Absolutely yes, Gracie. The Weinstein story took me on a journey through my own history beginning with the gang rape attempt at 13 and the shame I suffered in silence. I recognise now that I was a minor who suffered sexual trauma and learned that my survival of that experience was dependent on allowing others to use me as a sexual object. Or that?s how I perceived it. Later on, a few years older, my observation was that ?sexy? women (models, actresses, singers etc) were portrayed as passive and available, and often in submissive poses. If it?s ?sexy? to look sexually vulnerable, it also looks a lot like being a victim. It was confusing for me. The porn I saw in my brother?s magazines at that age also portrayed women as sexually available in similar passive/victim poses but with their breasts and genitals exposed, always with the promise that sex is about to happen. Was this how how I was supposed to view sex, as something that ?happens to? women, something ?done to? women, when the man/men want it? We just have to make ourselves passive and available regardless of whether we feel like it? Something wasn?t right about that. I had experience of sexual assault. I was traumatised. I couldn?t tell anyone or leave the house until the shock and trauma passed. Something told me that something wasn?t right about this predatory behaviour and I found these passive ?sexy? images of women a bit disturbing. How can sexual trauma be ?normal?? I wondered. Are women supposed to expect to be raped over and over throughout their lives? Are we supposed to submit to men whenever they want sex? I look at the porno magazines and they seem to be reinforcing this.
Then, some years later, I become aware of the women?s movement. And there are women who are campaigning against sexual harassment on the street and in the workplace, they are campaigning for rape victims to be treated with respect and courtesy when they report a rape and in the courtroom. That it?s fine for women to enjoy their own bodies, to have sex without being called a slut or a whore, and that even in marriage, men are not entitled to have sex with a woman against her will. At last, I was hearing another voice, and to this day, I am grateful for those women who stood up against unwanted sexual attention.
I could write more about my own experiences but #metoo is an understatement. I experienced four attempted rapes as a young adult. None were connected with my early assault and none were connected with each other. All against a backdrop of everyday sexism, inappropriate touching, being followed, watched from windows by neighbours, having men expose themselves to me in public places, watch me and masturbate in public places, and having sexually explicit materials posted through my door and on one occasion even a sexually explicit video tape was left on my doorstep. This is just normal life for a woman. ?Normal? in the sense that it happens such a lot to so many women, but it?s also unwanted and unacceptable.
I?ve met a few ?Weinsteins? in my time. The band manager who brought me to meet the rock star (one of the biggest stars of that time, now dead); the photographer who booked me as a model, asking me to wear less and less throughout the photo shoot, before attempting to rape me, exposing his erect penis, telling me i didn?t have to worry about getting pregnant because he?d had a vasectomy ? these occasions and a few more come to mind as I look back. These were men who promised me something, glamour, prestige, whatever, but all they wanted was to fuck me. As a human being with feelings and emotions, I was bizarrely invisible.
When I met my husband, I thought he was different. He didn?t seem to be like those objectifying users in any way. He spoke the language of respect for women. He saw ME. He wanted to know ME, the person, not the fuck object. He made me feel comfortable about just being myself.
Maybe a therapist could explain why someone like me fell for someone who was already vulnerable to porn addiction or other similar sexual compulsions. All I know was that I didn?t expect it. I didn?t think he could be so duplicitous as he turned out to be. He objectified women, though at a distance. He masturbated to images of women and he chose that over having sex with me. He became a distant, divided, split personality. He too could conjure up a pretty actress in pixels and masturbate to her in a nude scene. Whoever he wanted, picking off this one or that one, picking out women in porn performing sex, just add the erection and there he was, imagining himself as being there, with his latest recruit. Like Weinstein, few of the women were over 30, mostly about 23-28. And like Weinstein, he felt entitled to behave as he did.
Has the tide turned? I hope so. But he won?t be the only one. People knew and said nothing. They know about others and they?re still saying nothing about those men. It goes on in the music business. It goes on in the tech industry. It goes on everywhere. And on and on and on. Yes, me too. Yes, you too. Will things change? That?s up to the men who accept that kind of behaviour as ?living the dream? when it?s often a woman?s nightmare in reality.
