Up for Grabs

Have you ever actually been grabbed by the pussy? Have you ever felt the pressure of five hungry fingers gripping your body without permission?

Has someone ever clutched, squeezed your flesh without warning or consent – someone you know or someone you don’t, a supervisor or a coworker or a client, a smiling face you had wrongly considered a friend?

Have you ever been kissed by a mouth that “[didn’t] even wait” for an invitation? Have you found yourself alone with someone who expected you would let them “do anything,” someone who then decided that the most private, sacred parts of you really belonged to them?

Has your body ever been the topic of discussion in whispered laughter – your butt, your mouth, your legs, your “big phony tits?” Have you ever listened as a pack of wolves tore that body apart? Did you pause for a moment, trying to decide whether or not you would bear the weight of confrontation once again? And again? And again? And again, did you ask yourself, “Can I just pretend I didn’t hear them this time?”

Because you’re fucking tired. You are fucking tired of this kind of someone – this kind of man – taking up all the space and the air in every room as you continue to apologize for the square footage you inhabit with your body that is always up for grabs should they feel so inclined.

And if they don’t feel inclined, well then, that makes your body worth even less, doesn’t it? Your “big, fat pig” body. Your “horse face.” Your “fat ass.” Your lifegiving “blood coming out of…wherever.” It’s all just in the way, blocking the view of more desirable scenery. Honestly, if you aren’t worth looking at, then what exactly is your purpose?

Women are here for the taking, the president has made this clear. Married. Unmarried. Willing. Unwilling. That is the standard that’s been put forth, leaked to the public, and subsequently, did not derail a shot at America’s highest office. With half of the U.S. population being female, how is that even possible?

White women, I’m talking to you. You ushered him in, flags waving, eyes closed. You surrendered our bodies to their greedy hands and slick lips laughing, spewing hot breath down our necks. You embraced this egomaniacal playboy bully who now provides shelter for droves of men just like him to hide behind, granting clemency for all the bad behavior we endure at the hands of jokers far less powerful.

These locker room boys are not few and far between. They are right next door, in the adjoining cubicle, teaching middle school English and sitting down at our dinner table this Thanksgiving. These locker room boys don’t actually stay in the locker room. They are out in the streets and in bars and libraries and grocery stores and the White House. They are growling from the sidelines at our kids’ soccer games, “accidentally” brushing up against us in a crowded room, talking over us in morning meetings. They are snatching whatever it is they desire, with force when they please, and we’re doing what? Turning the other cheek, so they can have a fistful of that one, too?

His followers, young and old, rich and poor, awake and asleep – some of these people have pussies themselves, pussies that I assume have never been grabbed without permission. These women lining up to lick the boots of America’s loudest disgrace must have been spared the advances of entitled men like him because any of us who’ve had this “locker room” talk unleashed upon our unwilling, unsuspecting bodies – we know who he is. He is every man who has taken more than what was given. He is a graphic proposition when I offered a smile. He is fingers on my breasts when I said “yes” to a dance. He is a handful of my flesh as I turned to print a receipt. He is a filthy “compliment” by a million-dollar boss upon introducing myself.

These men who do these things and then boast about them, telling stories of their conquests – they are not just talking. They are not one-time offenders. They are habitual in these practices that violate and pillage women’s bodies because that is what they believe women’s bodies are for. We are objects to grope and grab, vessels to climb aboard and coerce to carry their poisonous bloodline into the future.

That is not the future I want for my children, my boys who are small and young but will be men soon enough. I do not want their growing hands reaching for things that don’t belong to them. I do not want them shown that their mother’s body that so powerfully carried them into this world is worth less than their own, that this maternal body is “no longer a 10” as it ages and changes. My body, capable of human creation, can hardly be limited to a number. Their mother is not just a face or an ass or a pussy. What about yours?

And if this question offends you, if the pieces of my body or your body or your mother’s body are too delicate for this meager essay, then why are you okay with them being thrust into the national spotlight and men’s casual conversations? If this type of language turns you off, how can you stand in line to vote for more of it? How can you check a box for a man who feels no shame, offers no apology, for turning women’s bodies into sound bites – whose most notable quote, whose undeniable legacy, has been and will always be, “Grab em’ by the pussy.”

Ashley, Woman of a Certain Rage