My Sexuality Is Mine

If you'd asked me not so long ago how I felt about women who use their sexuality to get ahead in life, I would have probably told you that it was counterproductive to the aims of feminism, would have been fully aware of the danger of contradicting some of my "we need to stop sexualising everything" rants, and would have told you that I choose not to enter into any of that stuff, personally.

But things change. Experiences change.

Without going into any sordid details about my personal life, I've come to understand that regardless of how I view myself and my sexuality, the world will always have its own separate perception. I was barely a teenager when I first started receiving attention from adult men in the street who would comment on my apparent "growth"; I was intimidated by teenage boys who attempted to physically assault me when I refused to go out with one of them; I reported sexual harassment to the police when I was 14; I had a middle-aged man come onto me at a deserted train station at midnight when I was 18 (barely relevant, but I've always looked about two or three years younger than my actual age). I wore jeans and jumpers, flat shoes and long coats. I didn't start wearing makeup until I was 18, and through all of this, regardless of how I looked to these strange leering men, I still felt like a child.

These experiences alone made me aware of the desperate need for the continuation of feminism long after the days of bra-burning, but for a long time, my experiences of having my "sexuality" infringed upon were carried out on the streets, by men I did not know and reasonably assumed I would never see ever again. They weren't men I worked with, or men I assumed to be friends; they weren't men I was in a relationship with, and their impact on my world didn't extend beyond my freedom to walk down the street without being harassed (still not acceptable, but you know what I mean). I felt reasonably safe thinking that so long as the door was closed and bolted and I knew everyone standing behind it, I was safe. Sexism and the exploitation of my sexuality lay on the outside world, not on the inside.

But then it crept in, slowly, with small gestures at first, but from men I saw every day: innuendo they didn't think I got, or hands accidentally slipping... And then I got a stalker, someone who would not leave me the fuck alone, and who seemed to thrive on the fact that I saw him every day and yet felt too afraid to tell him to leave me the hell alone or, more suitably, punch him in his fucking face. Men who claimed to love me saw me as putty in their hands: soft, fleshy putty. And gradually, over time, you begin to realise that the exploitation of a woman's sexuality is not just carried out in the media on young, thin celebrities; it's not just carried out in the street, and it doesn't matter if you're wearing a PVC playsuit or the attire of an Eskimo. As far as the world is concerned, by the very nature of being a woman, I am a sexual object.

And you can do a number of things with that piece of information:

1. You can ignore it, as I was before. But ignoring it won't make it go away.
2. You can fight it, and kick the shit out of anyone who crosses the line between acceptable and being an arsehole. But eventually you might get arrested, or they might fight back, and in a world populated by an estimated 3 million men, assuming that at least 10% of those men are arseholes (and that's being generous to blokes, as my experience dictates), you can only really conceivably kick about 100 out of a possible 300,000 dickfaces. That's a poor ratio.
3. You can take advantage of it.

I argue all the time that feminism is about gender equality, not about promoting female as superior to male. I argue that feminism benefits men, and that there are men in my life whom I love. I stand by these arguments, but one thing I cannot stand by anymore is being idle and passive in my own sexuality. I cannot stand by and allow my own body to be used against me, to be made to look in the mirror and hate or blame myself for the violation I have endured. I know what my boundaries are and I respect the boundaries of other women who either wholeheartedly agree or relentlessly disagree with me. I refuse to be intimidated, mocked or exploited. My sexuality is on my terms, and if Man wants a sexual creature, he can have one - but he sure as hell won't be the one to benefit from it.