We’re taught not to catastrophize. Well, I’m going to have to qualify that, as simple statements, while desirable, usually aren’t true – or are partially true, at best. So, we are generally taught not to catastrophize. But. As females, we are mindfucked from birth, so there are times when we must catastrophize and call it truth and other situations where we must erase or minimize to pretend true things are false, or are part of a non-existent conspiracy, or don’t exist at all. Objectively speaking, catastrophizing is viewing an event or situation as worse than it actually is, but as females, we learn the following. We are supposed to catastrophize minor bad things (or even just neutral things) that happen to males in order to highlight their suffering and then to pour all of our time and energy into helping them survive, overcome, live and thrive. And to serve the same ultimate purpose, we are supposed to minimize even the truly catastrophic things that happen to ourselves and to other females. We are told that shining a spotlight on the bad things that happen to women is hysterical, unfair (to males, to perpetrators), hypersensitive, delusional, insane, over-serious, vindictive, straight up lying – you name it, our truths are not what WE say they are.

It is part of the intentional system known as patriarchy, where males must be allowed to unnaturally dominate and females must suffer and serve and pretend we like it – and to support males no matter what they do to us.

The number one problem for females under patriarchy is male violence. There are many, many problems that women and girls encounter in this system, but it all stems from male violence. None of the other problems female endure can exist without male violence and the threat of male violence. If you are a self-proclaimed or aspiring feminist and you are fighting to accomplish things that won’t put an end to male violence, then you are wasting your time. That is the truth.

Most of male violence consists of sexual assault. There is, of course, physical violence and emotional/psychological violence, but sexual violence is the cornerstone of patriarchy. It is something males do to females simply because they are female. It is a source of control and domination, as males seem to be extremely threatened by women, but also a source of enjoyment for males. Sexual assault is about BOTH power/control and sadistic pleasure, despite what liberal feminists say. Now, females typically don’t engage in this kind of behaviour towards males. Females can be violent towards males and especially towards females, but taking pleasure in sexual violence against anyone really isn’t a thing for the vast majority of women. And an aberration here or there does not negate this rule. Women certainly have never dominated the world or any documented society where males exist through sexual violence or any other means, for that matter. Oh and for the record, despite the desperation of equality feminists to assert it exists, there is no proof anywhere that females have existed in peaceful, equal bliss with males. If males exist in a society, there is sexual assault against females. We know it. We see it. That, we can prove. And I can’t imagine it being otherwise as there is no tangible evidence to suggest it is even possible. And women have tried. Oh, have they tried. But trying to ‘educate’ males out of raping and assaulting us is a futile pursuit.

So, despite a worldwide and millennia-long history of sexual assault against females by males, we still can’t really agree on what it is. Women and girls, for much of history, and still today, have had few to no rights compared to males. We don’t yet have full body-autonomy. We still are not allowed to say ‘no’. Our bodies are used against us in so many ways. Most of us, whether conservative or liberal, still buy into our male-defined slave categories, while trying to pass them off as duty, liberation, or some other such nonsense. If you can’t acknowledge reality, then you don’t really get anywhere in defining crimes against female bodies, nevermind prove that a crime has happened. I’m not even sure that we can define sex crimes against women as we a) still rely upon legal systems where men define the crimes they commit against us, and b) all of the crimes that fall in this category are completely dependent on the presence or absence of ‘consent’, which is a massively problematic concept. Consent is such a flimsy thing. It’s not tangible. It’s kind of a tree falling in the forest kind of scenario coupled with a serious vulnerability to manipulation, use of substances, coercion, post-assault threats, desperate circumstances and more. How can you prove consent, in other words, especially when it can be so fleeting and manipulatable and entirely defined by men?

Myself, I take out consent and ‘legal’ aspects of the definition of sexual assault. I consider the burden of proof to be upon the male, not the female. I think females should exist in a default state of ‘no‘. And assault should include the entire range of things males do to females from ogling and catcalling, to sexual touching/contact to outright rape (another crime that people have trouble defining, apparently). Oh no! Am I taking the spontenaity and fun out of heterosexual ‘play’ between males and females? Tough shit. What would be the more serious problem: out of control fear of and actual sexual assault (the current state of things) or males not being allowed to do whatever the fuck they want coupled with loser females’ feelings of being ignored and unmastered by potential manly men? I want women and girls to feel and be safe, first and foremost. This is what we call ‘human rights’. Feelings of deservedness are not human rights. I think these feelings wouldn’t exist if we didn’t brainwash girls into being completely dependent on having their very identities validated by misogynistic male attention. As it is, in the system that we have, girls figure out who they are because of the cumulative psychic weight (trauma) of the sexual assaults that make up their personal herstory. We are wrapped in our own – and our foremothers, through DNA inheritance – tapestries of sexual assault.

Apparently I’m Still Female

So anyway, three days ago, I was reminded that I was female. I was sexually assaulted. Again. For the hundredth? Thousandth? Millionth time? It is impossible to keep track of how many sexual assaults a female experiences in her lifetime – as mentioned above, partly because there are so many occurrences, partly because sexual assault is so poorly defined, partly because it is a female experience and thus is not taken seriously even when it is acknowledged that we were assaulted, partly because it starts before we are able to recall memory of our sexual assaults, and partly because we are generally not allowed to see what we experience as sexual assault. To do so would be to catastrophize. Or in plain and real English: to do so would be to tell the truth.

Three days ago, I finally moved into a real live apartment for the first time in over 3 years. It was momentous. I’ve spent so much of my life as one of the ‘hidden homeless’. My new landlord was going to pick me up and bring me to the apartment to give me the key and note all the things that needed to be fixed. I arrived at the meeting spot early – still light out, early evening, busy streets – and it started to rain hard. Luckily, it was a bus stop with a shelter. A construction crew stopped nearby and some of the guys got out to take care of a road issue. One of the guys came over to talk to me. I didn’t speak his language, and he couldn’t speak English, but it was clear that he wanted my phone number. I said ‘no’ repeatedly in the local language, and it was met with a laugh and ‘okay, okay’. And it started again. And then again. And again. Still pouring rain, and my landlord was supposed to arive in a car at any moment. Then all of the sudden, the man’s arms came up and he came at me, grabbed me and tried to kiss me. I went rigid and turned my head, with the kiss landing on my ear. It was puzzling and horrifying. I’m 50 goddamned years old and I look 50. I assumed this shit would die down. But even to a grown ass woman, no still doesn’t mean no. Luckily, the construction crew came back and off they went. Broad daylight… ffs.

Now the aftermath was weird. I knew I had been assaulted, but some old patterns from my early brainwashing kicked in, unexpectedly. I talked to my good friend in China later that evening, and it was she who brought me to my senses. I was sexually assaulted, she said, correctly. My mind had automatically labelled it a ‘fucked up experience’. I was reminded that even a female separatist who has been hating men officially for years for the rampant sexual assault forced upon sex class, woman, still second guesses herself and hesitates to label her experience correctly when she is inevitably sexually assaulted. And I was reminded of several other things. The assault reminded me that your age doesn’t matter. What you look like doesn’t matter. The time of day or location doesn’t matter. It reminded me that all women are damaged and even when you start on the path to recovering from heterosexual and patriarchal brainwashing, it may take you a lifetime to heal. It struck me that I will likely die still trying to heal. It also brought home that it is so important to have clear-thinking female friends with whom to speak frankly about our suffering and experiences because as recovering women, we can fall into self-harming patterns – the endless self-doubt and questioning about what is real. Our friends keep us on the path of truth and recovery. We must help each other with this. Most of us just don’t have it, or enough of it. Most of us just have people who gaslight us and tell us we are catastrophizing. We have a victim mindset.

Conclusion:

I’ve come to see sexual assault as the quintessence of constructed womanhood and girlhood. I think ALL females are sexually assaulted at least once in their lives, and most of us, thousands of times. The stats are BULLSHIT. We are taught to accept our assaults as part of life, part of womanhood. So we say nothing. Males need us to base our identities on being assaulted, to normalize assault, so that it isn’t assault, but identity. Life. Then we can’t and don’t even bother to try to separate sexual assault from who we are or who we could be. It is hard for me to imagine a life where I don’t feel threatened or fearful and where I am not regularly assaulted by males. I do know that I am likely one of very few women who thinks about sexual assault and how it limits my life, how it has destroyed huge parts of my spirit, and put me in a sort of psychological cage. And no lib-fems, I am not ‘allowing’ it to control me or labelling myself as a victim. I am stating a truth – I would be a different person if sexual assault weren’t a significant part of my life history. And I dare say you would be too, even if you don’t acknowledge (or even recognize/realize) what has happened to each and every one of you. You don’t have to identify as a victim (I cringe at those words) to acknowledge a lifetime of assaults and how they have impacted you. Stating truths, acknowledging reality is not catastrophizing. It may be one of the bravest acts you can commit to as a regular, average woman or girl living a regular, average life.

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