Ne Me Touche Pas: Part 1

Don’t Touch Me: Safety in Public Spaces as a Female Presenting Person

Author’s Note:

Part 1 discusses my first experience with sexual aggression while at an LGBT specific event at a night club in Paris.

Part 2 will open a discussion about the different types of sexual violence, rape culture, as well as explore the advantages and disadvantages of various methods that people employ when handling situations of unwanted sexual attention.

Wet for Me

When I learned that one of France’s most influential queer/fxminist magazines was hosting their monthly, queer pop up party, famously known as the Wet for Me, the first month into my stay in Paris I, being the biggest baby gay that I was at the time, decided, without question, that I was going.

I reached out to the “LGBT Paris” group chat that I had been added to earlier that year, to see if anyone wanted to join me.

— “Mais qu’est-ce que c’est?” (What is it?) Louise, the group chat creator, asked.

— “C’est une fête lesbienne à La Machine du Moulin Rouge,” (It’s a lesbian party at La Machine du Moulin Rouge) I explained.

— “OH P U T A I N! (Oh fuck) Yeah! Let’s go!”

And that was that. As other group members learned that they had other commitments on that date, Louise and I reconciled the fact that we would be the only ones going.

I purchased my ticket online using the “Early Dyke” promo code, which saved me a heaping two euros off of the regular admission price, and patiently waited until the date: September 28.

All Black, No Makeup

On the day of the event, Louise and I had decided that we would meet each other in front of the doors at 11:00 pm. I promptly readied myself having decided, partly out of laziness, to go with an “all black, no makeup” look for that night. I pulled my oversized, denim motorcycle jacket over myself and locked the dorm room door behind me.

My Chelsea boot heels clacked satisfyingly against the cobblestone streets as I set out on the 20-minute walk to the club. Feeling the crisp air against my cheeks, I felt lucky to have been given the opportunity to live in Paris for sixth months. It was the first time I had ever lived on my own, and I was excited to finally be able to explore the world before me.

As soon as I arrived at the club, I could see a line of what looked to be half of all of the Parisian gays begin to form just in front of the two blacked out, glass doors that made the entrance. I joined the line and began to check my messages to see if Louise had made it. Distracted by the two completely badass-looking women that I had wedged myself between, I hadn’t noticed that Louise had been trying to flag me down from the street.

— “Pardon, mais, je crois que ton amie…” (Sorry, but I think your friend…) One of the women interjected as she pointed to a Philipino girl who was aggressively waving her phone in the air in our direction from the other side of the queue.

— “Hi, Louise!” I exclaimed in plain English. Understanding that I was new to the language, she was compassionate and let us converse in English together.

We checked in and immediately headed toward the cloakroom. We each deposited the coats that we were wearing revealing our outfits for the night. She was wearing a pair of relaxed-fitting trousers, a patterned button-up, and had done light cat eye makeup on herself.

— “God damn, girl!” she exclaimed catching a glimpse of the black lace bralette, mesh jacket, and high waisted skinny jeans ensemble that I was wearing. I blushed modestly even though I felt hot as fuck in my wardrobe choice for that night.

Lillian

We headed downstairs only to discover that the place was practically empty. It was only 11:30, and we both began to question why we had decided to meet up so early. With nothing to do, we decided to sit down. There was a small seating area to the left of the bar where we chose a table for two. We began to introduce ourselves to one another when a girl with short, dark hair leaned over.

— “I’m sorry to bother you,” she began. “I don’t mean to be eavesdropping on your conversation, but I heard you two speaking English. Are you American by any chance?”

— “Oh, I’m not,” Louise responded promptly. “I’m French…French Philipino. I’m here on an internship.”

— “Well, I am,” I followed. “I’m from California and I’m here on a gap year as a language student.”

The girl introduced herself as Lillian saying she came from Massachusetts.

— “I’m here for a year abroad.”

I interjected with the anecdote that I had a sister in Massachusetts for university with nothing more than the intention of attempting to make it sound like I had something to offer to the conversation.

Lillian, probably also in an attempt to keep the conversation going, asked which university my sister was attending.

Thinking that she would have little to no idea about the university or its whereabouts, as had been the experience with others who had asked our family that year, I stated the name of the university fully ready to launch myself into an in-depth explanation of the university and its location, but instead, I was instantly cut off.

— “Oh my god! Are you serious? I go there!!!!” Lillian shouted.

Long story short, that night I met a group of students who all attended the same university as my sister and were in Paris for a language study abroad year. These would become some of my closest friends with Lillian being the first.

Les Trois Mousquequeers (The Three Muskequeers)

Louise, Lillian, and I instantly became friends and we decided to stay together for the rest of the night. Always traveling in a pack of three, we alternated between the main dance floor, the underground mosh pit, the bar, and the smoke room.

At one point, Louise and Lillian discussed tattoos as each of them revealed the multitude of tattoos that they had accumulated over the years. Lillian had a gorgeous floral design that traced the entirety of her upper back. In utter amazement, Louise (as well as this other random girl who probably wanted an excuse to touch someone else’s back) ran her fingers along the ink admiring the pure craftsmanship.

At the bar, I watched them each down about three mojitos before we headed over to the smoke room where the two of them shared a joint as we chatted.

Watching the smoke curl around her lips as she spoke, Louise asked us if we had people in our lives — if we knew what she was saying.

— “I don’t,” I admitted with a pang of guilt for being a literal baby with absolutely no life experience.

Lillian mentioned something about having a temporary arrangement with her partner, who was back in the States, set in place for the duration of her year abroad, and Louise explained how she was focused on juggling several booty calls.

As the temperature in the tiny smoke room began to rise, I took my mesh jacket off and stuffed it in the waistband of my pants revealing my lace bralette. I caught Lillian, who I guess hadn’t noticed that I wasn’t exactly wearing a shirt, staring and so I smiled at her bashfully.

— “Sorry, but like…that’s really nice,” she admitted half-embarrassed as she drew a circle in the space between us with her hand.

— “Awww, thank you!” I gushed realizing she had just gestured to my entire body.

As we spoke in that tiny room surrounded by the suffocating scent of weed and cigarettes, I found myself begin to relax. Being in a predominantly queer space in addition to getting to know both Lillian and Louise, I began to feel, for the first time, comfortable in the foreign city that I had found myself in that fall.

Please don’t leave me alone

We decided to make our way back to the main dance floor where we situated ourselves in the middle of the crowd after having almost died by attempting to human chain our way through the sea of people.

Louise and Lillian were both engaged in some heavy techno that was playing when I noticed the first guy staring at me.

Being the 5’1 shorty that I am, I couldn’t tell if he was really looking at me or whether he was looking over me. I first had the inkling that he was looking at me after I noticed that, even though he was about two or three people away from me, he wouldn’t turn his body any direction other than directly towards me. I tried sneaking a peek in his general vicinity in an effort to verify my suspicions. As the strobe lights flashed, I glanced over my shoulder, and as my eyes slowly met his, I could see him staring directly at me. The rapid flickering of the white stage lights created this almost slow-motion, stop motion effect making me feel like I was living something straight out of a horror movie as I felt his eyes piercing into mine.

I quickly turned around in hopes that he didn’t catch me looking at him. Despite the booming vibrations of the bass in my chest, I could feel my heart begin to beat faster, and although I didn’t turn back around, I could feel every step he took as he approached me.

As he came up behind me, I had stopped dancing altogether. I stood where I was, motionless. Only my head was moving as I attempted to find Lillian and Louise. A few moments passed, and I was unable to locate either one of my friends. I knew that they couldn’t have been far away since there was limited space on the floor. At this point, he hadn’t touched me yet. Rather, he just hovered behind me for some time. Acknowledging this, I made some efforts to move in the direction of my friends, that I successfully managed to find after a minute or two, both of whom were lost in the rhythm of the set. As I awkwardly side shuffled through the raging mob of club-goers, I noticed the man begin to follow me.

He stepped out into the stage light as he tried to pursue me, this being the first time I was able to get a good look at him. He had short, curly black hair and very prominent facial features. He was wearing a tan-colored knit wool sweater and faded blue jeans. Strange choice of clothing for clubbing, I thought. Now, while I have no intention of perpetuating the stereotype of “looking gay/queer vs looking straight” I couldn’t help but think that he was not gay at all. Most of the queer men, and people in general, at the event looked queer meaning they went all out with their wardrobes. Fully adorned in metal, fishnets, glitter, and leather it was very easy to tell that this man, in particular, was not queer in the slightest.

I finally made my way toward Lillian and Louise placing myself just off to the left of them. The man had followed me there and was standing a few feet to my left. I began to dance again now that I felt safer being back with my friends, but I kept glancing over to make sure that he was still there, and to my great disappointment, he, indeed, still was. Eventually, he caught me looking over at him and probably mistook my regard for interest, because he came over to me, leaned over, and whispered something in my ear. I couldn’t hear him over the blasting music, but I’m almost certain that it was a proposal to dance with him because, shortly after, he stood back up and gestured for me to get in front of him as if he wanted to grind against me. Fuckin nooooooooo, I thought to myself. I politely declined the offer with a simple head shake and the tiniest “Non, merci” I’ve ever uttered in my life.

I turned away and continued dancing in hopes that things would have ended with that. But of course, with the way that many things work in this society, that was not the case.

After a few minutes, I couldn’t’ find him anymore. My eyes darted side to side in an attempt to locate him among the crowd. I gave up after a few tries thinking he had left completely only to be startled by the sensation of someone’s hands caressing my rear. Without having to turn around, I immediately knew it was him because I could feel his knit sweater as it rubbed against my back. Rather than turn around and confront him, I decided to try and diffuse the situation by simply taking a large step forward only to have him also take a large step after me. We engaged in this sort of waltz where I took a step forward, to the side, and then back in an effort to get away from his hands that kept trying to squeeze and fondle me. At one point, I was successful in getting behind both him and another person to the point that he lost me. From the protection of these other club-goers who were all oblivious to this incident that was taking place, I could see his head turn from side to side as his eyes scanned the mob looking for me.

Eventually, he gave up. My eyes followed him as he went up to the bar. Instead of disappearing as I thought he would do, he simply stood at the top of the stairs. It was then that I realized that he was still looking for me, and this time, he had the advantage of overhead leverage. I ducked behind a couple, who were too busy making out to notice, or mind, that I was using them both as a shield, and waited.

All of a sudden, the lights blared and the host mentioned a DJ change meaning that everyone had the chance to get up on stage and dance if they wanted to. Lillian and Louise came over to my hiding spot and informed me that they were going to join. No, I thought. Please don’t leave me alone. As they made their way up to the stage, I followed close behind terrified of being left behind. From his watchtower, the man saw the three of us making our way to the stage. When I looked back at him I could see him making his way towards us.

Lillian and Louise hoisted themselves up onto the stage with the help of some free hands as I hung back. Being the shy person that I am, I really didn’t want to get up on stage, so I hung out right at the bottom underneath my two friends. Suddenly, all of the light, noise, and smells of the club became overwhelming as my nervous system convulsed. Fear and anxiety ran through my veins as I watched him emerge from behind two clubbers and begin to march toward me. I felt the urge to turn to a stranger and tell them what was happening and ask if they could help me, but nothing came out. It felt as though something was constricting my throat preventing me from speaking. Looking back it was most likely a mix of things — my beginner level in French, my lack of knowledge as to what to do in situations like this, my stubborn belief that I should have been able to save myself, and my deep-running difficulty in asking for help — that prevented me from reaching out.

As I felt him begin to close in on me, Lillian and Louise swiftly jumped down from the stage and grabbed me. Apparently, the “on the stage song” had ended and they were leading me back to our original dance spot. Safe. I breathed a sigh of relief that the song had ended when it did, which allowed my friends to unknowingly rescue me from my dire situation.

After that, I didn’t see him again. Thankful for the termination of that ordeal I went back to dancing.

You’ve got to be shitting me

Now, when I say “not a moment later,” I literally mean Not–A–Moment–Later, not even a split second later, I saw another man on my right look over his shoulder at me.

He was heavier set and was wearing a short-sleeved button-up with khaki shorts and a snapback hat. You’ve got to be fucking shitting me. I thought as I saw him, not so subtly, start stepping from side to side as he swung his left arm over to graze my rear.

Absolutely fed up with the patriarchy at this point, I stood where I was completely motionless, only this time it was out of anger rather than fear. Looking at me, you would have thought I was having an acid trip. In the middle of a pulsing mosh pit, I was standing still as a rock with the dullest expression painted on my face. He touched me about three times before I turned to Lillian who was dancing slightly behind me.

— “Hey,” I beckoned to her. “I’m sorry to bother you, but there is this guy and he won’t stop following me.”

With the protective instinct of a 20-year-old over an 18-year-old baby, she straightened up and searched her surroundings. I hadn’t indicated which man it was, and so, without knowing, she put her arm around me and placed herself right in between me and the man who was now directly behind her.

— “It’s all good. I’ll just body block for you.” she beamed.

Peering around her, I could see him begin to fume as he stared Lillian, who remained facing me and therefore unaware, down with a gaze comparable to that of Medusa. Understandably, from his perspective, he was seeing this straight-looking (maybe he even fetishized me assuming that I was bisexual given the queer specific space) girl in the arms of another girl who doesn’t whisper but instead screams queer (short hair, multiple ear piercings, visible tattoos, etc), so it was no surprise that a misogynistic bitterness began to reveal itself.

I felt bad having to ask Lillian to help me get out of a situation that I believed I should have been able to handle. I regretted not having tried hard enough or having taken “the correct” course of action. Why couldn’t I have taken care of it myself? Why did I have to ask for help? Does this mean I’m a weak person? What if I had turned around and yelled at these guys? What if I pushed them off of me? But what if they got mad and hit me in response? As these thoughts cycled through my mind, I tried to convince myself that what I did was enough. I told myself that asking for help was the best and safest option given that I had tried, with no avail, to diffuse the situation myself before asking for help from another person.

After another hour or so we all decided to head home. I took a look at my phone realizing the time: 4:30 am.

We headed towards the cloakroom and collected our belongings. Having exchanged contact information we said our goodbyes after making informal arrangements to meet up again at some point in the future.

3 is the Magic Number

I zipped my coat up and pulled out a pair of earbuds that I discovered had been buried deep inside one of its inner pockets from earlier that week. Delighted at the thought that I wouldn’t be “completely alone” on my walk home, I eagerly plugged the jack into my phone and opened my Apple Music library. I put one earbud in remembering the countless stories of people with earbud or headphone induced hearing impediments being easily targeted in the streets.

I tuned in letting the beat of the music set my walking pace at a steady yet driven speed. Satisfied with the BPM, I calculated that it would only take me about 13 minutes to get home rather than the suggested 20.

I buried my chin into the rough denim realizing that the temperature had dropped significantly since my walk to the club earlier that night. Scanning my surroundings, I noticed the streets were darker than before. Bars and restaurants were no longer open and there was no one outside. All of the pedestrians that made up the daily traffic of the city had all gone to sleep.

I approached a red-lit crosswalk about two blocks away from my residence building. As I stopped at the street corner, I noticed a tall, slender man of African descent who had just finished crossing begin to pull out his earbuds as he walked towards me. Oh please don’t ask me for directions, I pleaded as I pulled my earbud out in preparation for a short conversation.

— “Tu viens d’où?” (Where are you from?) he asked in a thick African-French accent.

Um. The United States, but why does that matter? I thought.

— “Français ou English?” (French or English) he followed up when I hadn’t responded.

I was too exhausted from the five hours of clubbing I had just done to engage in a conversation in a language that I barely spoke, so I let out a very bland and American sounding “Uh…”

He repeated his first question to me in English, which I followed, again, with silence and internal my questioning as to why he wanted to know.

It wasn’t until he started listing several Asian countries that I understood where the conversation was headed.

— “Vietnam? China? Japan?” he guessed.

Right. Great. So this is where this is going. I thought to myself.

I didn’t respond to the question about my origin and told him, rather, that I was from the United States in hopes that he would catch on to my accent and realize that I was more American than I was Chinese. I anxiously eyed the street light as I waited for it to turn green when he continued to ask me:

— “Do you (as in Asian women) like me (as in African men)?”

Completely caught off guard and lost for words I told him I wasn’t sure (because how the fuck do I know?) My heart began to race and I felt the cold air begin to bite at my cheeks as I began to sweat.

— “Well you are very beautiful, and we (as in African men) love you (as in Asian women),” he responded. I feigned gracious acceptance of his compliment as I nervously began to pull at a thread inside one of the pockets of my coat.

He continued and asked me how old I was.

What the fuck????? I thought as I looked at the light for the fourth time. Analyzing the situation, I knew for a fact that I wasn’t going to give him my actual age, however, I wasn’t sure whether or not it was safer for me to round up or down. If I round down and make myself a minor then maybe he’ll realize that whatever he tries to do will be illegal. But what the fuck would a minor be doing out alone at 5 in the morning? Shit. I mean, if I round up I don’t want to give him the opportunity to exploit that.

— “20.” I managed blurted out immediately regretting my decision to round up.

— “Where are you going? Are you going home?” he asked when he noticed me continue to glance at the light.

FUCKING NO I’M NOT, I screamed internally. Shit, shit, shit. Frantic for an excuse to give him, I told him that I was meeting up with friends completely forgetting that it was some ungodly hour in the morning.

— “I’m sorry I have to go, I’m going to be late,” I pleaded on the verge of tears. I could hear my voice shake as I said this.

And then the light changed. My head whipped back and forth between him and the light.

Realizing that the light had changed he quickly wrapped up our conversation by grabbing me by my left arm, just above the elbow. He licked the air with the tip of his tongue as he made a sucking sound followed by making a biting motion with his mouth as he stared me deep in the eye.

He finally let go, and I sped walked through the crosswalk. Looking behind me, I could see the distance between us begin to grow. When I was certain that he was gone, I booked it the rest of the way home. Tears began to stream down my face as I examined my surroundings. I realized that the streets were empty and that there was no one who could have helped me had things had turned sour.

Wanting to get home as fast as possible without attracting any more unwanted attention to myself, I found myself regretting the fact that my jacket didn’t have a hood. At that moment in time, I wanted nothing more than to disappear. I began to resent the way that I presented myself to the world: a small and vulnerable Asian girl who looked to be no older than 16.

Running home that night, I found myself wishing that I looked more like a boy/man. I found myself hating my height, my build, my long hair, and my clothes. In no way was this in a transgender sense, rather, it was simply because I was sick of repeatedly being seen as a woman or female-bodied person and becoming a target for unwanted sexual advances as a result. I blamed my gender and the way I looked for the way that each of these men treated me that night.

“Well, what were you doing?!”

When I finally reached the residence building, I slammed the door behind me and ran into the elevator.

I locked my dorm room door behind me and sat down on my bed. Remembering the time change and knowing that my parents would be awake back in the States, I face time called them through WhatsApp. Feeling my entire body continue to shake, I recounted the events of that night searching for comfort and support only to be verbally shamed by both of my parents.

— “What were you doing walking home at 4 in the morning?!” my father thundered.

— “Honey, you could have taken an Uber,” my mother chimed in.

Fuck. This is so not what I need right now, I thought as I began to mentally check out. I was exhausted both mentally and physically. Although my body was still shaking, I could feel the adrenaline begin to wear off and I felt my muscles start to ache. I knew that my parents both were worried about my safety with that being the reason for their anger and frustration, but I was in too much of a state of shock to deal with it that night.

I took all of my clothes off except for my underwear and coat. For some odd reason I felt safer with it on even though it didn’t make for a great sleep shirt. I slept with the lights on and was only able to get about three hours of sleep before being awakened by realizing how many mistakes I had made that night.

Maybe they’re right, I thought. Maybe I put myself in that situation. For whatever reason, it didn’t occur to me that walking home was going to be so problematic. I had reasoned with myself that it was only 20 minutes away, a straight shot, and I had done the walk to the club by myself with no problems. Taking it as a sign of weakness, I became mad at myself for letting those men harass me that night.

— “Three,” I repeated to myself.

How could that have happened to me three times? Three times. Three completely separate times. All of the feminist views I had clung to so dearly were proving themselves useless as I berated myself. For example, while I fully believed (and believe to this day) that no victim “asks for it” (as rape culture tells it) I did find myself blaming the incidents on what I was wearing. I wasn’t exactly wearing a shirt, I told myself. And my pants were really form-fitting. But that last guy. I was completely covered. That was just blatant Asian fetishization. Having made no further developments with consoling myself, I put the experience behind me as best I could and carried on with life only to realize that this series of events would come back to haunt me later in the future.

Knit Wool Sweater

I was downstairs in the common area fixing myself lunch when I saw it: the tan-colored knit wool sweater that I remembered the first guy wearing at the club.

The room went cold and my throat dried up as my fingers clenched the bowl of pasta I had made. My knuckles turned white and I took a deep breath as I tried to reason with myself that the person who was wearing it before me was not the man from the club. Rather, he was just a student who, unfortunately, happened to share the same taste in fashion.

A trigger, I thought to myself. I didn’t know they could be so powerful. Although I had had my own history with sexual abuse in the past, I had never experienced a trigger of this magnitude before. A week after the event, this singular sweater managed to turn everything in my life on its head. As I stared at this sweater I felt every single emotion and sensation that I felt at the club that night come back to me, exactly as I experienced them in the club. The fear, the anxiety, the adrenaline. My heart began to race and my arms began to quake. My eyesight went fuzzy and my breathing shallowed. My stomach dropped and my hands began to sweat.

I inhaled my pasta and washed the bowl before running back upstairs to my room and slamming the door behind me.