Dinosaur in the Locker Room: On Trump, On Sisterhood, On Being "Grabbed by the Pussy"

By now, you've heard the recording of Donald Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women in a session of what he referred to as "locker room talk." (By the way, many professional athletes have come forward to question Trump's characterization of what goes on in locker rooms.) It's hard to imagine there's anything left to be said about what has to be the lowest point in the history of Presidential elections in this country.

And yet, here I go:

The other day some coworkers and I were talking about how how rapey, gross, and incredibly unsexy the act of "grabbing a woman by the pussy" is. Then we were talking about how pathetic it was that we were having that conversation because one of the two leading candidates for PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA had bragged about having done it.

I had to let that sink in a little bit. POTUS candidate. Major Party. Wow.

I told my coworkers about a story I'd read the day before. A Canadian writer by the name of Kelly Oxford, after commenting on Trump's remarks, encouraged women to come forward with their first experience of having been sexually assaulted. Thousands of women responded using the hashtag #notokay. At one point Oxford tweeted that she was receiving 2 stories per second.

In letting that sink in, I thought about my own first experience of sexual assault.

I was 12-years-old and in my 8th grade HomeEc class. We were working in groups in the little mini-kitchens, baking something that would turn out disgusting, no doubt. I turned around and suddenly a boy in my group named J.J.--quite out of nowhere and without a word--grabbed me by the pussy. No joke. It's an actual thing (in case any of you respectable men out there heard Trump's words and doubted any person would really do this).

It was the first time a male had ever touched me there, and I was shocked...not least because I'd had no kind of sexual or even remotely flirtatious interaction or even conversation with this boy before. We'd scarcely spoken at all.

I felt frozen in place. I did nothing in response other than to try and shrink away into some kind of invisible version of myself; I remember feeling grateful that this, my last-period class, was almost over and that I could soon go home.

I thought about it for weeks, wondering why he'd done it and feeling a deep sense of shame about the whole thing. I told nobody. I couldn't look at the boy. I barely wanted to go to the class at all.

It's plausible that to J.J. it was nothing more than a spontaneous (though inappropriate) action in response to whatever hormonal whatever he had going on at the moment. It's plausible that J.J. didn't go on to rape and otherwise abuse women. And I'd even believe it if he claimed no memory of this event at all (this is not to excuse the action whatsoever). But (obviously) it made a strong impression upon me.

And as is the case for most if not all my fellow women, an example from my childhood was just the first in what would be many such experiences in the years to follow (three more come to mind from that year alone, though I'm happy to report that by the following year I'd learned a thing or two. When I was a freshman, a sophomore friend of mine grabbed my ass while I was getting something out of my locker. I turned around and slapped him across the face without a moment's hesitation--he immediately apologized and said he'd deserved the slap).

If you're a woman, you have plenty such stories to share.

And you know what, Donald Trump? It truly is not okay. It's not locker room talk. It's fucking bullshit, in fact.

First Lady Michelle Obama had some things to say about Trumps remarks, and she expressed her thoughts a bit more eloquently than I have. She spoke for us all, decent men and women alike.

In her speech, First Lady Obama implored us to work together as teams, united in a stand against Trump's so-called good-ole-boy brand of sexism and sexual harassment.

It was those remarks that came to mind when, just two nights ago, I was on the receiving end of a creeper maneuver all-too-familiar to any woman who's ever been alive in a dance club.

I was dancing by myself (one girlfriend was dancing with a guy, a couple were in the restroom, and one was taking a break off to the side), when a man came up right behind me, rubbing up against my backside, his hand suddenly on my hip.

I glanced backward to see a very drunken looking person, hardly able to stand, let alone dance. I brushed his hand off me and took a step forward.

And then suddenly appeared a young woman in front of me, motioning for me to lean in. "Let's get this dude away from you," she said, and she switched places with me so that she was closer to Grabby Man...a kind of buffer zone. "That's my boyfriend right behind you," she said, "Is that okay?"

Let me just say that there was nothing untoward or creepy about this newfound friend. It wasn't the opening to a three-way porn proposal, haha. The young woman's dude was not dancing very near to me; I think she just wanted me to know that the closest man at that point did not pose any danger.

I wanted to cry for this moment of sisterhood, this caring gesture of goodwill. I danced for a little while with the young woman and then went off to rejoin my friends. But I continued to think about her and how she and her boyfriend together represented one way in which we can counter the culture that seems to think a woman's body is simply there for the taking. That unless a woman actively rebukes him after the fact, a man is welcome to whatever he can grab.

Hers was a little message to Grabby Man and all the Grabby Men out there: I've seen you, and it's not okay.

And it's not that I needed a third party to protect or defend me--not in that particular moment, in a public setting. But I appreciated it anyway. I appreciated the reassurance that we have not resolved ourselves into complacency about sexual assault. About Trump's chicken shit concept of "locker room talk," which really amounts to nothing more or less than a grown-ass men refusing to take responsibility for his abusive actions.

We women have been groped too many times. We've heard too many indecent proposals coming in the form of lame jokes. We have experienced too many "accidental" and opportunistic brush ups. We've heard too many drunken excuses and half-hearted apologies for sexually aggressive behaviors.

From this moment on, I vow to join my sisters and brothers who have had enough. In a way I have to thank Donald Trump for shedding a light on this issue, lest we in our progressed states think we've come as far as we needed to come.

Thank you, Donald Trump, for reminding us there are still plenty of assholes out there to be wary of. Thank you for reminding us to be vigilant on our own behalves and on behalf of other women.

And thank you for reminding me that we know all too well from personal experience the lasting effects of what you claim to be banal "locker room talk." If this is your locker room talk, yours is a sport for the dinosaurs of old. Your kind is dying off and making room for a more evolved version.

Thank you for reminding us all of how far we've come, and where we need to go.