebody was a doofus and then five were tacked on until everyone's arms had been beaten into submission. Some days we did twenty, but most days we did ten. In the northwest corner, I tried to do my push ups like everyone else, although I can still feel my gym teacher's foot on my butt and hear him saying, "Hemond! Your butt is up so high you're gonna get snow on there." I tried to stay out of the center of attention because it was very clear that I was not wanted there. I had first figured this out on the day the four captains got to choose teams, I was not only picked last, but the captain whose turn it was to pick said, "Bye" as in "I decline to choose this one." Mr. Friess was speechless for a moment before bellowing, "You can't take a bye! This is a gym class and everyone has to play. It's your turn to pick. She's the only one left so you have to take her."

It became more evident in the daily greeting I got as I entered the gym. I was the only girl coming up from the basement so I was the only girl who got to see the bare asses of my classmates as they mooned me every day. I said nothing because I knew that if I did, I would be taken out of floor hockey and put back in tumbling.  And because I was the only girl, I was required to keep my shirt tucked in lest any boy "accidentally" get his hands caught under my shirt during battle. Trash talking was not only allowed, but expected. I accepted to the taunts from the 45 boys with half a smile and head nod that said, "I get it. I know my place."

One day as I was coming off the floor, one of my bottomless greeters who was in the penalty box, which was practically on the not so jolly, red-haired giant's lap, decided to tease me about my appearance. I'm 5'1" and short waisted so when I tuck my shirts in, I tend to look like somebody's grandpa who wears his pants pulled up to his chin. I was twelve, a seventh grader, and very self-conscious about my appearance, a typical pre-teen girl. When this boy kept asking me, "Hey, Suzy (I hate being called Suzy) why do you wear your shorts so high?" I walked past him to the drinking fountain and casually said, "Well, at least I keep mine on." He blanched and the gym teacher reddened in anger. When I got back from getting my drink, the boy was doubled over as if the verbal punch had struck him in the solar plexus and knocked the wind out of him. The gym teacher asked, "Is there something you'd like to tell me, Hemond?" I smiled my sweetest smile full of sugar and spice and all that other bullshit girls store up to keep the peace and make sure that some troglodyte won't take out his club and beat her in the cave later and I said, "No, sir. It's just a private joke between the two of us."

But my best friend knew. She was sworn to secrecy because she also knew that my biggest detractor in that class was also my biggest crush. It was obvious to her in that junior high language of saying the opposite of what you meant. "Nuh uh! I so do NOT like him!" And junior high hormones are evil bastards that force you to criticize when you want to compliment. "I really, REALLY like him" comes out as "What a total JERK!" She knew and kept both secrets because, let's face it, had I spoken up, I would have been removed from gym class, but he would have been removed from school.

One day the sub-basement room where the tumblers met was flooded and they were told to bring their books and do homework while the manly men (boys and one girl) had their floor hockey class. The tumbling class had a smattering of boys in it, but the girl to boy ratio was roughly the opposite of floor hockey. I was just one of the guys, the guy the other guys hated, but one of the guys. The tumblers were real live actual girls! Twelve to fourteen year old boys have figured out that not all girls have cooties so there was a lot of manly man posturing taking place. The two female gym teachers were patrolling the bleachers trying to keep their students in check while my gym teacher was piling on the push ups. "Five more." "Five more." "No, you're gonna hurt yourself doing your Rocky hand clap push ups. So stop it and FIVE MORE." My brain had stopped counting because the muscles in my arms were screaming over the top of everything else. I was one of the guys and got no special accommodations; that was the price put upon my pleading to be taken back in the class I'd originally signed up for and was removed from. Then the voice of my best friend shrieked above all the other noise. "OH MY GOD! IN THE BACK CORNER! THAT'S SUZANNE. SHUT UP, YOU GUYS! SHE'S DYING BACK THERE." While the voice of my coach, resonating like a bomb said, 'FIVE MORE!"

I remember doing those last five in silence. We were allowed to get up off the floor and break into our teams so we could play. I walked up to Mr. Friess and for the first time that semester I asked, "Can I not play today?" He looked apologetic, embarrassed as he quietly responded, "OK." I sat apart from my team. My captain had finally realized that I not only had some talent, but I was an aggressive player. He was beginning to play me more, putting me across from the talented guys on the other teams because while I was allowed to take all my aggression out on the shins of my classmates, they were not allowed to retaliate against me. Have to avoid lawsuits, you know.

I remained apart from my team, not a part of it. Just as I was beginning to feel like perhaps I was possibly going to be accepted maybe, the sub-basement flooded and I was caught in the undertow. Junior high, when my body was sculpting out my womanly form, that's when I became "other". All the examples I listed above are the continuation of that "don't tell, just be cool" secret that all girls are required to keep until the day they die. Woe to those of us who speak out. Boys will need two kegs to want to bed us not realizing that some of us will choose to sleep alone rather than be treated like less than,like other, like not good enough, like someone is doing us a favor.

We pick our battles. We keep our secrets because we have to weigh the cost of telling. Sometimes it costs us too much so we put up with the innuendo and the "locker room talk" because we are alone and have no one else to financially support us. Sometimes we brush away the hands laid upon our body without our permission because we need that pay check. It doesn't mean we're OK with it. We speak up because it's a problem and we need other women to know they're not alone. We demand that the conversation be changed to include us, not to talk about us, not to be appraised piecemeal, not to be told that we don't really mean it because we haven't spoken up til now. This is why so many women are appalled and angry by what Donald Trump has said about women lately, well, at least for as long as I've been aware of him. I'm forty- eight. I've been dealing with this I was twelve. I haven't disclosed all the details. I haven't told all my stories. Based on just these few anecdotes and the fact that I am still here, plodding along, knowing that other women have similar stories, some, God forbid, have worse stories, based on this I have to say that women are definitely not the weaker sex. And we're not going to put up with this attitude much longer.