I thought I’d written as much as I could in the last post I made.
But it struck me tonight that the three incidents of sexual assault and consent violation I mentioned are the absolute minimum of what I’ve experienced in the past. There have been other distressing and nauseating incidents that I failed to mention – though not because their impact upon me was minimal.
In actuality, the opposite is true.
But I’d stopped thinking about them.
I made the choice to stop thinking about them.
I’d like to explain what happened now:
The First Incident That I Stopped Thinking About
I was on the cusp of turning seventeen and I was on holiday; a relative of mine was getting married in Turkey, and we’d all been expected to go. Even when some of us couldn’t afford it at the time. I’ve been informed there were even threats of estrangement from the bride herself.
(That threats of estrangement over lack of funding happened is distressing on its own.)
The wedding was scheduled to take place in Kuşadasi and we’d booked several rooms at the Palmin Hotel. Several siblings had to head home after the first week – between having to attend college and the lack of sufficient funding for the trip.
Aesthetically, Kuşadasi was magnificent: Grecian islands could be seen through the mists at night. The ocean sparkled whenever the sun sprawled across the rolling waves. The streets were bursting with exuberance as men and women hustled and bustled in all directions.
It was the first time I’d ever visited another country; I was brimming with excitement.
One evening, the lot of us were dining at the restaurant in the hotel. The swimming pool was nearby, and there was a cool breeze in the air – a wonderful reprieve from the heat that saturated the air in the afternoon.
One of the waiters put his hands on me without warning, or asking, when we were between courses. He rested them against shoulders bared for the day, shoulders given the chance to get sun-kissed.
I froze as soon as he touched me.
I went from relaxed to tense in .01 seconds flat.
I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t do a single thing, except stare at the jug of water on the table in front of me as tears of distress welled. I was surrounded with family, and this stranger still had the gall to put his hands on me.
But none of them noticed at first.
Not until his hands started moving, slipping further down. His fingers soon found the swell of breasts and I must have made a noise or something, though I don’t remember what sound or motion I’d made. But it was enough to summon the attention of another woman at the table and her voice rang out sharply, telling him to back off.
He didn’t back off.
Not until Dad ordered him to.
The voices of women didn’t matter to the man who’d touched me. But he’d listened to another man. Because I might as well have been property, belonging to the man sitting at the head of the table.
The two weeks I spent at the Palmin Hotel were ruined as soon as this incident occurred.
The momentous occasion of leaving Ireland for the first time was ruined.
I wasn’t safe in Kuşadasi – not even being surrounded with other people was enough to protect me from the unwanted advances of a grown man.
The Second Incident I Stopped Thinking About
The second incident happened during the same holiday, and it was just as distressing, though it wasn’t an assault. It was something else entirely, and remembering it sends a sickened shudder through me even now.
I stopped thinking about it for a reason.
While we were on holiday, a number of us went out on several excursions while we had the chance. We visited genuine leather shops and diamond stores. We toured ancient sites like Ephesus.
The incident happened on one of these excursions.
I was walking with several members of the family, including two sisters and a favoured aunt. There was also a friend of the family, who’d been invited to the wedding as a plus one. We were minding our own business and having a good time when a strange man approached us.
He had four camels in tow.
Immediately, he started talking, almost too quick for me to catch. But then the aunt who’d been with us growled loudly, “You don’t have enough camels in the world!”
It hit me in a single instant: this complete stranger had walked up and offered to take us off her hands in exchange for a few camels. He’d wanted to barter for us like some damned livestock!
I was numb to the realisation at first. And then it was like descending a staircase and missing a step along the way; it was that sudden clench of muscles even as the stomach plummets and the heart slams upwards.
It was that sharp sensation of falling.
Years later, I told several men I knew and trusted about this distressing incident with the camels…and all of the men at the table laughed for several minutes. One of them even claimed he’d have exchanged us for camels in a heartbeat.
I’m sorry, but what the absolute fuck?
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