Am I a victim?
Let me preface this: I do not believe in victim (or survivor) blaming, in any way shape, or form. EVER.
That said, many psychologists believe that people tend to fall into three groups (or just two, depending on who you’re talking to); predators, victims, and those in between. Many self defense classes teach you to take more of a predatory stance; how you walk, how you talk, how you act in a situation.
I’ve been wondering…do I give off victim vibes? Not really in a sexual assault, come jump me sense, but more of a…weak sense? I know that doesn’t make sense.
It’s recent events that have made me think on this. A few weeks back, a friend, C and I were at a queer party. A hoarde of drunken straight guys was there as well. They tried to dance up on some of us…our friend (a former pro-domme/roller girl) stuck them in the bathroom to stop them from bothering us. They came back. I kind of backed myself into a corner so that they couldn’t come up behind me, and kept dancing. Finally, we were ready to leave. I was trying to get to C and our friend, and the guys had surrounded me, and one blocked me.
“Excuse me.”
He didn’t move. I drew up some courage, and tried to be aggressive: “MOVE.”
“Oh really? That wasn’t very nice.” I was starting to get nervous now. Really nervous. In fact, more nervous than I’ve been around men in years. Worried for my physical saftey. My friend was on the other side, I didn’t know if she’d noticed my plight.
“PLEASE move?” He didn’t move an inch, until he went flying into a table and broke a chair.
“I heard her say please. You didn’t move.” My friend had gotten pissed, and solved the situation the old fashioned way. I ran outside and left. I was worried…what would have happened if she hadn’t been there?
I was so proud of myself a week or two ago. I was dancing at an after party; C and I had a girl sandwiched between us, and were dancing. A guy came up and put on hand on each of our (C and I) shoulders. “Looks like you could use a little bit of me in there.”
I grabbed it hand, not so gently threw it off my shoulder, and said “obviously, you’re wrong. Back off.”
I was telling this to K, and said something like “you would have been so proud of me” and then told the story. I finished it with “I know it’s not a big deal to you, but it was really a big thing for me.” He said he knew.
Why is that a big thing? Why is it this huge deal for my to defend myself, to keep others out of my personal space? Why do I rely on others to fight my battles for me?
I wrote about post a few days back about the woman who was making me uncomfortable. A couple comments asked why I didn’t leave earlier, remove myself from the awkward situation. It happened with a woman at Roller Girl Karaoke in Philly too. She kept stalking me around the bar, and while I felt that I had shown her I wasn’t interested, she kept pursuing. I have an issue with hurting people; either their feelings, or physically.
I also have an issue with authority, but not the normal “fuck authority” kind. Authority figures tend me make me feel timid and weak. I know that sounds weird. I told my friend (the “I throw men into tables before breakfast” friend) that I don’t take risks. She looked at me, and pointed out that I write a sex blog, I have naked pictures of myself online, I’ve fucked people I’ve just met, etc. She’s right. Those ARE risks.
However, I don’t tend to take risks that deal directly with authority. The two times I’ve been pulled over in my life, I started crying…not to get out of a ticket, but because I was upset. The one time I was called to the office in high school (for a non-celebratory reason), I was bawling. I don’t shout “fuck the pigs” even if I’m angry with the cops. When I get in altercations, I back down, and if I need to deal with it later, I deal with it through writing. While I’ll dance on the table at friends’ houses, and bars that allow it, I hate going out with really drunk people, because I don’t want to get kicked out of public places.
Maybe I do somehow come off as a victim, because I’m scared of hurting people, and terrified of getting in serious trouble (the kind that would come from punching someone in the face). Because I don’t want to seem like I’m over reacting when I’m uncofmrtable, maybe I just shut down, rather than getting myself to a safe place.
This is not good. I don’t want to rely on people to protect me. I can protect myself, damn it. I’ve taken self defense classes, I know how to rack someone, and as I recently discovered, I can call someone an ass to their face. I just worry that I’m going to continue to freeze up in these situations, to not do anything for a variety of reasons, and to set myself up for this treatment over and over again.
But how do I change who I am?
-Essin’ Em
This entry was posted on July 11, 2008 at 4:01 am and is filed under Real life stories, Thoughts, sexual assault, sexual violence . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
July 11, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Hi there, as you noted, I am NOT blaming any vicitim for being victimized, that’s nuts.
OTOH, I did want to say something about so called self defense classes. I come at this from a perspective of someone who has practiced the martial arts (a hard style) for many years and has also seen a lot of these self defense course. While the course are most often better than “nothing” they really do NOT train one to defend themselves very well. In fact, they can do quite the opposite by giving one the impression they can defend themselves but instead just teaching you enough to create a problem. IMHO, if you want to learn to defend yourself, one needs to be trained well enough so you can quickly assess a situation and take the apropriate action (which you are well trained in) almost without putting any conscious thought to the situation. Part of that training is also to keeping a well trained eye out for situations that should be avoided so one doesn’t get into trouble in the first place *smile*. I am very very fortunate in that I’ve only had to be in a “live” situation once, and my training came to the forefront in a way that did no damage to anyone but clearly demonstrated my potential to do so and the other person backed down. Anyway, I’m rambling now, but my overall suggestion is that mind/body/spirit training for some period of time is required if you really want to be able to defend yourself.If you can’t go that route, being loud when there are other folks around in the periphery (HEY EVERYONE, THIS JERK IS BEING REALLY NASTY AND WON”T LET ME BY TO LEAVE at the top of your lungs in one situation you described is a perfectly good alternative *smile*).
As for hurting peoples feelings…I guess part of my philosophy there comes from an old martial arts instructor of mine, which is pretty extreme, but effective in getting one to the right mindset for threatening situations.
“Human beings should be honored and nobody has a right to damage another human being. However, if that human being is threatening my life or limb, or that of my friends or family or some innocent bystander, they are no longer a human being, but a wild animal trying to hurt me. I have every right to take whatever action is approprate and neccesary to protect myself from a wild animal, including hurting them”.
July 11, 2008 at 4:47 pm
hmm, sounds just like me. and so i’d say don’t bother with the changing who you are. not drastically, anyway, because it’s almost impossible and, really, unnecessary. i very very much second jerry’s recommendation of “keeping a well trained eye out for situations that should be avoided so one doesn’t get into trouble in the first place.” if you are in fact as much like me as this sounds, that is something you can learn/change without changing that sort of pacifist/respectful/fearful part of yourself that is rather integral to who you are. at least, it’s served me well.
the other half of this is that if you aren’t going to (can’t?) change who you are, then you need to change how you think/feel about who you are – that is, in my mind, that this in not a better or worse way to respond to such situations, it’s just a different one.
basically, i’m arguing with this: “This is not good. I don’t want to rely on people to protect me. I can protect myself, damn it.”
everyone relies on people to protect them from something. this is a bit of a revelation given to me by my friend athena. in our society when we talk about protectiveness we think of the (typically masculine) “i throw men into tables before breakfast” sort. but, see, i’m possibly the opposite of that, and i’m very protective of my loved ones. mine takes the form of “oh, honey, come here and i’ll hug you and tell you it’ll be okay.” which i had never even thought of as protective before athena pointed it out, because that is portrayed as weak, feminine, useless, and i had bought into it. well, nope, that’s bullshit – it’s not lesser, it’s just different.
i’m fairly certain that’s not what you want to hear, but there is nothing wrong with needing other people =) note they need you too.
i hope that made sense…i’ve noticed the longer my comments the more i think i’m making no sense
July 11, 2008 at 4:48 pm
I can really relate to this. I’m not a big commenter, but this post just urges me to comment.
I’m the same kind of person, I get upset at confrontations, I don’t usually stand up for myself if it is something minor. Something major, sure, but little things are so much harder to do because it feels like I’m making a big deal out of nothing, even though I know that’s often not the case.
Lucky for me, I’m a big girl, and so I don’t usually get picked on like in that situation with the straight guy you mentioned, or really hit on or things like that, because, well, I think I put out the not-a-victim vibes, but in reality I’m a little chicken.
I don’t really have any suggestions, mostly I’m just saying this to let you know that you’re not the only one (though you probably know that already, but it’s always good to hear it). When there are little issues, such as my one of my coworkers calling me by a slightly wrong name, since I don’t deal with him directly all the time I didn’t correct him, since it would most likely embarrass him more than it would have irked me to endure the wrong name.
I see it as being concerned for others, but there definitely is a time and place for that and a time and place for standing up for yourself. The trick is knowing which is which, and, honestly, I usually have no idea.
I think that recognizing it and posting about it, therefore thinking about it, is the best place to start on the road to understanding it, and being able to figure out the right time for what.
July 11, 2008 at 8:22 pm
I think you are too nice. That you are worried about upsetting people, and being rude, and it makes you freeze up with indecision.
I feel you, because I’m the same way. But for some reason I also come off intimidating enough that I don’t run into that many problems of this nature. But when I do… I have a hard time even doing what you did; “Move!”
July 12, 2008 at 12:34 am
Any self defense that tries to teach you to act like a predator will fail. Because big predators are meaner than you, more experienced than you, and will attack a less experienced predator faster than prey.
You don’t want to look, act, or think like a predator, that doesn’t work unless you are one. More specifically, unless you plan on always being the biggest in the room. You want to give the impression of being more trouble than you’re worth.
Predator’s are looking for the weak ones on the edge of the herd. Just don’t be that one. Next time somebody pulls a stunt like blocking the door of a bar, don’t try to be intimidating on your own. You’ll fail. Turn around, find a bouncer, and let them work out their frustrations on the SOB.
Predators don’t look for the weak ones. They look for the ones they can get by with.
http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/
July 26, 2008 at 4:46 am
I only recently started reading sex blogs in general and just discovered your blog. But in a short time you’ve perfectly reflected my personal experience, more thanonce and this is one.
I’m fascinated by questions like “Am I a victim?” and comments like, “Because I don’t want to seem like I’m over reacting when I’m uncomfortable, maybe I just shut down, …….”
I’ve been studying psychology for a couple years (making it up as I go, not going to school or anything like that, just spending money with Amazon and Borders). I’m super-driven to understand myself and my personality’s origins.
Using what I’ve learned in books and talking online, I believe that, for me at least, the answer to these kinds of questions, lie inside our early experiences… in the time before language was learned… when memories simply consisted of emotions, And when they were experienced, formed and stored without other references, without words to anchor them to other parts of our segments of our brains…… These implicit memories are the ones stored before language existed to express them. They only come up only as emotional feelings, because we have no concrete descriptive means to express them.
I believe that they define for us, certain types of experiences; they are templates or examples of certain kinds of (emotional) experiences… and our bodies have encoded them as significant. And therefore when we experience something simliar in current life, they pop up and affect our reactions. It’s instinct, trying to protect us.
It’s like, those feeling-shapes are all I’ve left from that time, from that earlier experience. If it’d happened yesterday, I’d could say, “Well, I remember that I was standing there, and he touched me here, and I said, blah blah blah… And, you know, now that I am remembering that shit, I just wanna freak out!!!” But since it happened long ago, we only remember, what it felt like.
And so those protective instincts are called to action, and I go into “fight or flight” mode OR sometimes into “freeze!” = “hunker down and don’t move!” – mode (yeah, that’s my brain’s personal “favorite” and it sounds like possibly one of yours, too).
And so the frustrating thing is that, in the moment, I’m frozen… rejecting impotently… slapping weakly… crying… (whatever)….
I think solutions/answers will only be found through personal effort, honesty, truth, awareness and communication… basically just keeping on keeping on… trying to understand … overcome …. survive… helping each other…
I hope that you will continue contemplating this stuff and blogging about it.
I learned alot from your comments. And look forward to reading more of you.
Thanksbunches.
Love,
!Spark!