i wish
frat boys
A man I had been chatting with climbed on top of me as I was falling asleep after a party. It was at my friends’ friends’ place in the Hills so I had been offered a bed. I woke up to find him fondling and grinding on me. I have never been so tired and so alert at once. I knew there was only one chance. So I tried to reach him. As he reefed the blankets down I called him sweetheart and reminded him that he didn’t want to do this, we had been enjoying a real rapport, we liked each other, and he was not that kind of guy.
He may not remember this, but I do. He climbed off me, and said sorry, and went away. And I lay awake the rest of the night and fell asleep at dawn. So this guy toyed with the idea of becoming a rapist but decided not to. Every guy can decide that, too.
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One time when my first friend-turned-boyfriend was staying over, he too climbed on top of me in bed. We were both, I dunno, 12? maybe 13? I pretended to be asleep … he didn’t try to get under the covers, and eventually went away. So in a sense “nothing happened”. I don’t feel any ongoing trauma from it, but I do remember – strongly – how horrible it was. How invasive. How unsafe I felt. It essentially ended a multi-year friendship, and certainly nipped the romance in the bud. I wish I’d had the clarity and courage to tell him in no uncertain terms to get the hell away from me. He clearly needed edumacating! Good on you, Cathoel, for educating this man.
Helena how terrifying. The fear stains and stays. Gaining back the right to a normal sense of safety and all its creative gifts — insouciance, calm, concentration and concerted endeavour, the freedom of one’s own ideas, art — has been the biggest reassertion, for me. Thank you for sharing this story.