Recently, women in the Los Angeles improv community did the unthinkable: They named names--on facebook, no less.
One man in particular was credited with so many stories of sexual harassment that I'm tempted to think his daily schedule goes something like:
8:00AM: Wake up
8:30AM-8:30PM: Sexually harass women
8:30PM: Tinder date
12:00AM Go to sleep
[Personal connection: I was matched with this gentleman on an online dating platform. We never actually communicated.]
I kid you not. This crap has been going on for years. And women are finally speaking up. It's incredible to watch--equal parts inspiring and horrifying--inspiring, to see the support that these women are receiving from the community--horrifying, that this guy got away with sexually harassing so many women for so long.
It made me think about my own stories--about why I didn't speak up about being harassed. I've written before about the burden of secrecy: How women are so often burdened with keeping things quiet--don't cause trouble, don't make a scene, don't smear someone's reputation, don't accuse someone (particularly a powerful, talented, or likable someone) of misconduct.
There are so many valid reasons for keeping silent. And until the culture changes to one that prioritizes victims over perpetrators, it will always be extremely difficult to come forward.
[Ironically, even as I write this, I'm running through in my mind all the possible ways that the men I write about could be identified by readers.]
Story #1:
When I was in college, I wrote a blog for the school's marketing department about my experiences in the honors program.
I was connected to a staff member at the college who would post the blogs that I wrote every week. He was a man in his 40s (we'll call him RC)
At first, it was great. I loved blogging. Loved it. Because writing is fun.
Then, things started getting weird. From the beginning, RC and I had bantered back and forth via email. He was eccentric, borderline unprofessional and didn't act his age, but I didn't think too much about it. I knew he was in a relationship, and that made me feel safe, as if he couldn't be flirting with me (plus, I was a student).
Things took an odd turn when he created a facebook profile in the name of my college and started leaving weird comments on other people's pages and messaging me nonsensical things, to the point that I blocked him on facebook.
Then, he started harassing me about not sending him new blogs to post every week, repeatedly sending me pushy, sarcastic and vaguely threatening emails.
Something about the emails made me deeply uncomfortable and fearful. I asked him to stop. I used the word "Please." He didn't stop. I asked him again. I felt like no matter what I said, he wouldn't stop sending me harassing emails.
Conclusion: I stopped writing. I concluded that my blog made him feel as if he "knew me" or had some kind of personal connection to me. The only way to stay safe was to stop writing.
Blogging was something that brought joy and meaning to my life, but I stopped doing it--all because of this one guy.
Now that I think about it, this guy was on the clock when he sent me those emails--so he was basically being PAID to harass me. That just feels wrong on so many levels.
So, why didn't I say something to someone? Here are the reasons I came up with:
1. I was afraid that my bantering emails with him would be considered "encouragement"--that I had brought this on myself by not being completely professional. In other words: it was my fault that I led him on.
2. I had enjoyed the (seemingly harmless) attention from him. (My fault, again.)
3. I perceived those at the college I could have gone to for help as either distant or ineffectual. I couldn't imagine them helping me in any real way.
4. What about his reputation? Would I be putting his job in jeopardy?
5. Although our online interactions felt inappropriate and unsafe, he never said or did anything overtly sexual. So although I felt like he was both hitting on me AND engaging in some kind of weird power play, I really had no "proof."
Reading the accounts from women in the improv community, I'm struck by how many stopped doing what they loved because they felt unsafe. That makes me f***ing furious.
Story #2:
When I first moved to Los Angeles, I worked on a low-budget feature film for no pay.
At our very first crew meeting, I started talking to the editor, asking him about what system he used, etc. (I was interested in editing at the time). Later, he visited the set. We talked more, and he offered to let me help cut the film once it entered post-production. He had worked on several films by a director that I greatly admired, so I thought this was pretty cool.
Later that same night, I had to drive an actor home. When he offered to accompany me and I didn't immediately jump on the opportunity, but instead asked other people, he started acting like a petulant five year-old. I swear, this man in his early 40s started pouting and crossed his arms over his chest like a small child. He was angry with me and would barely talk to me. I had no idea what was going on, but something didn't feel right.
Then, early the next morning, I got the email, and my heart started pounding faster.
He explained that he had fallen in love with me from the very first night we met, felt a deep connection to me that was not just sexual (e.g., I'm not just interested in sex!), explained he had been angry because he thought I didn't want to be alone with him, something something something, hoped we could still work together.
I responded that I was not interested, but hoped we could still work together as colleagues. I didn't tell anyone about this email, even though it stressed me out. I thought I could handle it on my own and save him any embarrassment.
That same day, the producer called me over and said that I had to go pick up the editor from the train station the next day (the producer had no idea about the email). I was then forced to go pick this guy up and spend at least an hour alone with him. I can remember how he casually put his arm up around and on my headrest in the car as if we were at a movie and he was about to make a move. Under the circumstances, it made me uncomfortable. I tried to pretend like nothing had happened.
Later, other members of the crew told me how he was in love with me and ranting angrily about how much time I was spending with another guy onset, "I'm gonna f***ing kill him," he was saying about this guy, repeatedly.
One guy half-jokingly suggested that I get a restraining order.
I noticed that he had a camcorder and seemed to be filming me, but I wasn't sure. Later, after we wrapped, he sent me an email with pictures (screenshots from video?) that he had taken of me unawares. I never responded.
A week or so after shooting finished, I went into the production office to reconcile expenses, and the producer mentioned that the editor had said he wanted me to help out with editing.
I said, "I don't think I can do that." The producer was like, "Okay, cool." But then I tried to explain why.
"Oh, he has a crush on you?"
It was a little more than that. I told him I would forward him the email. That the email was funny.
"I don't think it's funny."
So, why didn't I (initially) say anything?
1. I felt like it was my problem to handle and that I could handle it.
2. I thought that after I responded to his confession of love with a professionally worded "let's just be colleagues" that he would leave me alone and respect my boundaries.
3. I thought he would be embarrassed and shamed if I told someone, and I didn't want him to be embarrassed or shamed (I put myself in his shoes).
4. I used humor to minimize how unsafe it made me feel.
Sadly, practically every single woman has a story like this--not these exact details, no, but the same dynamic.
Writing it all out like this feels clinical and distant--but it's helped me see that men who sexually harass women are not playing by the rules--
We ascribe shame to them (normal, healthy shame that you should feel for violating someone else's boundaries) when nothing of the sort actually exists.
We mentally and emotionally put ourselves into the shoes of the harasser--"Wow, I would feel awful if dozens of women accused me of sexually harassing them"--without realizing that they exist in a world where their actions are perfectly acceptable, understandable, normal, justifiable.
[Exhibit A, the same guy above who has dozens of sexual harassment incidents to his name is still by all reports setting up dates with women in the improv community via apps like Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge. I'm sure he feels just "Terrible, terrible!" about all the pain he has caused. 'Cause those are the actions of a man overwhelmed with shame. Right. I just feel so bad for him and all the humiliation he must be going through. My heart goes out to him.]
This plays out in the way that women respond to harassment. I assume, "If I say no, stop, I'm not interested, he will stop"--sometimes realizing too late that when I said "No," all he heard was static.
In this case, if there is no support from other people, and particularly from those in authority, then my best option is to disappear, because then at least he doesn't have access to me.
Think about it. Women are disappearing because that is their best option. It can be a kind of personal, professional, spiritual or creative death.
After cutting ties with an abuser, I have not only had to heal from the relationship itself, but also from the ways in which people responded (or didn't) to my story.
One person that I reached out to immediately after a traumatic incident was adamant about remaining neutral and hearing "his side of the story."
I get it. I feel like I get it. But to remain neutral is to side with the abuser. Every time. And I know that this is just one more layer to this wound that I'm going to have to deal with.
Intellectually, I totally get it. But emotionally, it's devastating.
