No Means No

I moved to Paris in Au­gust, af­ter fin­ish­ing my de­gree at Man­ches­ter. I came here to learn French so that I could study French Fem­i­nism at the Sor­bonne. On my first day, a man asked if I was look­ing for some­thing- it was late, I was on the cor­ner and I had my map out. I said yes, I did, I was look­ing for a road, for my new flat. He thought I was a pros­ti­tute, he thought I was look­ing for busi­ness. I was wear­ing a floor length dress and a jack­et. He was a lit­tle man, he looked like Sarkozy, per­fect­ly pre­sentable, and I screamed and screamed at him. He said it was a Latin coun­try, what could I ex­pect? He said he was sor­ry to shock me. I said you do not shock me, you dis­gust me. I gave my mono­logue on the hor­rors of pros­ti­tu­tion. I was fu­ri­ous; not be­cause he thought I was a pros­ti­tute but be­cause he want­ed to buy one. Since then, I have been of­fered a whole heap of jobs in Pi­galle as a strip­per; no in­sult is in­tend­ed, when I said no to one man, he sim­ply asked ‘but why? you can make good mon­ey’. I am not dis­arm­ing­ly beau­ti­ful. I am wear­ing a lot of long skirts in Paris, my mesh is right at the back of the wardrobe. I’m boil­ing hot but I have nev­er had peo­ple treat me like this. I am ei­ther ig­nored, if I am with a man, or I am treat­ed as a whore if I am not. It is the most beau­ti­ful city in the world, and it is the place of my favourite writ­ers, my favourite fem­i­nists, my favourite art and I adore it here, but I can’t com­pre­hend this ut­ter­ly shame­less no­tion of misog­y­nist own­er­ship that the men so of­ten feel en­ti­tled to hold over the women. I’ve nev­er been this hap­py, and I’ve nev­er want­ed to work in fem­i­nism so much.

And then a few weeks ago, I had a great evening with some friends, and I had just missed my last metro. I was at Gare du Nord, and it was a beau­ti­ful evening so I thought I would walk- the roads are huge and busy, it’s safe. Af­ter a while, a small guy start­ed talk­ing to me, of­fer­ing to di­rect me to Chatelet. I need­ed di­rec­tions. He was nice, he was fun­ny, he was a 23 year old Mo­roc­can typ­ist and I told him about my­self, my fam­i­ly, said I had a boyfriend just to keep things sim­ple. Af­ter a while I felt slight­ly un­com­fort­able, I felt like he was get­ting too close to me when we crossed the roads and things, but he didn’t lay a fin­ger on me. I texted a friend and told them to call and they did, I apol­o­gised to him, said it was my boyfriend and that I was safe now, thanked him for his time and con­tin­ued walk­ing home. On the best lit, busiest streets in Paris. I fin­ished my phone call, I put on my Michel Thomas tape and I walked for an­oth­er half an hour. I was two min­utes from my house when I saw him again. It was a huge sur­prise; he lived an hour away, and sud­den­ly the street was very emp­ty. I said hel­lo, I was re­al­ly con­fused as to why he was there. He asked for my num­ber and I said okay be­cause I was scared. He tried to kiss me, I re­sist­ed. He tried again, I re­sist­ed, so he grabbed at my tits and ripped my dress off me. He then picked me up and threw me on my back on the floor. I’m not re­al­ly sure what hap­pened, I think he picked up my phone. I said to him I had mon­ey, a pass­port, he could take any­thing, and I screamed and screamed and I kicked and hit him and then af­ter a while he just ran away. I have no idea how long it was, it must have been quick. I don’t re­al­ly know what hap­pened. I don’t know how I can’t re­mem­ber. I feel like I lost my­self.

Af­ter­wards I went to the in­ter­net cafe by my house be­cause I need­ed to call my fam­i­ly or do some­thing and my house­mate wasn’t home. I tried to ex­plain some­one had tried to rape me but I was sob­bing, my body re­al­ly hurt and my French sucks. A woman came and trans­lat­ed for me, and helped me, and was kind. She asked if I had called the po­lice. I asked ‘what’s the point?’. It was then that I re­alised I have spent so many years writ­ing about rape, read­ing about rape, that not on­ly did I feel a bizarre sense of im­mu­ni­ty but that I was be­ing an aw­ful hyp­ocrite. Of course fuck­ing re­port it, fu­tile or not. I spend my life try­ing to tell peo­ple to re­port things. When An­drea Dworkin was date raped, she said:

I couldn’t be con­soled. I couldn’t talk to any­one. How could I say the words to the peo­ple I loved, most of whom work pre­cise­ly to stop vi­o­lence against women: this is what he, some­one or they, did to me. Yeah, I know I rep­re­sent some­thing to you, but re­al­ly I’m a piece of crap be­cause I just got raped. No, no, you’re not a piece of crap when you get raped, but I am.

She’s got it right. But I went to the po­lice, they were sur­pris­ing­ly kind. I looked at two thou­sand pho­tos of young Mo­roc­can men, we drove the streets look­ing for him, I cried all night. When I got home in the morn­ing, I took some val­i­um and went to sleep. I dreamt that peo­ple told me I had de­served to be raped. When I woke up I was dis­gust­ed with my an­ti-fem­i­nist sub­con­scious, but I couldn’t help it. I can chant ‘What­ev­er we wear, wher­ev­er we go, yes means and yes and no means no’ as many times as I like on march­es, but when it comes down to it I keep ques­tion­ing my re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. Was my dress too short? Was it stu­pid to take di­rec­tions from him? Why did I do it- was I try­ing not to an­tag­o­nise him, was I bored, did I want the at­ten­tion? Did I look like I want­ed it? Did I lead him on? I told him my sis­ters names, I told him about the books I want to read, I wasn’t just an ab­stract, he knew about me and he still treat­ed me like I was there for his plea­sure. And then I keep think­ing ac­tu­al­ly, you know what, he didn’t rape me. This isn’t a big deal. What if it he’s a re­al­ly nice guy and they find him and I give ev­i­dence and his life is ru­ined? But he threw me on the floor, he bruised me, he ripped at my clothes, he didn’t even take my purse. He want­ed to rape me, he took my phone for the sake of it as much as any­thing else and I know it’s not okay and I know I’m not mak­ing it up but I keep feel­ing like maybe I’m just be­ing too dra­mat­ic. I know that I’m not. But I keep feel­ing maybe I am. So many peo­ple say women lie about be­ing raped, make it up for at­ten­tion, the Con­Dems de­fin­i­tive­ly im­plied it in their rapist anonymi­ty sug­ges­tions. And I keep think­ing maybe I just imag­ined it. But I fuck­ing didn’t.

The next day, a man tried to talk to me on the metro. I had my head­phones in. He per­sist­ed and then he touched my arm, like grabbed it. I couldn’t stop scream­ing. I love it here, I was un­lucky. I could have been un­luck­i­er. This hap­pens all the fuck­ing time, every­where in the world, and it hap­pens far worse than a few bruis­es on women’s backs and some scratch­es on their breasts. To ap­pro­pri­ate my much loved Lawrence quote on pornog­ra­phy, rape too is a symp­tom of a dis­eased body politic. We must fix this. How can you not call your­self a fem­i­nist when Amnesty tells us that 267 women a day on av­er­age get raped in the UK? How can you not call your­self a fem­i­nist when, as a woman, you are at con­stant risk of the most in­va­sive as­sault, when as a man your moth­er, sis­ter, girl­friend, who­ev­er, is. I don’t know how to fix any of it, no­body knows how to fix any of it. But I have nev­er want­ed to try this hard, and I have nev­er thought it so nec­es­sary for us to talk about it more.