Homebound and reluctant

February is here, that means your one month trial for 2018 has ended! I’m sitting at my desk at this temp job writing for a few magazines at once and I’m dying to get back to bed.

Truth is, I wasn’t ready for January to end – not even in the slightest. I need more time to gather the material things I plan to keep and prepare a mental cushion for all the questions that will follow my low-key announcement on being queer.

As an Indonesian, as a sister, a daughter, and as a friend there never was the issue of being too promiscuous when it came to the opposite gender, it was “oh that’s just her being thirsty” however when it the situation includes a person of the same sex, being a partner to someone, it’s treason. It’s an illness. I lost all grasps of being okay last night.

I disappointed the sisterhood of the Indonesian sorority-like friendship by wanting an emotionally based relationship. Betrayed by the judgement I’ve been wanting to stay under the safety net of my blanket. On the other side of the emotional spectrum of being mentally shattered, I’m going to have to go back and stay a while with my mother. So that’s gonna be so much fun. I’m overwhelmed, I’m exhausted, and I’m feeling that itch to getaway. anywhere but the “paradise” that is home.

Home. 

Irony is at it’s best when it shows up in my life. Home is a feeling I don’t get from a place, home is not a location. Home is over my budget. Home is too busy for me. Home is making it hard for me to breathe. Home requires a visa. Home is the seven boxes in my living room. Home is the balcony I cry on. Cause what is home but a feeling? Home is the feeling I get when I’m safe. What’s a girl to do when that feeling is lost or packed in a cardboard box?

Holding my entity intact, I listen to Damien Rice singing and like the title of my favourite song, I feel delicate. Yesterday I sat in a room of strangers, she was the anchor that kept my anxiety at bay, it felt nice. This morning I took a cold shower and wondered if anyone could hear me weep. I don’t even know what triggered the rain of tears, I’m thinking I should go back to therapy. My work has yet to be affected, so that’s good. It’s the moments between articles, the silence between songs, the pauses between breathes.

I thought I was okay. I thought it would be okay. I was wrong. excuse me while I bubble through the day.

Regarding Grace and her consent

So I was shook when I saw this article by BBC, for a company that holds values in hardline journalistic integrity, they were incredibly biased and made it seem like a bashticle that serves just the negative and one sided view upon the situation. It was when my friend sent me this Babe article, I could taste the sick in my stomach, knowing that something similar has happened to me and probably other people before.

The thing that many in the comment section said that got me to actually writing about the issue is along the lines of these words:

Why didn’t she leave earlier? Why even go down and accept the back rub?

Which is where my story comes in, this happened when I was in college, and he was a friend I would hang with at the campus coffee shop.

What had started as flirtation led itself to occasionally hooking up. Damien* and I would be barely friendly in public spaces, but behind closed doors he would be more commanding. He masked it as an interest in role-play and BDSM – I followed along because in my head at that time it was what college students did.

The consent I gave to him soon was ill-fated when he wanted to try choking during intercourse. I generally don’t like constricting my neck area, even with scarves and turtlenecks I would always fidget around with it. So when he said he wanted to try I had already said no, he agreed until he was in a different headspace and continued to place his hands around my neck… I froze and let him finish because it I struggled, he would think it was a game (even with the safe word).

In that moment I relied on my ability to hold my breath, I racked my mind hoping no marks would have been left behind, I hoped that because I let him do that then he would not bring our twisted relationship out in conversations.

I barely told anyone about my fuckship with Damien even if it lasted a few months. I continued hooking up with him because of my fear of other people finding out. Another time he put true terror in my head was our night out with his cousins; wanting to just have a night out dancing turned real fast when it was bout time to go home.

He had promised to send me back before my parents woke up, “it’ll just be a minute” was what he said when he had to stop by his cousin’s apartment so I said I’ll wait in the car, we both had been drinking and I should have gotten a taxi home but again when he clenched his hands on the wheel of the car, I froze. Knowing if I tried to get away there’s a higher chance of him hurting me.

So, I went up to the apartment and we hooked up again – it was in my head that his cousins were looking  at me like vultures waiting for a meal, but I was sober and I made sure the lock worked because when he was “getting the keys” as I cleaned myself up, I was holding my tears hoping they wouldn’t barge in – especially since he told his cousins to “go ahead” when dancing at the club.

That was my last outing with him, slowly I started to ignore him altogether and after a few months of excuses not to see him alone, I was rid of him. Yet the memories remain.

Time isn’t a factor when it comes to these encounters, until I read other #metoo stories I thought my past encounters had been dismissed. But yesterday at work, on a smoke break I had a flashback that made it hard to breathe easy. A lingering scent of musk followed me from the club, the apartment, the car, and now it was in my cigarette – before I knew it, this post was created.

 

In light of my story, I can confirm that it’s not as easy as calling them out, even to their faces – the factors to consider are more than just the “it’s his words against yours…,” it is the overwhelming sense of being in danger, it’s knowing the person is stronger, it’s being called out for something else that could be worst (which Damien still did, fyi!).

So no, fellas in the BBC comment section, it’s not as simple as walking out the door.

In his position, Grace could’ve lost her credibility if Aziz were to just mention her badly. His reply was a PR message drafted in 31 hours by his team of people. I was rooting on him being an example of how you can be a successful comedian no matter your gender, race, or sexuality – without being predatory!

But I won’t go on about him, for too long we’ve been talking about his narrative, his actions, his POV, him being a POC, the unpredictability of the scandal… no, it’s not his story to glorify while a female photographer, working her hustle, speaking out anonymously, is nowhere close to being the first in the cookie cut scenario.

Grace like many women in schools, colleges, offices, social media and even public transportation, go through or have gone through conformity in lieu of consent. Not for the thrill of rough sex, but for the safety from it.

I, until today knew I could have done things differently those times with Damien, but the person that I was did not see it that way, she, I, we used to think it’s our fault, to a sick point thinking that we deserved it, because we stepped away from the “good girl” life we were brought up in, because “boys play rough honey, get used to it!,” because “God wouldn’t have put you in that situation if you had been more religious.”

I guess that’s all I have for now, there are a few other instances with different persons but I’ll ease into those stories on my other posts sometime this year (I’m a horrible blogger I know!).

But if you slide into my DMs or drop a comment, maybe I’ll post sooner 🙂

* Not his real name, but he probably knows who he is.

Helen of Twitterverse

FULL DISCLAIMER – This article is solely the opinion of the writer.

As a follow up to my post yesterday, I would like to touch on a few things.

The official statement from the involved institution has been released. Was this necessary? Of course, it’s a standard procedure.  But was it necessary for the girl to share it with the world? Not really.

As stated, the boys and girl involved had only been in the college environment for a month or so – their journey has just begun. The girl/victim had recently been acknowledged by Elle Malaysia as a badass in their article for speaking out about her incident. This was a fashion magazine and there is this freshie on campus, and there is this cry of a rape threat. For some reason, that’s a bit of an odd mix…. or is it just me thinking this? She was badass for launching a thousand ships of altercation between people and causing a commotion that has impacted institutions and such. Helen of Twitterverse indeed.

Now to my take on this case, as a former media student, I feel that the story has been misappropriated to a point where it’s no longer a fight for women’s justice but one that goes against it. Considering how fast words can travel online, I think it’s time now more than ever that we need smart women to stop debasing their intelligence and directly shoot out a flare gun on to the twitterverse.

Kellie Low, 24, Malaysian PR graduate had a similar stance on how this case could have been handled, especially the girl involved. “I find the guy’s more at fault for joking so nonchalantly about something apparently beyond his comprehension, but the girl should not have blown up the issue, regardless of how upset she was. Screenshot, confront the person who made the rape statement, but why play victim-and-villian by posting and making it viral?”

From where I stand, female empowerment does not mean we have to degrade our opposite gender, but instead we should educate them. Blasting retweets and sharing posts on our newsfeed is not necessarily the only strategy to go about this.

The darker side of social media should be brought out of the light on how “tweetivists” take justice into their own hands without thinking of the repercussions they activate with 140 characters or less. Last year this article by the Observer relates the social justice warriors that take to social media to the Totalitarian doctrines and Marxism theory. Creator of Scandal, Shonda Rhimes has also pointed this out in her speech at Dartmouth that instead of merely tweeting #justice, they should act positively in the causes that they believe in. So why not instead of tweeting how the institution or boys involved should act upon this case, they go ahead and volunteer hours at a local shelter.

When I asked Tanya Nazeer, 24, who’s a fellow media student from Tanzania, she delivers a valid point; “There’s plenty of ways this could have been handled. I get it that the girl was just speaking out about the incident. But the keyboard warriors are the one who add fuel to the fire. They are the ones causing the PR mishap. The university shouldn’t take this as a scandal – yes they are your students. But take the opportunity to show how you care for the students and how you actually intend to change their mindsets for the better.”

Let’s step back to the starting point of this particular case. It is not about glorifying rape culture, but the public statement that a person of a political leader. How can we expect the socio culture in Malaysia to be more than a developing country when the leaders are still acting this way? I don’t see how it is justice when the institution drowns in the melting pot of opinions, while the man who started the joke goes off scot-free. 

Now that the student involved has been given a punishment of 100 hours of community service; can we also hand over the learning opportunity to not only the warriors retweeting but also Mr. Parliament? I think that should be fair, don’t you?

As for the girl in question, a badass? Yes but not in the fashionable sort.

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