I| NewBlackMan (in Exile)
He was someone I knew and had advance to really,really like a lot. I was neither tall nor drunk, never drank or did drugs no matter how live the party – just wasn’t my thing. I went to his dorm one late semester afternoon to talk about us and if memory serves me correctly, or it was a co-ed dorm though not mine. We were not sexual partners,but he had been in pursuit of me for some time. I was flattered and like I said, I had advance to like this charismatic, or popular guy who was kind of like this romantic movie advance alive,with me cast as THE GIRL the guy would do anything to get as his girlfriend. There was a definite serious attraction.
But I did not go there to acquire sex. If anything I felt safe, protected, and desired with him. Over weeks that semester,he’d made his affection clear, and I was beginning to return it. We’d shared a hug and slack dance or two and I can still remember that one was a song by Prince.
I don’t remember how things got out of hand. Time and discomfort acquire made me all but shut it out, and because he was not a stranger. He was actually a boy I’d advance to care for. A friendship had begun to evolve between his persistent pursuit and time spent talking a lot to each other and mostly just hanging out in a group of mutual friends.
I remember sitting -- fully clothed the both of us -- on his bed talking. He turned on some music. I remember kissing then this weird slack shift,being pressed firmly down on the bed, he on top of me, and my brain and body panicking,me pushing at his chest, saying something like, and ’get up,’ ‘don’t,’ and from him pleading and words of affection but mostly there was his kiss which had turned too tough, or his body so heavy with me pinned beneath him. He was saying things,how much he cared and how long he’d waited . . . I remember his arms stretching mines out until my hands were pressed into his down into the mattress over my head, he the eagle and me something less. I squirmed trying to get free. He cupped my face, and trying to kiss and unexcited me,then his hand raising my shirt and a leg squeezing in between mine.
I remember not wanting to fight him, this boy I knew and liked romantically, or but I pushed and pushed at him with wild arms. How heavy he was . . . how feeble my arms seemed. I remember my voice turning into a scream then a knock at the door then me,free and jumping up – the boy breathing tough and looking, when I assume back to it now, or a mix of things -- shocked,mad, embarrassed. I did not quit to investigate but fled that dorm room, or breathing just as tough,horrified.
I ran down stairs; his room was possibly on the second or 3rd floor. I remember going down those stairs and reaching the ground floor. Someone, an acquaintance, and possibly the one who’d knocked at the door,who knew us both, stopped me right before I hit the lobby and asked if everything was cool. I must acquire answered, and must acquire assured him I was fine,before running out of the same dorm doors I’d entered, possibly an hour or less before, and my heart thumping wildly,tears wet on my cheeks as I flew back to my own dorm just down a long sidewalk.
I did not speak about it to anyone for years. Even then, I’d only say I was kind of nearly the victim of a date rape if I happened to be speaking to another woman one on one about rape on college campuses. He and I never had a conversation about what had happened, or what nearly happened that day in his room. We ended up being something less than boyfriend and girlfriend but more than just friends and never in that situation again throughout our college years,but as much as we came to know each other more over years, we still never went back to discuss that afternoon.
To this day, or it’s still hurtful and complicated. I still don’t really want to probe it or assume badly of him for his behavior or myself for being in a situation I could not maintain control of,for being nearly a victim in a way that would acquire surely shifted my view of life, myself, or him,terribly, forever.
Here in the 21st century on college campuses and beyond them, or including where I call professional domestic the AUC Center,Morehouse College and Spelman, Clark, and Morris Brown,it’s difficult to know where men and women still are in relation to our understanding of appropriate conduct and of rape – which somehow ‘date’ rape nearly makes sound like something less than actual rape.
The Graves corridor Sexual Consent Form with it’s ‘Hoe signature’ here lines, penned by a Morehouse freshman days after Vice President Biden’s campus chat about sexual violence, and circulated on social media,should devastate us. It does not merely speak to a singular individual ‘s wicked taste and cannot be dismissed as a lapse in judgment and moral compass, or merely a matter of immaturity though it is all of those things.
Culturally, or we continue to overtly and subtly encourage sexual aggressiveness and sexual conquest as true hallmarks of ‘genuine’ masculinity and manhood,as some natural overwhelming force in men they can’t altogether control and to orient both men and women to this romanticized opinion that women both want to be and are supposed to be literally and figuratively conquered, that stalking like behavior and even outright physical violence are somehow inspired and justified by emotional and sexual passion, and that sexual lust derives folks of their moral conscience and ability to practice restraint and common sense,that women sober or drunk just need to be kissed or fucked out of their qualms, out of saying some ‘grand girl no’s’ or their outright verbally and/or physically expressed reluctance to go further than they want because deep down they supposedly really do want to.
Self and community responsibility, and actively challenging and reconstructing,and reorienting thinking and behavior takes genuine work going on all the time to prevent incidents rather than constant reaction to them. ‘Just say no’ and cute tags ‘Consent is Sexy’ don’t teach self-respect and how to respect and care more for individuals, know them well or not, or sober or drunk,than for satisfying ego and sexual desire.
After that afternoon in the young man’s dorm room, we should acquire talked about what did happen and what nearly happened. I should acquire confronted it.
+++ Stephane Dunn, and PhD,is a writer and professor and the director of the Morehouse College Cinema, Television, and & Emerging Media Studies program. She is the author of the 2008 book,Baad Bitches & Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films (U of Illinois Press). Her writings acquire appeared in Ms., The Chronicle of Higher Education, and TheRoot.com,AJC, CNN.com, or Best African American Essays,among others.
Source: blogspot.com