In the light of the Me Too Movement and Epstien and, and, and... there will be women angry when I say that we're ALL the victims here. Men and women. Sons and daughters. But let me explain.
While I find the "It's a dangerous time to be a man in America" an angering, frustrating, huge line of BULLSHIT... I do, in fact, fear for my son. NOT because he'll be falsely accused. But because the line between right and wrong, pressure and "assault", what boys and girls want and "should do" is blurry. My son had a girlfriend last year and, what both came up against and what made them ultimately return to friendship, was that they hated the expectations that came with the label of "boyfriend" or "girlfriend". What they were "supposed" to be doing or feeling.
We have to do better for our kids. We keep normalizing behavior instead of saying it's wrong. We keep sweeping under the carpet and blurring the lines. We keep holding victims responsible by asking if they've had a drink or asking them what they were wearing or asking them why they didn't speak up. We've created a culture where our sons and daughters have no clear guidance. It's not that we've created a culture where rape or assault is okay... it's that we've failed to DEFINE what it is, where the line is. We all know rape isn't okay, we know assault isn't okay... we've just failed to guide our sons and daughters on the DEFINITION of these terms and on where the accountability, THEIR accountability, begins.
I remember my daughter getting "spanked on the butt" by a boy at school and the school, while taking seriously that he should not be hurting a fellow classmate, told me I was overreacting because "he's too young to mean it in a sexual way". I got angry. What I want them to fucking teach my daughter and that boy is that you DON'T TOUCH ANYONE IN ANY WAY without their consent. Period. Because... where's the line? When IS he old enough to mean it in a sexual way and why the fuck does that matter? It doesn't. Unwanted touch doesn't have to be sexual to be wrong. IT'S UNWANTED. She didn't want to be spanked. PERIOD. The end. He and she should know she had a right to feel violated and he needs to keep his hands to himself. PERIOD.
At a wedding we attended, my husband found it so frustrating that, as a society, we still don't understand that. Because of how we've been taught. A man walked by me, took his hands underneath my hair, along my neck and ran this fingers through my hair. I froze. Stood there in shock (see more below about the freeze reaction, it's damn frustrating). But I've never seen Jason move so fast in my life (except when Liz got in trouble in the waves once). He was after that man like a SHOT. The man (drunk) and his drunken friends told Jason to calm down, that it wasn't a big deal, that the man was just drunk. And Jason wasn't having it. He asked if they had children and they said "well, that's different"... but to Jason it isn't. And he made it abundantly clear to those now terrified men. Wife, child, son, daughter, friend, acquaintance... it didn't matter. He yelled "you don't touch MY WIFE OR ANYONE!!" To him YOU DON'T TOUCH ANYONE ANYWHERE without their consent. You don't. No excuses. You don't do it. They thought he should only be angry if I was his young, defenseless daughter. Or if I'm his wife but had been touched in a way that is a big deal (private parts, I guess?). But Jason was floored that they couldn't see that it IS a big deal. He saw my face. He knows my history. But for him, even more, he was floored that the line was blurry to those men. To them, they COULD touch an adult woman without her consent because "oh he was drunk and it was just her hair". So when is is not okay... middle of my back, lower? Where's the line? It's at touch. PERIOD. I don't know you. You don't get to touch me in a familiar way. AT ALL.
The boy who abused me when I was a high schooler was "following some bad advice". He was. His view is much like those men at that wedding. That's why I confronted him privately rather than running around screaming his name. I wanted him to learn from our experience. I wanted him to draw a clearer line in the future for how he should treat a partner. The line between assault and "normal" or "okay" is blurry... because we've made it that way. He was taught and I was taught that rape or assault was forcing, strangers, holding down, screaming, yelling "no". So when he asked his big brother for advice about why I was resisting affection, he was told "keep pushing, break her". And he broke me.
He told me he KNEW why I wore layers and layers of clothes even in Los Angeles where it's warm (in the hopes he would be too frustrated to touch me)... he KNEW, but he persisted. Was that wrong? Does that make him the perpetrator and the abuser? YES. And no. He knew I didn't want him touching me, but he did. That is WRONG. But he (and I) had had the line in that behavior blurred and normalized by what we'd been taught. Boys push, girls say no. Boys keep pushing. That's what they do. They want to score. They can't, apparently, be expected to engage their brains over their hormones and stop. But what we have to teach all our kids, boys and girls, is that they CAN engage their brains and they have to.
Until we stop this kind of thought that pushing is normal, boys can't be expected to have control, until the likes of Brock Turner's father cannot use the phrase "punished for trying to get some", we're all screwed folks. Your sons and daughters. Those who view what he was doing was "trying to get some" rather than assault, those boys who have been taught that it's okay to keep pushing, that you're supposed to score, that drunken behavior you cannot be held accountable for, we'll all stay the victims. Until boys and girls are taught to stop, move away, take a break and engage their brains, speak up as soon as the TINIEST doubt creeps in so that they CAN engage their brains for a bit. We're still victims. ALL of us.
My husband has a phrase... if there's any doubt, there's no doubt. He uses it in reference to relationships. When a friend says "well, I'm not sure about her" or "everything would be fine if only..." or "I don't know..." he tells them to stop. He says "if there's any doubt, there's no doubt", meaning there's NO DOUBT it's time to STOP moving forward, pushing ahead. It's time to start thinking. If you even have the smallest shred of doubt. Walk away. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. Do not proceed. If there's ANY doubt it's wrong, there's NO DOUBT it IS wrong. Something is causing you to pause. To doubt. So STOP. Listen to that doubt.
So let's teach our sons and daughters THAT. It will protect both of them. It will make that line HUGE, clear, and easy to see.
Even if you agreed to make out, if what he's starting to do feels uncomfortable. STOP. If she freezes, stiffens, or says "I'm not sure if we should..." STOP. If she said you could touch her but is holding the bottom of her shirt down as you try. STOP. If you say you're ready, but you feel yourself freezing, hesitating, getting scared. STOP. Boys or girls. Boys don't HAVE to want to score. They're made to feel less manly if they're not ready. Girl's don't HAVE to be pushed. It's okay to know your limits. Let's take that blurry line we were given and make it crystal damn clear for our kids.
If there's any doubt it's wrong, if there's any doubt he or she wants to, there's NO DOUBT you should stop. Walk away. Be done. Better safe than sorry. Better to proceed with both giving a clear GO instead of waiting for a loud STOP. Wait for the green light. It's so much clearer than hoping to run that yellow before it's red.
I read recently about the "freeze" reaction. We all know fight or flight. What most of us didn't learn, what I wish I had learned so I would stop beating myself up for not yelling, screaming, fighting, etc... is that victims often FREEZE. I wish both I AND the boy who abused me, had learned it. He would have known to stop pushing. It's a biological reaction. Like playing dead so a bear won't notice. Your body can shut down. It's the body's attempt to slow down everything in an attempt to give the brain a chance to engage, react and plan or to just survive. It can be a detection freeze like when prey first hear predators moving. But it can often be read as consent. She's not resisting. He's not saying no. We have to know that freezing = doubt too.
If there's ANY doubt, there's no doubt. Do you freeze and stiffen when you're having a good time? No, you relax. Fight, flight, freeze. If there's any doubt... there's no doubt. STOP.
We have to teach our sons and daughters to listen to their guts. Believe me, it won't steer you wrong. If someone touches them, if "hazing" begins to feel like violence, if a relative or neighbor's affection seems misplaced, if our sons or daughters watch their friends and suddenly become concerned that "something isn't right" about their actions, attitudes, or treatment of others... we have to teach them to listen. If there's any doubt... there's no doubt. It doesn't mean go running and shouting and accuse. It means STOP. Analyze. Ask. Move away to be better safe than sorry. I've had 3 men come forward later and say they suspected in high school that their friend was abusing or mistreating me somehow... but they didn't know what to do. I want to teach my kids to TALK, investigate, ask if they get that gut feeling. Don't jump to conclusions. But start to ask.
If there's any doubt... there's no doubt. I like that slogan. It's all good and nice to teach "consent", but it may not be realistic. Are our kids really going to stop at each move and say "is this okay?" how often do they? Each time their hands move an inch? Crosses which line? And how far does "consent" go? One minute, one hour? At some point, listening to the hairs on the backs of our necks, noticing the freezing or the cold sweat or the change in tone of voice or social patterns... it's more effective, it's a better teacher.
And it takes the bullshit gender-battle out of it. All our sons and daughters need to know about how behavior gets normalized, how we get desensitized, AND how to learn to respect one another and themselves enough to be accountable, take responsibility and treat each other right.
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