Prompt Images
How do you shape the idea of space to be yours? Have you built walls and defenses and hung pretty photos on them? Perhaps you dotted square feet with some plants. But a woman knows no space is fully her own. We have learned to push and pull and wax and wane and ebb and flow into the spaces that a man isn’t occupying in any given moment. It’s what makes our bodies: flesh to consume, and our voices: noise to ignore.
I learned how to take up space from men.
And I recently came to realize that is why I thoroughly unsettle some people, just by existing. These who would yell on the street, grope in a bar, stalk on a subway, remind me that no matter what I tell myself or what I know to be true, men can and will try to fuck me, a body. That most times, I am not a person.
They’ll do this until I’m somehow made undesirable as such an object, either in the service of men or in the the opposition of men, discarded wholly either way. It’s what makes us move when they’re about to run us over, to say “sorry” reflexively when they bump into us, to ‘give in’ to a ‘nice guy’ that wears us down.
This is how I embarked on the shittiest date of my entire fucking life.
Swiping my meager MetroCard, painfully trying to attempt playful flirtation, drinking like a frat boy, and eventually fucking some sweaty douchebag in the space that was supposed to be mine alone, that sometimes feels as if it never has been.
It’s hard to describe the unbridled desires of a young woman, and how they are burdened, set off in the cart grooves put forth by a legacy of heteronormative patriarchy. We’re thrown into the idea of sex with 100 percent outside messaging as children, that it’s some monolithic mystery that controls everything.
We’re told as young teens that this is all wrong, that we shouldn’t do any of the sex with anyone except under very specific conditions. The cost of sexual exploration as a young woman is so much higher than a young man, both socially and physically. Hearing those messages at that age felt like bouncing around a rubber room, where what we’re supposed to do and be competes with the hormonal and instinctual drive to fool around. So, even as teenagers, we are bound unwillingly, unsure of how to step out into the sunshine with adjustment and care, how to not be clumsy with ourselves and others.
The performance of a ‘serious relationship’ at a young age that lowkeyhighkey imitates our parents (or books, movies, or songs) does nothing more than enforce the boundaries of Puritanism on barely-formed minds on both sides. Instead of emulating the child’s idea of a relationship with the sex drive of a teenager, we should be taught how to be equitable and treat others with respect—especially regarding love and sex. As a teen, you float in the eddy of unofficially sanctioned sexual activity on specific terms, literally stuffing it in wherever you can (almost nowhere) with a confused and—at this point—wounded hunger.
It’s not fucking healthy, and it hurts our choices as adults.
If the only sex we can have as teenagers is the kind that continues to turn us into damaged adult women, but being queer or experimenting with unconventional sexuality isn’t OK, it’s stunningly shortsighted.
Maybe, like me, other women felt this lacking as we entered our early twenties armed with this clipped wing that was never, ever, spread or flown on in the open sky. It keeps you firmly in those wagon wheel ruts, picking up speed now. Only experiencing serious relationships with hardcore traditionalist expectations to access sex leaves young women who date as adults stunned and corkscrewing into the ocean like a baby seabird. “Giant fish are waiting just for this occasion to gobble her up,” David Attenborough narrates in a rasp as she falls backward, spinning, through each bar, wood and stools and beer taps swirling into a neon blur. Each time more and more intoxicated, pliant, delectable, easy prey, perfect to consume and discard.
It’s with this haze of confusion that so many of us enter the workforce, staffed plentifully with men. We endure unwanted workplace flirtation, harassment, consensual affairs with financial and gendered costs, outright assault, and a general culture of ‘fuckability’ that has pummeled us for years, in many cases, decades.
My Date with Troy
This climate had me resigning my better judgement to finally go on a date with a persistent customer at my dive bar job, named Troy (name NOT FUCKING CHANGED, YA FUCK). He would ask every Thursday and Saturday, often pleading for my number. I not only considered it part of the job, but was outright ignorant to the fact that this was all for him show off to his friends. Deciding to “take a chance,” as we women are repeatedly told to do if we “want to find love,” I felt like I was egged on by all the times I heard some family chide women who broke up with “a nice guy.”
I would often mention how I made little cash at that bar, not-so-subtly trying to get their tips to fatten up. That was the segue he used to lure me into a date, asking for the probably sixth time if he could take me out, being that he had a ‘grown up job.’ I don’t remember how old he was, but now looking back he had to be at least 7 years older than me, so almost 30 to my 22.
I challenged this ego and said, “OK, let’s meet tomorrow. It’s my day off. Your move.” It didn’t register that my giving in was a not-so-subtle way to keep the tips flowing from that whole crew. After all, I received no shift pay or hourly wages at this bar (like many others).
I met this slimy, slithering, shitbag at a very-far-away-from-me and fancy brunch place where a gaggle of his friends were quite literally shocked to see me walk in. After everyone left, and I paid for my drinks (I couldn’t afford the food, and something told me I’d have to pay for myself, so I didn’t order), we set off.
He then shared with me that his wallet was gone and he had no ID, no wallet, no money.
Being empathetic, I swiped him into the subway, bought his beer, and suggested only doing ‘free’ things, being that I was pretty broke myself. So we went to his office to raid the gratis beer and drink on the patio while smoking dozens of my cigarettes. He burned through most of the weed and cigarettes I had—and that should have seemed so off to me, that someone could keep helping themselves to my shit after only partial permission, but I was pretty buzzed already and trying to enjoy myself.
I can’t stress enough the self deception that is intertwined with much modern dating in your early twenties. You are reminded constantly in every media imaginable that as a woman, your looks and value are paramount, that you must be ‘cool’ and game and down and ready to pay the check and not too picky because the love of your life may unzip themselves out of the shaggy under-groomed and milquetoast dude sitting in front of you and then you can reproduce and consume like you’re supposed to. The truth is you know right away when you want someone truly, and they don’t want us to know that in our bodies, hearts, and minds.
They want us to fuck them and serve them and bend to their wishes and fill our space with them.
This is why we ignore our inner voice screaming “UGH!“ or decide (just for a day) to tone down our legendary bitchiness. It’s why we continue being dragged around town paying for someone we’re not attracted to with money we don’t have, hoping that he’ll pull his hood down and become “the one”(™) and we’ll have a vision of some magic ring and ceremonial dress and become whole. We both will.
I don’t even realize that I’m on this date to please this guy, a fucking customer, in the first place. I don’t want to seem difficult, and I want to believe in love. I get the vibe of just a straight-up liar from this guy, but for the sake of comedy, (and the billion beers I’d drank at this point) I strap myself into the roller coaster, and I don’t even know it.
We head to Chelsea Piers, where he is telling me all about ‘his boat,’ and I just don’t believe it. Me, an actual poor person, spending more money than I would in two weeks on him to be ‘down,’ finds it strange that someone with a boat can’t figure out a way to get some money to pay for his own beer or just go the fuck home. But my social conditioning tells me to ‘be in the moment.’
We somehow now have found the company of another couple, a bit more adult than us, and he swears we can drink beer (that I buy for all of these grownups, why) on this boat. I hate boats, but I’m now drunk and want to be proven wrong, so off we go. Cue the sailing instructor coming through, wondering why four people are on this boat.
I secretly hoped the jig was up, and that I’d have an excuse to leave.
The instructor finally remembers Troy, but it’s not ‘his boat’ as he said multiple times, it was a company rental for the season, of which he was a beneficiary and therefore a sailing student on, like once a month. The instructor (bless his heart) offers to take us on a quick ride around the Statue of Liberty. Now, I hate boats and get seasick, but aside from the drunk people and the date unfolding around me, I like fun and always try to have it, even if something isn’t 100 percent my thing.
If I was smarter and better equipped to speak to my truest feelings I would have said, “No fucking way and BYE!”
But I went on the boat. I got sick on the boat, drunker on the boat, kissed repeatedly without committing to it on the boat. I felt like it was shitty as hell to pair off in the actual sunset while this instructor took his personal time to take us for a cruise. I felt gross that I spent the whole day with this guy, while I didn’t actually like him at all. All we did was make fun of each other, which is fine in many cases but this was just straight negging and me attempting to volley it because of what I thought I was expected of a cool girl.
My memories after the boat involve 169 Bar, a common blackout magnet for many a downtowner, and my own attempts to end the “date” and go back to my apartment. But the night ended with him in my bed. I didn’t know how to say “No thanks, have a great night, thanks for the boat ride I didn’t want and clearing out my meager account balance, now get the fuck away from me,” so I let him follow me up to my place.
I was too drunk to be mean without triggering the full-on nuclear meltdown that I was punching down in my chest.
Who knew that the toll for being on a date where you have paid for everything and the guy has been caught in multiple lies would be everything still going in this douche’s favor? Society did, when it told me I needed to flirt with customers to get bigger tips at my job. My boss did, when he made harassing comments in front of those same customers. The bouncer did, when he would become jealous of my male visitors and interrogate them like an annoying family member. The dude himself continued to push through every lukewarm concession and flat out “no!” I provided, repeatedly, right into my bed and in between my legs.
We’re backed into corners we cannot see until they’re enclosed around us.
There’s this moment that Asia Argento brought to life, perfectly capturing what it’s like to be unwillingly ravaged; “to be devoured,” I believe she called it. The idea that men will force or push oral sex on you, specifically as a means not to give you an orgasm but to coerce you into penetration. It has happened SO MANY TIMES and it’s so distinctly different than the feverish tickles and excitement you feel when someone you are interested is about to go down on you (because they usually take their time, too) than when someone has decided that they’ve been making out with your face hole for long enough and have decided henceforth to make out with your vagina. You feel like a cold fish on dirty ice.
You fuck the guy you don’t want to fuck. Then you feel really fucking awkward about allowing yourself to do such a thing, and resentful that someone had the fucking nerve to enter your intimate space and demand such a thing without an enthusiastic invitation. I even took him out to brunch at my local the next day and FUCKING PAID FOR THAT TOO! He had the nerve to hint at me helping him out with a swipe or cab fare after that too, to which I blessedly, finally, felt the strength of character to say “NO!”
The goodbye was awkward as fuck.
I didn’t cry or get angry or text him after the dust settled, and I realized I had been conned outright by a customer who was supposed to treat me, the person who they tipped for emotional labor and flirtation, to a day on the town. A buck-fifty on miscellaneous alcohol and taxis and a bad fuck later, he didn’t even text or call despite taking my number on a napkin.
This is where it becomes fucking trash. If the sex was good, if the company was engaging, if the feelings were honest, open, valid, all of this shitty vanilla unsatisfactory sex that many of us had to appease a man or to avoid staring at the thin veil that exists between coercion and violence wouldn’t be so goddamned demeaning. We’ve probably said to ourselves at one point, at least you can make me fucking come you worthless, careless, oblivious, parasite.
If you’re going to worm your way into someone’s bed and pussy the least you can fucking do is please them on their own terms. The fact that men think its OK to have a few licks so they can essentially have someone assist their masturbation is half of the reason we hate you so much. There’s nothing wrong with promiscuous sex, unattached sex, drunk sex, healthy, enthusiastic, two-or-more-party sex. The problem lies in that we’re backed into corners we cannot see until they’re enclosed around us, when guys will smush themselves onto and into you like you’re just a piece of furniture.
THEN they don’t get you off.
Then they ghost. Then they make what was already terrible turn traumatizing.
To compound a confusing experience with the degradation of contactless goodbyes that lack closure just reinforce the same tired bullshit over and over. “Take a chance” they say, and then when you do, you’re discardable trash not worthy of a simple, adult expression of honesty. We’re reinforced over and over again to ignore our feelings and better judgment to the benefit of some chameleonic idea of ‘that guy’ who puts so much effort into getting to fuck that they put none into the actual fucking.
They pursue you until they wear you down, then they can’t even say, “Hey, you’re not my cup of tea” after they’ve decided to casually discard your existence.
Women are criticized every day for exploring their sexuality no matter what choices they make, even if they choose not to have sex. This is the burden of a lack of power and agency that is driven by myriad sexist institutions, both palpable and invisible.
If I had a job that paid me properly and didn’t require forced flirtation and exploitation to get paid, perhaps I’d have felt as comfortable to put my foot down on that terrible boat date as I did to give anything to someone who was only taking. If the only way many women knew how to become sexually-actualized women was to let themselves be fucked on, not fucked, thanks to years of coaching, maybe they’d feel a sense of agency from their sexuality’s inception, not after an adult and overdue awakening.
The culture that underpays us creates a hostile environment for women that makes these situations all too common, filled with landmines that don’t even go kaboom when you actually need them to. This dude was not only dripping with entitled sexism, he was a classist jerk who took advantage of my reliance on him and his 10 or so regular friends for tip money to leverage a date and eventually sex. He had ‘such a good job’ and offered to pay me back every time I broke out my wallet, and yet he did not attempt reimburse or even contact me again.
He and his friends stopped coming in on my night, and I lost that money probably five times over from that one coerced decision.
Some months later at the same bar, I was not feeling well, and it was terribly slow. I didn’t care if I was going to get in trouble, I closed early and took a yellow cab to my apartment, I was that ill. As soon as I closed the taxi door and looked out towards the sidewalk, there he was, two young women under each arm, headed to the bar, on my shift night.
The look of sheer terror he melted into when we made eye contact was a moment of power I’ll never forget, it looked like he shat himself, and I hope he did.
RELATED
