من الأشهر اليوم؟

Survivors of harassment or assault shouldn’t have to choose between a flawed justice system and public denunciation
Around two years ago I went on a Tinder date with a man who could be described as a public figure. He spoke about himself a lot and didn’t ask me any questions. In an act I found more sinister than erotic, he kept pressing his knee against mine below the table, all the while leering and maintaining eye contact. But I can’t really condemn him for that, because what constitutes a “leer” instead of a “winning smile” is entirely subjective. If someone I’d been attracted to had behaved in the same manner I would have found it thrilling; I’d have leered and pressed my knee right back. I don’t believe that clumsy attempts at seduction and sexual harassment are the same thing.
The next time I saw him, though, he did cross a line. I was drunk on a night out (meeting him was incidental, I hadn’t planned to see him again) and when the bar shut, he invited me back to his flat for a nightcap. I agreed, simply because I wanted to keep drinking, but I told him clearly that nothing was going to happen. We sat up talking for a few hours and I ended up staying over. When I tried to go to sleep, he attempted to initiate sex, repeatedly touching me without my consent. I must have said “No” six times before finally saying it with sufficient force that he replied, “I don’t know about you any more” and, with an almost comic level of huffy passive-aggression, turned around to face the other direction. He acted with such a sense of aggrievement that I actually felt guilty, and the next morning I even apologised. But the more I thought about it, the more violated I felt. I’d asked him to stop touching me and he hadn’t – I wasn’t sure whether to describe it as harassment or assault, but I was confident it was something. Continue reading...