I loved the looks and aahs when I was single.
The catcalls from street vendors I've never liked, but fine. I wasmocked for trying to explain how uncomfortable aggressive advances on the street from either sex made me. Fair enough, not manly. I shut up.
ALSO READ:
Why Young Men Need Violence
Then a friend was gangraped and messaged her friends about it in December.
Then on Christmas, I came across Al Jazeera's 101 East program "It's a Man's World: Rape In Cambodia". Look at the methodology for anonymized statisticsfrom 3:30. Watch for 60 seconds from that point - see which country is beside Cambodia.
I did. Finally the pieces thundered into place.
ALSO READ:
Seriously, Leave Rizieq and Firza Alone
The night whereI met an aspiring singertalking about "getting high" with what I always thought was a date rape drug. A lot of would-be groupies hanging around before I left. Now I see.
I wondered what it was like to ogled at like that. I went to Jakarta and was ogled, propositioned by women and men, but I didn't understand it yet.
Now I see the looks in women's eyes when they are alone, waiting for a friend in a club and the night is turning darker. I see their body language. I see the security guards.
I watch them watch me with a buried fear if I offer help.
I remember when my sister told me Iggy Azalea was impressive "sick" and told me to listen to the song "Work" "no money, no family, 16 on the middle of miami."
I listened to it a few years later and that hook meant something different.
I started to think "what if I was a woman?" every time I did something risky or got myself into trouble.
What if all the times I got mugged as a child (one), drugged and robbed (one), home broken into (three), street fights i'd lost (one) I had instead been a woman?
What if on top of that I was raped?
Abused as a minor once. Drugged and raped once. Raped at home three times. Gang raped once.
Six.
What about every time I got lost a fight while I was a teenager? My college years?
What about fights I won...
How many, then?
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect Brilio's.