When Yes Means No

Today I watched the music video for the song 'Til it Happens To You', written by Lady Gaga and Diane Warren. The song is about campus rape and sexual assault within university and college communities. The lyrics and the video really resonated with me, and stirred up some old emotions, because actually, it did happen to me.

It's been 9 years since I was an eager young fresher, full of the excitement and freedom of living away from home for the first time. I had had sexual relationships with men before uni however living in halls of residence with 720 other 18 and 19 year olds presented many new opportunities for promiscuity and new relationships of various kinds. I even indulged in the typical fresher week pulling and took back a second year student to my room without the need to find out his second name or pretty much anything else about him. Not an achievement I'm particularly proud of but none the less it was a decision I made and that I accept, it wasn't a bad experience by any means. I was not completely naive at 19, but I was also not particularly mature for my age, I possessed all the irresponsibility and carelessness of the stereotypical British teenager and I still today I am forced to accept the consequences of some of my careless decisions. But they were my decisions.

However just a few weeks into my fresher year, something happened that I have since brushed under the metaphorical carpet in my mind and have never really dealt with or come to accept. I met a man on a night out, he was also a fresher and lived in the same halls as me. I can't really recall the early events of that evening but I imagine we danced, we drank and we kissed. I had drunk a particularly large quantity of alcohol that night, which is partly why the whole experience is difficult to recall; I was heavily under the influence and lacking any logical or sensible reasoning. This man came back to my flat. 

One of the few stand out memories of that night is being pinned against the wall of my flat and being asked 'do you want me to fuck you?'. It's a question that implies I had a choice, an opportunity to call things off, to send him away and get into my bed alone. I did not feel like I had a choice. I was too young and too drunk to know that the answer 'no' was ok. I felt completely out of control, and completely trapped. The presumably fun and flirty start to the night had progressed into an aggressive and intense situation in which I was not comfortable. There were no friends around to signal for help to, no crowds to hide in, no music to drown out the conversation. I was alone with him, in the stark silence of the flat, pinned against the wall in the cold reality of the night. As he asked the question a third time, I gave the only answer I thought I could give, 'yes'.

The following experience is blurry in my mind. But I can still feel the fear, the pain, the regret and the sadness as I was aggressively fucked in my own bedroom. He left almost immediately after, leaving me with the grey aftermath; underwear on the floor, candles knocked over, milk split over the desk, pain and discomfort coursing through my naked body.

I confided in my friends, I told them about the experience as if it were a regretful decision; comparable to a bad date or a a bad outfit. I never claimed to be a victim because I didn't think that I was. I had talked to him, I had kissed him, I had let him come back with me, I had said yes and I hadn't stopped it from happening. I felt accountable for my decisions even though they were decisions I had felt pressured to make. My now best friend, who was a relatively new friend at the time, understood the gravity of the situation perhaps even more than I did myself. She knew the man and he approached her on a night out around a week later, asking to speak to me. She protectively said no. Nonetheless, he did approach me, he apologised for what had happened and said that he knew I could have called the police. He thanked me for not having done so.

The apology did not give me any sense of closure or clarity at the time but rather confused me more than anything else.  He had claimed responsibility for a crime that I wasn't aware he had committed. I knew he had been aggressive and persuasive, but I had said yes, I had agreed to it, wasn't it therefore a consensual act? I dismissed the fact that I had been so drunk and out of control that he had clearly taken advantage and coerced me into something that I was not comfortable with. He wasn't a monster, he was a drunk 19 year old who wanted to get laid.

Sitting here now, with 9 years more life experience, I have not changed my opinion of that man. I don't think of him as evil, I don't think he was a monster and I don't feel any hate towards him. Did he commit an act of sexual violence that night? Yes. What he did wasn't right; his acknowledgment of the situation demonstrates an awareness of his own choice to take away my control of the situation and of my body. But in the same way my alcoholic intake had influenced my behaviour, it had most likely also influenced his. Did that reprieve him of his actions? If he was drunk enough not to realise he was taking advantage, does that invalidate it as my excuse for my own lack of control? The lines of accountability seem so blurry it's easy to see why situations like mine get brushed aside with no blame laid on either side. And most people who experience similar situations don't get an apology, they are simply left with feelings of guilt, shame and regret for their own 'careless' choices, despite the fact that they didn't really feel or know that they had a choice. 

The bottom line is, sexual violence is not ok. Regardless of how much you had to drink, what you were wearing or whether you kissed him already. If you don't want to have sex with someone, you have a right to say no, and you should be able to exercise that right with no consequences. Being put in a situation where you feel threatened if you don't engage in sexual activity with someone is not ok. If someone is trying threaten you, intimidate you or pressure you to say yes, then they are fully aware that your real answer is no. That in itself is an act of sexual violence.

What I do now realise is that I don't need to carry this experience around with me, locked in a box, always there but never really confronted. I can say to myself 'it's ok, this happened and it wasn't your fault.' I have relieved myself of guilt and shame and I can truly move on from it. What I wish I could tell every young person out there is, you have the right to say no. Even if you kissed them, flirted with them, accepted a drink from them, went back to your place with them, you still have the right to say no. And if it happens to you, if you said yes when you meant no, because you didn't feel like you had a choice, then it's not your fault. Tell someone, tell anyone, don't brush it under the carpet and carry it around like I did. No matter what anyone tells you, if you didn't want to do something, then it wasn't consensual, and that's something every girl and boy should know. 

Giving Small Hands Big Hearts

Today’s blog is a little on the serious side, but its something that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. Its about parenting, a journey that I have yet to embark on myself but one that is very intertwined in my life both through work and my personal life. I am a great advocate of choice when it comes to raising children; every child and every parent is different and there is a horrendous amount of pressure on parents to parent in a way that is deemed acceptable by others. What I have discovered is that no matter what choice you make regarding your children, you’ll probably receive criticism from someone at some point down the line; put simply, parents can’t win when it comes to social acceptance.

I bought a book a while ago called ‘Out of Control, why disciplining your child doesn’t work and what will’ by Shefali Tsabary, an American clinical psychologist, which I have yet to read. I bought the book after watching an interview on YouTube with actress Laura Prepon in which she talked about growing up in a house with no rules. This resonated with me because the idea of disciplining children is one that has never sat comfortably with me. When I hear people tell children off, it is often followed by the phrase ‘they have to learn!’. You’re right, they do, but why are we so convinced that telling a child off is the only way to make them learn? I’m not even talking about the parents you pass at the bus stop who you are scared to watch but somehow can’t look away from as they yell expletives at their grubby kids. I’m talking about close friends and family and average people who are by all means wonderful parents. This is no criticism of them; we parent the way we have learnt to parent from our own experiences and by watching those around us and there is no 'correct' way to parent. But for me personally, the concept of teaching your child to ‘behave’ by making them feel shame and embarrassment just isn’t logical to me.

As adults we all have to exist and function in environments where there are both written and unwritten rules, social conventions and obligations that most of us abide by most of the time. But we’re all still learning; new jobs and new hobbies require new skills that can take time to learn. We’re all battling conflicting pressures; we want to go to our friend’s week night birthday party but we still have to make it to work on time the next morning. We all get overwhelmed; jobs can be stressful, families can be critical, friends can be difficult and sometimes when it all gets too much we don’t function at our best. And finally, we all fuck up; we all make bad decisions because we’re human and we’re not perfect. For a child, life is no different; they have far more to learn than us, their brains are less developed than ours and they too battle conflicting pressures (I want those sweets…Mum said no), they get overwhelmed and they too fuck up, because they’re human and they’re still learning.

If we looked at adults in the same way we look at children, we don’t assume that the best way to deal with those situations are to tell each other off. I’ve never met an adult who said they functioned best in a workplace in which they get yelled at and punished if they do something wrong. From my experience, the workplaces in which I work and learn most effectively are the ones in which I feel supported. Effective managers treat their employees with respect; listen to them, work through problems with them, try to understand their problems and work to find solutions. If I fuck up at work, I can be honest with my boss about it because I don’t fear her reaction; I know she’ll support me through it. We don't learn effectively when we're afraid to try because we're afraid of the consequences of doing so. An environment that harbours fear and threatens punishment as a consequence for mistakes is not one that creates happy people that feel valued, who want to learn, work hard and motivate others. It is the same for children; children learn and behave best when they feel trusted, valued and able to make mistakes without fear of punishment.

Of course, I’m not for a second suggesting that parents shouldn’t have boundaries. Discipline and boundaries are two separate things and saying ‘no’ is ok. But another part of this is our perception of what is ‘naughty’. The exploratory 18month old who pours sand in your hand bag isn’t necessarily being naughty; they’re simply exploring and learning without the knowledge that you didn’t really want to find sand in your handbag, purse, lipbalm and umbrella for the next 6 months. It's ok to teach a child not to do something that isn’t appropriate without ‘telling them off’. The two year old who cries because he wanted jam sandwiches and not ham sandwiches is not being naughty; he does not yet possess the skills to express his disappointment in an adult way, particularly if he is tired and overwhelmed. The four year old who pushes all the coasters off the coffee table despite the warning look you shoot them from across the room is yes, attention seeking, and that’s not a bad thing. We seek attention when we need attention, because we have unmet needs, because we need someone to listen to us and understand us.

As adults when we feel overwhelmed, tired, stressed, when we make mistakes, have decisions to make and when we fuck up, what we want and what we need is understanding and support from those around us, so why don’t we give our children the same thing? This is all strictly my opinion of course and in practice I realise this is probably easier said than done; I'm sure I’ll face my own challenges with my own future children. However the no-discipline method of parenting is one that intrigues me and that I’d like to learn more about, so I’ll soon be finding out what Dr Shafali Tsabary has to say on the matter and maybe one day find out whether it really works.

This is about everything...

It's been a little while since I blogged. Since my last blog was centred around the tragic ups and downs of my love life, or lack of, my motivation to write tended to be a little erratic. Whilst it can be somewhat cathartic to write about the non-starter with the hot guy who invited you halfway across the country for a threesome with his petite and free-spirited girlfriend, writing about the guy who charmed you at dinner, sat with you in a coffee shop for hours, walked around the Southbank book market with you and then dumped you over text because you 'didn't have enough in common' can be a little deflating. It's hard enough having to relive the story to everyone who asks if you're 'still dating that guy' (because living vicariously through your single friend/colleague is the best way to get your kicks once you’re married), but having to put the whole story into words to stare back at you through the detached and unsympathetic screen of your computer doesn't exactly give you the warm fuzzies inside. So I'm starting a new blog, as an outlet for my creative juices and my love of writing, as well as a way of documenting my final year of my 20s. There are 15 months remaining until I hit the big 3 0 and I've come up with a 'bucket list' of sorts, not that I'm planning on actually kicking the bucket at 30, but it's a little catchier than my 'things I'd like to do before I'm 30 list'. I plan to document my bucket list adventures, but I'd be denying myself an opportunity to let the endless chatter in my mind spill out on to paper (of the virtual kind) if I restricted myself to a theme or topic, and so this blog is about everything.

Firstly, as I head towards my 29th birthday, it feels good to say I know myself pretty well. In the last year it feels a little like a lightbulb has come on my mind, I'm more comfortable with myself than I ever have been. Of course I miss the size 8 figure, the forgiving metabolism and the recklessness of my 18 year old self, but I don't miss the uncertainty and the unseen but ever-present pressure to fit in and be accepted. At 28, I’m comfortable with my style, my sexuality, my music taste, my interests and hobbies, my friends and (almost) my body. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t spend every day feeling full of life and never regretting that fourth chocolate digestive before 10am on a Monday morning; the difference is that I value myself on my own opinions of me, and not the opinions of others. Seeking acceptance from others seems to masquerade itself as self-acceptance all too often through the endless Instagram posts, YouTube videos and Twitter feeds of the under 30s. I’m no stranger to a selfie, but posting endless Valencia filtered photos of yourself in full make-up doesn’t necessarily mean you’re comfortable with what you see in the mirror after you take your makeup off at night. If you need a certain number of ‘likes’ to validate your belief that you’re attractive, that doesn’t constitute self-acceptance. So I consider myself pretty fortunate to be 28 and comfortable with who I am. So in the spirit of self-acceptance, I look forward to sharing my journey, my thoughts and my ramblings with whoever happens to stumble across them.