In a barmy world where sexual abuse and the exploitation of women is endemic, yet almost impossible to prove on an individual level, beguiling “Eve” is presented as more dangerous than her male counterpart—what-ever his name is.
AU: Colleen, 2013
Speaking of Justice 
So, I have a lot of stories. Stories of unwanted attention. Stories of unwanted sexual attention. Stories of rape. Stories of WTF?
I don’t feel like a victim. But I don’t feel like a survivor either. Those things that happened to me were just more things that contributed to the forming of me. Whether I liked me or not. I really don’t know how to feel that different about falling off my bike or falling off my roller skates than managing men in awkward situations. They all happened, and I can’t really remember that I was any more in control of a bike accident than I was when a man did what he wanted to me, regardless whether I wanted it too.
I think it was because I was never taught to say ‘stop it’. No one told me that if I thought something was wrong, then it was.
When my dad told me off, I accepted the naughty label. Even though I often thought he was wrong, I learned to keep quiet. My sassiness annoyed him. And I didn’t like annoying him. Over my life, I have come to realise that annoying men really worries me. Still. So I think I have learned to deal with that by annoying men intellectually. I still feel trapped in the ‘don’t make it personal’ and ‘don’t attack his manhood’ syndrome.
So, the first time that I remember fending off unwanted sexual advances was when I was about 13 or 14. It was a really cold and snowy winter’s morning, and I was waiting for my train to take me to school. The platform was frozen, and the train was delayed. The station master (yes I’m that old) whose name was Paddy (from Ireland!!) asked me if I’d like to get warm in his hut until the train came. I had known Paddy since I was about 8 years old. He was a friendly, cheerful man, who knew my parents – I liked him. He was Irish, and he was nice to me. He’d always chat.
And I liked the idea of getting warm, so I went into his hut. I had been in there before. There was no reason for me to think it was a danger area (my dad had forbidden me to walk on lone country footpaths alone, go out with boys, sleep over at my friend’s house), because he had never suggested that the friendly station master was someone to be afraid of.
So in I went. The fire was hot. I can still remember it burning my cheeks. And then the double burning of my cheeks, later. Even today, decades later when my cheeks burn near a fire I remember that morning, and the shame and embarrassment that I felt.
There was just one small bench in the hut, with a couple of cushions on it. I sat down, and he sat next to me. Very close. I remember thinking that he was very close because my family didn’t ever sit close to each other. I noticed the unfamiliar feeling of a man close to me. He started to compliment me. Another unfamiliar experience. How I’d grown. How bonny I was. And then he started to tell me how cold he was, and that we should keep each other warm. He got closer. And then he put his arm around me. I froze. I was horrified. He was so friendly all the time he was doing these things, and it seemed so rude to tell him to move away. Or even worse for me to move away – so that he would know that I wanted to move away. Then he put his other hand on my leg. I had my coat and scarf on, but it was very hot in in his hut, and he asked if i wanted to take them off. I said I didn’t, and wondered if the train might be there soon. I don’t remember what he said about the train, but he said it would be really nice if I would give him a kiss because he was a lonely old Paddy. I can’t remember if I answered him. I do remember feeling completely trapped. Uncles and Aunts asked for kisses. I always had to oblige. I had no other reference. But I didn’t want to kiss him. Anyway, I didn’t have a chance to say anything because he grabbed my head and turned it to him, and started kissing me. Wet, slobbering kisses. I was horrified. But frozen. Despite feeling confused and disgusted, I didn’t want to cause a scene. And I really didn’t want him to know how uncomfortable I felt because then I might make him feel bad. And the last thing I wanted to do was to annoy him.
So, the kissing went on for a while. An eternal while. I can’t remember how I got out of the hut. I can’t remember anything else about the incident. Nothing. No matter how hard I dig. But I remember the feeling I had when he invaded my space … me. It was frozen, it was helpless, it was scared to make a fuss, it was repulsed, it was rational, it was disconnected. I think that I may have learned to disassociate parts of what happened to me that day. Or maybe that’s just the day that have I realised that I do that.
I still had to get the train to school after that incident. I didn’t dare tell anyone because I was embarrassed for me and for him. I thought my father would try to kill him if I told him, and I thought about having to get the train again every day and how it would be if my father had tried to kill him. So I made it a secret. I still caught the train. What Paddy did made me feel really horrible. I felt guilty for letting him down just as much as I was revolted by the thought of kissing him. I remember the feeling in that little hut very clearly. His closeness, his hard lips, and his determination. My revulsion, my fear, and immobility. My feelings of inability to escape. Not knowing how to escape. I could have just walked out of the hut. He was holding me though. But I thought if I struggled, and made a fuss, I would have made a scene – over-reacted, and it would have been embarrassing for us both. I think I was aware that by refusing or struggling, it would have shown him up. I don’t remember feeling flattered at all, although I think maybe I realised I was meant to, but I did feel sad because I had thought he was a nice man, and after that I din’t like him at all. But I think I felt guilty for not liking him. Like I had done something wrong.
Sometimes he would ask if I wanted to wait in his hut, but I always went to the very end of the platform. As far away as I could get from the hut. And if the train was late, I sang David Bowies’ ‘Five Years’ to myself to take my mind off waiting.
Occasionally I drive over that level crossing. There’s no station master any more, and no hut. But every time I go there, I feel like that 14 year old again. But today I feel a lot amore about the whole thing. I feel sorry for her because she didn’t have tools to know what to do. Actually I don’t know what those tools are. But today I know that we know that there must be some tools.
I want to make a tool kit.
Anyway, Paddy was the first man who lived up to the terrors that my dad had instilled in me when he forbade me to do so many things. Sadly he was not the last.