Random Thoughts on Gender

A recommended read: tinyurl.com/9vc2xon

I'm now thinking about how I have heard so many women tell me that this is exactly why they don't have many male friends - that eventually all of them end up acting inappropriately towards them.  It makes me wonder why I have so many male friends (and so few female friends), and that I have never in my life had a male I consider a friend act like a creep towards me.

Sure, I've experienced my share of creeps... guys at work, friends of friends, classmates, family members (*shudder*)... but never a guy I consider my friend.  And no, it's not that a guy who acts creepy falls off the friend list and no longer counts... I've just never had it happen where someone I considered a friend ever failed me in that respect.

If you had asked me years ago, I probably would chalk it up to not being considered "sexy", and so my guy friends had me firmly placed in the "friend" or "one of the guys" category (especially given my interests), and not in the "sexual object" category in their brains.  But, I've also had several male friends admit to me that they very much do consider me in the "sexy" category.  I guess I'm just lucky that my male friends seem to lack "sexual object" categories... they're all "sensitive" as the author above postulates.

Woo! I'm a statistic...

This post brought to you by some stupid political commentator on the radio claiming that the number of reports of rape and sexual assault are greatly exaggerated, because you legally can't be assaulted by someone you know. 

I'm writing a thing, and in doing so, attempting to distill the hell that was my middle and high school years into engaging sound bites.  I realized while writing that I was sexually assaulted my junior year.  Not raped, sexually assaulted...  A schoolmate violently pushed me against a wall, and the next thing I knew, his one hand was groping my right breast, and his other hand was down my skirt and inside my underwear...

Why I'm just realizing it, is that I never considered the incident sexual.  Even now, it was more about bullying me and the "you're ugly and worthless" theme that my classmates threw at me on a regular basis...  This time I was so ugly and disgusting that this boy refused to rape me, even though he had me at his mercy (or so he thought)...

So, the conversation in my head started asking questions that perhaps people might want to know about the incident...  For instance, what happened to him, did I report it?  For the record, no, because I had learned a long time before that telling people made the problem worse, not better. Though, also for the record, he walked away with a broken nose.

It occurred to me though, that he left school after that year...  

During his attack on me, he mentioned that this was his usual way of getting what he wanted, and that normally girls were flattered and pleased with his advances, because he only went after the especially good looking girls... And that I was somehow defective because I wasn't enjoying myself... And besides, I was fat and ugly and no one could ever find me attractive or lovable, therefore he was going to just leave me there hanging, because I was not deserving of his attentions...

I wonder now how many other female schoolmates of mine had to deal with him, and if this was the reason behind his quiet disappearance after that year...

So, that means that if you don't already know someone else who is a rape/sexual assault survivor, hi, I'm your 1 in 4...