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2001-06-14 || 11:55 a.m. || the day jenny got the ol' rub-a-dub on the bus. || yesterday on the bus ride home a man sat next to me.. and without going into full detail.. he proceeded to em rub up against me in a very sneaky creepy fashion. so that i wasn't quite sure at first if it was just me or something funny was going on. but when he rubbed his leg up and down against my leg i knew something was wrong. and i thought it was kind of funny. kind of. but then i got such an awful feeling. it was this funny instinctual fear feeling, kind of out-of-body, where i became hypersensitive to myself and this man and the bus and the people sitting behind me and the people in cars outside. panicky. i was scared and mad and not sure what to do. and it made me all the more mad that i was allowing this man to make me feel this way. so i waited until the bus came to a stop and said excuse me (as tough as i could. but i confess i am not at all tough.) and got up. and the fucker just stood there so i had to brush past him to get by. i sat in the back, where the seats face each other, and he sat in the seat in front of me. then he got up and sat in the seat across from me. and i didn't do a fucking thing. i re-read the same page of my book over and over and over. i didn't attempt any eye contact. i didn't yell at him. i didn't tell the bus driver that this guy was a creep and he should make him get off. and then he got off the bus. i don't care all that much what happened because it was so not a big deal. there was nothing terribly awful/lurid/assaulting about it. but it makes me so upset that a. he was consciously making me feel this way, and b. i was letting myself feel this way and not doing anything about it. not making it clear that i was feeling uncomfortable. i was more concerned about making a scene/making him uncomfortable. and this has happened before- like the time when a man sat next to me on a bart train and em proceeded to put hand down pants and masturbate. meanwhile i was pinned to the window and feeling that out of body feeling and had no idea what to do. 'excuse me, can you take your hand out of your pants for a sec so that i can get up and sit somewhere else?' and he kept at it for a while and then stopped and fell asleep and in my claustrophobic way i had a mini panic attack over not being able to get off the train because this big scary sleeping man, who would not wake up when i needed him to move, was in the way. so not riotgrrrl. i talked to my boy about it and after the initial 'i wish i was there to rough him up' obligatory boyspeech, he made such very good points about how a lot of times women especially have such a hard time speaking out and asserting themselves because they are taught to be accomodating. to sacrifice their own comfort for that of others. and with being an assertive woman there comes this stupid baggage of having to be angry or 'a bitch' rather than having the guts to say simply you can't do that to me it is making me uncomfortable. and then we went over girl convention self defense tactics. free to fight free to fight. does anybody have a copy of that? i hate being a pushover. i hate being too nice. i hate how in these situations i am so conscious of my girlness and have this internal dialogue of 'do something, jenny! tell him to fuck off! you are feminist lady! don't take any shit! please don't be a dumb pushover girl, you will embarrass my toughness!' versus 'but what if i am just imagining this? maybe he needs extra space. he's not doing anything outwardly bad. if he touches you, then you can say something. but think of what you will say because i don't want everyone on the bus to look at me. i don't want this man to get mad at me.' i hate that this is the second time in a week i have been roughed up on public transportation (last week: 'oh you are an ugly ass white bitch you are a piece of shit you should rot in hell fucking slavedriver i hate bitches especially white ones' speech on bart.). hello, could you please remove whatever it is on my forehead that is telling people to yell at/rub up against me. it is making me lose my footing. guestbook || notes || archives || profile || photos || d-land |