Had they all been listening to locker room banter? We spent the afternoon looking at mug shots of known rapists. The next day I asked the dean of my academic program to go with me to the police station. When I saw her, I burst into tears and she thought someone had died. I didn’t cry until my roommate came home that night. I no longer knew what they might be capable of. I felt sick, panicked that the couple might get off at the next station and leave me in a closed compartment with two men. The train compartments did not have doors connecting the cars. There were four other people in the compartment: two male riders and a man and woman, holding hands. On the subway home, I sat on the hard, plastic seat rocking back and forth. There was no one around to hear me, but I screamed anyway I made as much noise as I could. In that brief pause it occurred to me to scream - the one thing I hadn’t tried. I wrenched one arm down so strongly I ripped the man’s watch off his wrist and it fell to the ground. I kept pushing their hands away from my body. If I ended up on the ground, I’d have no chance.
I was also practical: I didn’t want the encounter to turn violent. I had never listened to locker room banter. I had been raised to see men, all people, as human, to be concerned about their welfare, to be a nurturer, to care. That was the thought that leapt unbidden to my mind: I wouldn’t want to hurt them.
BABYSITTING GAY NIFTY HOW TO
I had been learning how to play rugby I knew how to tackle. I could kick them in the shins, I thought, I could kick them in the balls. I kept breaking away and trying to outrun them. Their legs were longer, they were stronger, and there were two of them. I broke off and ran away from them-faster this time, but they kept up. I whirled around to face them but they grabbed at my breasts. I had never seen it like this.Īs I ran, I heard footsteps that got louder - two men, running directly behind me. The clouds cleared by late afternoon, but when I arrived the park was empty. There was a park and families came to enjoy the sunset in the evenings. When I was twenty, I went running on a bike path along a river in the city where I was a student. Some guys don’t listen to locker room banter. I chose well and never had to deal with the latter. Would he put a blanket over me and be kind, would he push me aside in disgust or anger at not getting what he wanted, or would he take the opportunity to go up my shirt or down my pants? I needed to know if I could trust him when no one was looking. If a guy showed interest and seemed safe and we started dating, I pretended to get drunk and pass out, just to see what he might do. There was nothing I could do to avoid that. I didn’t drink alcohol in high school it would have made me feel too vulnerable.īut simply being a woman made me vulnerable. I started wearing my brother’s clothes-baggy sweatshirts and jeans so big I had to roll down the waistband to keep them up. I ran into that boy at a Christmas party decades later. But I thought he wanted to be my boyfriend. Maybe I shouldn’t have let him hold my hand. He looked at me with a blank face and dead eyes. The next day I tried to talk to him, to tell him what had happened wasn't okay.
BABYSITTING GAY NIFTY FULL
Perhaps his ears were too full of locker room banter. I said, “No.” I said, “Stop.” I tried pushing him away. When I was fifteen I was date raped at summer camp by a boy I had a crush on. I pretended I was okay, but I tried to kill myself not long after that. How had this happened? Had he started listening to locker room banter? This man had known me since I was nine - he had two daughters. It took twenty years and much therapy before I could tell her the full story, before I could admit it even to myself. I told my mother only that he had propositioned me, not anything else. I went to school the next day, sitting in class like nothing happened.
He told me it was “safe” to have sex with him - he’d had a vasectomy and wouldn’t get me pregnant. He sat on my bed, ran his hand under the covers and put his fingers up inside me. My mother’s boyfriend came into my room to say goodnight. The second time I was kissed I was twelve or thirteen. I was reading Beverly Cleary books and wishing I could be a horse.ĭo you think he had been listening to locker room banter? I don’t know why he thought he could do this. He lifted me up by my armpits, sat me on the kitchen counter, leaned over me and slid his tongue into my mouth. The first man who kissed me when I didn’t want him to was the boyfriend of my babysitter. The Record's Jeannie Yandel speaks with Tara Weaver about her experiences with sexual assault.