Perhaps you noticed the #MeToo campaign all over social media. One in four, you know?
I guess I should mention that #MeToo. It wasn’t anything major, but it still made me feel very uncomfortable. And I never mentioned anything about the incident to anyone until very recently – more than 25 years after it happened.
At the age of 13 or 14, I was walking on the street by myself, during daylight, when a boy roughly my age drove his bicycle towards me and quickly grabbed my breasts, and continued driving. I was too shocked to do anything – and besides, he kept on driving in the opposite direction. So it’s over, right? Only then he came back to grab my breasts again – this time he approached from the back and kept driving while looking back at me with a malicious smile. As minor as this incident may appear to be, I was truly shocked. When I got back home, I took a long shower and tried to cry. No tears came out. And I didn’t tell anyone about this. What could anyone do, anyway? I didn’t see the point.
It’s easy to see ourselves as the victims here – but really, the attackers are also a victim. A victim of a society that makes sex a shameful subject, a taboo, something we can’t approach. How can we continue to be part of the problem – by not talking about sex, by pretending we are not interested or not engaged in it – and wish the problem of sexual misbehavior to go away? We must take action if we want things to change.
It’s time we bring sex into the front of the conversation. It’s time to talk about sex openly and fearlessly, so things don’t get worse.
Perhaps we should start a new #MeToo campaign. This version, for anyone who talks openly, maturely, naturally and positively about sex.
