In my first blog post, I talked about women’s bodies in public being viewed as public property. As this assignment has progressed, I have been really impressed and inspired by the personal stories that everyone else has shared, so I want to end my blog by talking about a few of my own experiences of my body being seen as public property. *tw sexual harassment/salty language*
BWI Airport Garage, via bizjournals.com
Twelve years old: I am at the airport with my mom and sisters, coming home after a long flight. We are walking up the stairwell that leads to the parking garage. I stop to tie my shoelace and my family keeps walking up the stairs, knowing I’ll sprint to catch up with them when I’m done. Once I am alone, an old man comes up behind me and slaps my ass. I turn around to look at him and he leers at me for a moment, then says, “go on, now, girl. Git!” I run up the stairs as fast as I can. I don’t tell my mom.
via urban75.org
Eighteen years old: I am on the subway in New York. I’ve started wearing headphones whenever I’m on public transportation because I’ve been told my face is too friendly; I need a buffer between myself and the outside world if I want to be left alone. A man gets on the train and painfully smacks the headphones off my head because he wants to talk to me. I get off at the next stop and try not to cry.
City Dock Cafe, via capitalgazette.com
Nineteen years old: I am busking with my friends outside my favorite café at 11 P.M. A middle-aged businessman walks up to me between songs. He snakes his hand around my waist and leans his face into my neck. “How much would it cost to spend the night with you?” I can smell the alcohol on his breath as he slides his hand lower, too low. I gently take his groping hands off of me as I laugh and politely tell him I’m not interested. He turns to my male friend and asks if he’s my pimp, promising good money if he’ll let the man use my body for a few hours. My friend tells him to go fuck himself. The man leaves. My friend asks me if I’m ok, and I try to downplay my feelings of disgust and humiliation. I laugh it off.
The common emotion I feel during all of these experiences is shame. I am ashamed of myself at twelve years old because I know that strangers aren’t supposed to touch me, but I think it’s my fault for being alone in that stairwell. I am ashamed of myself at eighteen for my naïveté in believing that headphones could protect me from harassment. I am ashamed of myself at nineteen for freezing up and being nice to the man who gropes me and asks my friend’s permission to fuck me after I say no. I’m ashamed of myself for not getting angry and for letting my male friend speak for me. I am ashamed of myself for always staying quiet, for never reacting. And I am ashamed of feeling ashamed. Because, truly, how am I supposed to react? If this is how men treat my body when it is simply there, occupying space, how would they treat my body if I actively protested? To this day, if I am being catcalled or harassed and I feel threatened, I smile and act complacent until I can extricate myself from the situation. But every time I walk away, I mutter, “fuck you,” under my breath.
Unruly Bodies 
Street harassment is bullshit. We’ve talked about it before in class, and Dr. Kate made a salient point. She said that after you’re harassed, you carry the shame, you carry the weight of the ‘compliment’ that’s been hurled at you. It’s so gross. I’m so sorry you’ve experienced that, and in the world I want to see no one has to feel that shame. There are so many cool websites and projects that address street harassment, and I hope that these will really make a difference. Activism is important, it’s helped me to feel less alone. There’s http://bmore.ihollaback.org/ for example. I’ll end with my own story. When I was 20 I traveled across the country with my boyfriend. In Minneapolis we were flying a sign on a highway exit ramp, a homebum walked up across the street and started yelling at Mikey, asking how much he could buy me for. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t look at him or talk to him. Mikey yelled something like “fuck you pig” and the homebum walked off after a while. My stomach still hurts when I think about it. What if I had been alone? Why is my body the property of anyone who walks by? It’s not. But the shame belongs on the harassers for being absolute pieces of shit. You’re not alone though, and it is not your fault, and your feelings about it are valid. ❤
I still don’t know what to do when I’m being verbally harassed. And like you, I keep that shame inside of me, and I bottle it up and store it away, until one day I’ll let it come out as anger, which I don’t want to happen.
I’ve never really been physically harassed, so I can’t speak towards that understanding of street harassment, but I was hoping to commiserate here, as well. Last year, I wrote a piece about my experiences on public transportation, all of which revolve around some aspect of shame. People I was with were stared at for their weight, I was harassed for having a, “flat ass,” and I was interrogated by fellow summer campers about whether or not I was a girl or a boy. These memories are so vividly implanted in my mind and my conscience, and I don’t know how to not simply get rid of them, but to re-own them. These are not MY moments where I was in control of myself, but moments where I was the object, like you said, and I despise that. The only way I have had some semblance of ownership of the moments is when I can write about them, and give meaning to them with my own words.
I respect your post so much, and I totally empathize with you, because I carry a similar (though I don’t know if its totally congruent) shame. Thank you for your post, and know you are never alone, like fallofefrafa said.