It’s early in the summer, chilly enough to wear leggings and a sweater at night. I’m heading to Brothers to say hi to some friends after work when two men walk in my direction. I can barely make out their faces when one of them starts talking to me. Babe, you’re SO gorgeous. Can I please please PLEASE have your number? as if he is expecting me to smile at the “compliment.” I grip the straps of my backpack, stare him down, and say no. As I walk away he keeps begging for my number until the begging turns into screaming PRUDE! at me over and over again until I’m out of earshot. I laugh it off — this stuff rarely ever happens to me. I make a funny Facebook status out of it and move on.

“Street harassment = 155 likes”

{Note #1: This essay is a non-comprehensive list of my experiences with sexual harassment and assault. The troublesome part about sexual harassment is the agency that is taken from a person when he/she is openly sexualized without consent or respect. If I can’t control that, then at least I can control how I am viewed in this space, on this page.}

Nearing the end of summer, I’m wearing a jersey tank and shorts. One of my close friends has too much to drink and tries to kiss me. I say no and push him off. He tries to kiss me a few more times, then slips his hand under my waistband. I don’t feel unsafe, I tell myself as I push him away again, more forcefully. The next morning I realize he was blacked out and doesn’t remember half of what happened. I fill him in and he profusely apologizes. I feel bad for telling him and making him feel guilty, so I comfort him. It’s no big deal at all, I know you were drunk. The irony of this hits me later on and affects me for the next week. I cry a lot. I tell my counselor, who tells me that I should process my feelings before jumping into rationalization. I go to one of my roommates about it. You shouldn’t put yourself in those situations, she says. What situations, being around men? Being around friends? Nevertheless, I resolve to not put myself in “those situations.”

{Note #2: During freshman year, I got sexually harassed for the first time. My best friend at the time told me to stop asking for attention. You’re not hot enough to get catcalled anyway, don’t pretend like you are. I remembered what he said the next time I got sexually harassed, and the time after that. I wasn’t sure if this deemed me “hot enough to get catcalled,” but it didn’t feel like a compliment.}

“Damn girl, nice ass.”

That weekend, I go to Minnesota for a staff retreat. I meet a guy during the day who is professional and friendly. After a few drinks at the club that night, he gets increasingly touchy and tries to grind on me despite my obvious disinterest. Alcohol seems to do that to people, I think to myself. Later that night, a stranger asks my friend how old she is. I see men catcall another woman and I tell them to stop. They look at me like I’m crazy. I feel crazy. People in a car whizzing by scream at us. HEY, BABY, HOW YOU DOIN’? I am angry. I stand up and yell back but my friend taps my leg to get me to sit down. She hugs me as I wonder how I could have avoided it this time. Perhaps it was the crop top and the shorts — everyone knows you can only go to the club completely covered. I consider wearing a banana suit next time.

{Note #3: Perhaps it is important to note that the same friend who said I wasn’t hot enough to get catcalled was important in my sexual development. Out of our interactions in our many months together, one sticks out. I lacked experience; he was moving a little too fast. His hands reached into my pants. Stop, I said. Please stop, it hurts. In the most calming voice, he said Shh, it’s okay, it’ll stop hurting. The next day I was still sore. Later that night I confronted him, crying, telling him that I knew he wasn’t trying to hurt me, but that we were moving too fast and I needed him to listen more carefully. He said, and I’ll never fucking forget this: Well… it’s not like I raped you or anything. After we stopped being involved, he would often grab my breasts, even when I was dating someone else, and say damn, they got bigger. I processed this years later, when it didn’t hurt anymore, when all I felt was empathy for younger, naive ViVien, a nuanced understanding of the situation without residual resentment towards him, and a burning defense for anyone who would criticize an 18 year old who was too insecure to stand up for herself. But still, I am scared to write about this because I genuinely believe that people aren’t going to believe me, because they didn’t believe me then. Why are you still with him then? they would ask, a question I couldn’t answer, a testament to how desperately I wanted validation at that point in my life, so much so that I stopped believing myself too.}

A few days after I come back from Minnesota, I’m walking with my male friend down the street to get something to eat. T-shirt and shorts. It’s late but I feel safe with him next to me; usually girls who are near a male friend aren’t bothered on the street. A group of men walk towards us. One of them looks at me, turns to his friend, and says You gonna fuck that tonight? My stomach churns and I clench my fists. As we pass them I wheel around and walk up to him so aggressively that he takes two steps back and puts his hands up. A distant voice in my head tells me to back down, but I’m so angry that I ask one question, and I ask it over and over again. What did you say to me? What did you say to me? As I force myself to walk away, he tells me to get good grades and stay in school. Later, I wonder to myself what I should have done. Some friends tell me You did the right thing. Maybe he’ll think twice about catcalling. Other friends tell me You should have ignored him. By confronting him you put yourself and your friend in danger. I consider both sides, but my mind keeps going back to the moment he backed up with his hands in the air with a terrified look on his face, scared of someone half his size showing that she wasn’t going to sit there and take his shit. I expect to feel violated and vindictive, but my mind goes back to that small victory and I feel reassured, even a little proud.

{Note #4: In case you’ve noticed, I’m taking care to mention what I wear. Not because it matters but because I feel like someone will ask. When this shit happens, people always ask or wonder. I don’t feel like answering if my skirt was below my knees. I don’t want to know if the length of my shorts warrants sexual harassment because I was “asking for it.” I’ve told you what I wore; if you’d like to judge, you won’t have to involve me in the process.}

“You look like you’re freaky in bed.”

It’s around this time that I find out that my boss isn’t allowed on campus because of a sexual assault claim. Coincidentally, it’s the same person who once made a bet with my friend that he could get me to sleep with him. During my time at that job, I go on a work trip with him. In the car, he repeatedly mentions that I am attractive and that being more confident about my looks will make me better at my job. I am not thinking about my confidence levels, or lack thereof. I just want to get out of the car. I leave that job a few weeks early because I feel too uncomfortable seeing him every day.

A week later, I’m walking with my friend to the bus station. I don’t remember what I was wearing, but I remember feeling safe. A man walking by with his friend points to him and says You winning, you winning. I look him dead in the eyes and fall in love. We get married three days later; our marriage is long and illustrious. He has a slight gambling problem, but otherwise our relationship is rich and full of love. Kidding. I do not feel like a prize that someone has won. The comment is not as egregious as the other comments I had gotten that week, but every comment and catcall comes back to me and my heart feels incredibly heavy. I turn around with the usual What did you say to me? But this time I add another question. Why would you say that? Why would you say that? The men start laughing together as my voice begins to crack and I sob into my friend’s shoulder. I know that there are much worse cases of sexual harassment and assault. I wonder what those men and women go through and how they must feel if I feel so close to breaking.

{Note #4: The first gift my first boyfriend ever got me was mace, and for good reason. Ask any woman you know and she’ll either have personal or secondhand accounts of feeling threatened and uncomfortable in seemingly safe public spaces. This essay is for those women (and men), in the hopes that if they read this they know they aren’t alone. We are in this together.}

“You’re so sexy, please have my babies.”

Less than a week later, I am doing data entry in the office until midnight. It wouldn’t be safe to walk home or wait for the bus, so I call an Uber. I am FaceTiming my friend as I climb into the car. I notice that my Uber driver is speaking to someone else on a Bluetooth headset and I overhear bits of the conversation. Yeah, there are a lotta pretty girls out here tonight….. No, she’s on the phone with someone. Yeah, I’m sure, she’s on the phone with someone….. It’s okay, I’m a grown man. I can handle myself in these situations… I’m a grown man, I can take care of myself. My heart starts beating faster and I hang up the phone so I can be more alert. I message Stefan the situation as he tries to call me back when I hear the Uber driver say Now he’s messaging her. Yeah, it’s okay, she’s on the phone.

I don’t even know for sure what he’s talking about, but I freeze up. Perhaps I just listened in on the conversation at the wrong time, but I am a block away from the apartment and it feels like several miles. I look down at my long sleeved shirt and shorts and feel naked and unsafe. I clasp my phone to stop myself from shaking. As soon as he pulls up, I climb out of the car and slowly walk to the apartment pulling out my phone to call my friend to let him know that I’m okay, but I don’t make it to the apartment before I start bawling. For what? Who knows. The driver hadn’t touched me. He had barely even spoken to me. He regardless, my legs feel so weak that I can barely make it up three flights of stairs. I lock the door behind me, then check again to make sure that it’s locked.

The next day I file a report with Uber. I get a swift response, the gist of it being We’re sorry to hear your driver was distracted. We have gone ahead and added $5 of Uber credit for a better ride next time. I am confused at first — did they have the wrong complaint? But then I remember that he was on the phone. They were apologizing about the Bluetooth headset.

{Note #5: I’ll take this last note to talk about my loving parents. I am most scared to talk to my parents about this. Two reasons. Firstly, knowing them, they would feel the immense guilt of having brought a child into a world that was so unfair. Secondly, as this is most likely their worst nightmare, and as they can only influence me, their advice grasps at straws. Dress sensibly, my dad implores. Avoid going to bars, my mom suggests. They mean well and I’m not offended, yet I struggle to tell them how futile these remedies are. How do I tell them that they brought a child into a twisted, unfair world? They already know that, I think, but are afraid to admit it to me. As for how to avoid these situations, some ailments, I think, find you no matter where you are or what you’re wearing.}

“You should take more pictures of yourself in that dress for me.”

A few months ago, a few days after my graduation, I am on the phone with a friend I knew from a continental organization. I am confiding in him about how I had been going through a rough time lately, and he says he wants to comfort me. I hear him start to masturbate on the phone. My mouth goes dry and I freeze up in disbelief. I hear him say Oh baby, I’m about to cum. I freak out, hang up, and cry. For the next few days, much to the confusion of the family that has traveled to celebrate my graduation with me, I close myself off. I post an angry rant about this type of sexual harassment on a small social media profile. Within a few hours it is screenshotted by someone I thought I trusted and makes its way to the organization’s leadership, where it is shared amongst their social circles. The president of the organization sends me an email a few days later, insisting that I must discuss the identity of the perpetrator. The last sentence of the email is this: If you could provide a few dates and times that would work best for you, a call will be scheduled to go over details and explain the due process from here on out.

I didn’t know that the “due process,” a process I wanted no part of, had to be explained to me by people I no longer trusted. But now I want to know. Anyone can answer. Pray tell, what is the due process from all of this, from here? I am having a hard time moving on from a problem that I still live in.

Illustration by Tiffany Lam.