The other day, I almost wrote about this event, but I held back. It's always hard to write about something personal. But my views on writing about it change from day to day.
At some point, the fog will clear over what happened and where I'm heading. I'll be walking in the sun and able to see my way through the trees. But for now, I'm still stumbling on the undergrowth and wishing I had a compass. I'm writing this in hopes that by doing so, I might find a bearing.
I have an uneasy relationship with sex. For most people it's this totally positive thing. But due to a combination of factors -- my past, my body, my recent divorce, my tendency to develop emotional attachments too easily, my unfamiliarity with the Icelandic dating scene, etc -- I always find myself saying no.
This taught me a new lesson, one that we all know consciously without necessarily having it engrained: that sometimes saying no isn't enough.
Several months ago, a friend posted an article on rape that was in The Guardian to Facebook. Something in the article which I've seen expressed before struck me as a bit odd, so I commented on it. The author, while railing against the culture that leads to the acceptance of such things, continued driving home the point, "if she isn't interested in you, STOP." I remarked that the issue isn't really whether or not she's interested, but whether or not she's made a conscious decision to have or not have sex. A person can find someone attractive and still choose not to sleep with them. My friend agreed, conversations moved on, and I largely forgot about this exchange.
Until recently.
I leave a club in Miðbær in a cutoff shirt, my lopapeysa sweater unbuttoned. Freshly divorced, I'm enjoying the attention I'm getting, although still unsure how to respond to it apart from just generally getting quiet and giggling awkwardly. I'm trying to find my car when yet another cute Icelandic guy comes up to me on the street. Really cute. Kind of looks and sounds like the last guy I dated, especially when he says my name. I get all flirty and giggly as he hits on me, and we start walking together as I try to find my car. I tell him he's really cute. Of course, he wants me to go to his apartment instead of my car, but he's not pushing the point that hard, and I'm just enjoying the attention. I just say "nei"/"no" whenever the topic of coming home with him comes up.
Normal human interaction. Positive human interaction. All of the rules of human interaction that we're programmed into following apply. Be polite. Alternate between talking and listening. Smile when appropriate. And of course, it goes without saying, don't hit the other person and run away creating a public spectacle and exposing yourself to whatever consequences that engenders.
That goes without saying! It's so far out of the bounds of "normal" interaction with another human being who's acting friendly to you that it's incredibly difficult to get yourself into that mindset without someone getting violent, pulling a knife or something like that. Having a naturally submissive personality and coming from an abusive relationship where I long ago learned just to give in to avoid getting screamed at or attacked, it was doubly difficult to get into such a mindset. So when I was sure I was past my car and kept trying to turn around, but he kept stopping me -- gently, just a light hand, always flirty and friendly -- the best reaction should have been to shove it away and run. But that's not "normal" human interaction. It's so far out of the bounds of normal interaction, such an "escalation", I can't get myself to seriously consider it. Even when my increasingly significant attempts to turn around and head back lead to him literally picking me up and carrying me blocks to his apartment, the best reason I could come up with to say for why he should put me down was, "Nei, ég er of þung!" (No, I'm too heavy!).
Simply surreal. This isn't how human interactions go. I didn't exactly have a programmed reaction in my mind for "guy I'm chatting with picks me up and carries me to his apartment".
10 "no"s and "nei"s, in two languages. 20 of them. 50. 100. 200. Nei. No. Ég sagði nei áðan og ég er að segja nei núna. I said no before and I'm saying no now. Ég vil ekki. I don't want to. Ég geri ekki svona. I don't do this. Hættu. Stop. Surely at some point he'll get the picture. I mean, he's not being violent, he just keeps being friendly and flirty. And clearly very strong. Builds houses, he said. But the significance of the situation didn't become clear until I was in his apartment, with him between me and the door, greatly diminishing my possible avenues for escape from the situation. Or at least what he claimed was his apartment; it was so barren I can't imagine anyone living there, more like an unused guest room at a hostel. Now the guy who I find cute but don't want to sleep with is now the cute guy who's trying take off my clothes and seems dead set on ignoring the latter decision.
I didn't want to fight. It's so not in my nature, it's so trained out of me, and here's a guy who literally just carried me blocks to his apartment. And yet I defended at whatever cost two boundaries.
The first, most of all my clothes, was keeping my shoes on. Of all my clothing, at the time, it seemed like they were the most important. With my shoes off, I'd have no possibility of running away. With my shoes off, I'd be conceding the situation to what he wanted to do. It was purely an illusory barrier, of course; he could still get my clothes off with my shoes on. But at the time, it seemed like such an important thing to protect.
The second was keeping a hand between my legs. Something he very much wasn't happy about. And he kept getting more and more forceful about the issue, and had started fingering me and trying to work his way around it. And I made a decision that I've second guessed many times but always come to the conclusion that it was the right thing to do -- I decided to try to finish him in other ways so he'd stop trying to get inside of me (saying first, "Ef ég geri þetta þá sé þetta nóg?" / "If I do this then will that be enough?") But he stopped me partway; he still wanted to finish inside of me and kept trying to do so (it probably goes without saying, without protection). But I managed to defend myself long enough that he finished between my legs instead. I don't think that if I hadn't tried to finish him first that I could have kept him out forever.
My main goal at this point is getting back to my apartment and taking a long shower to try to wash off any trace of this happening. I'm totally cowed, but I immediately tell him something that seemed very important at the time for him to know, to let him know that he didn't "win": "Þú varst ekki inni" (You weren't inside). He just laughed, like it was a "my bad!" moment. He then asks me something that I can't even come up with a vocal response for: "Did you enjoy it?" I just can't get out the words, "Are you freaking kidding me?"
He offers for me to stay in the "apartment" and relax (not moving towards me getting home and getting a shower: NO). He then insists on walking me back to my car (moving towards me getting home and getting a shower: YES). No matter what he says, so long as it doesn't involve him trying to touch me more and ultimately leads to me finding my car, I agree to it. He wants to give me his phone number? I find him a pen and paper. He needs to ask some questions to some girls, speaking Icelandic too fast for me to follow? I stand there and wait like a statue, feeling judged by the glare of the girls and not knowing whether they heard me telling him to stop over and over and feel sorry for me or whether they just see me as some slut he picked up. And he walks me back toward the car, while meanwhile every thing he does just makes me even more sick of him -- his voice, his pausing to light a cigarette, him stopping to pee on the side of the street. I'm still wanting desperately to clean between my legs. And yet I still can't run. I just can't get myself to. I just walk along, quietly, only speaking when he asks me something. Cowed.
Eventually he ducks out partway to head into a bar. I double-pace, find my car, get home, quickly post some vague, defiant messages on Facebook (only in Icelandic with deliberate misspellings to foil Google Translate so there's no chance of my family deciphering them) and have a semi-freakout shower.
The last thing he told me before he ducked out: "That's a really pretty sweater."
---
That was the event, but such an event is just a moment in time. It's how you perceive and react to that moment that shapes the future. I quickly felt the need to label it in my head, "an unwanted sexual experience". Obviously more extreme language came into my head, and I've been told by two people so far who I confided in that I probably should use such a term. But to me, it feels better to not see myself as a victim, and especially early on, that seemed ideal. And I quickly told myself that now that it's over, I can just forget about it. I slowly learned that it's not that easy. It put me in a dark place several times that next week -- at work, in the middle of a concert, in my apartment, etc. Once I was supposed to see another guy I had met, a nice, friendly guy, and I totally freaked out and bailed on him. And even still, when I hear my name spoken by a guy with an Icelandic accent, sometimes I hear the other guy say it. And you just can't talk about it with anyone. I could tell a coworker, "I was in a car accident last night". But I just can't mention this.
But all that said, it doesn't define me. It's not my life. And I want to be sure to keep in mind the words of Tori Amos in "Talula": "I got my rape hat on, honey but I always could accessorise". Wearing around an event for sympathy or to score cheap points in an argument. No, where the event belongs is in the past, with as little of an effect on my life as possible except to be a teaching moment to me. And perhaps by writing this, others. Although the main reason I write is to try to help me work through the fog.
I've reflected so much on the events that happened, and in particular, the things he said afterwards. The exchanges. Him: "I hope you had a good time tonight." Me: "... why didn't you stop when I said no?" Him: smiling and laughing. Or later: Him: "Thank you for telling me I'm beautiful." (referring to when he first started flirting with me and I said that he's really cute). He never saw it as anything other than a normal hookup with someone who liked him. The fact that I told him "no" over and over again and tried to defend my body the whole time, in his viewpoint, didn't seem to change the situation.
Trying to understand his viewpoint, trying to understand what breakdown in normal human interactions took place to lead to this, has seemed unusually important to me. He was half flacid and peed on the side of the street -- perhaps he was drunk? But he didn't smell like alcohol, so far as I remember at least. Then there's the fact that people in Iceland don't generally do what Americans typically think of as "a date"; people meet, if they're attracted, they hook up, no strings attached, and only if you hook up with the same person several times in a row are you basically "dating" (whereupon cheating is frowned upon and you might start going out and doing stuff together). I was violating this order, by being attracted to him, admitting that I was attracted to him, but not wanting to sleep with him. And of course there's the usual self-blame stuff, like wearing a skimpy outfit and getting giggly when confronted by someone cute, not doing enough to fight back, etc. And on and on, I think about it.
Then, of course, I have contrary reactions. I go meta, and think, "You shouldn't be trying to make excuses for what he did." And then I go more meta and think, "You should stop trying to think about this altogether; thinking about this just makes it worse." And then another reaction, "No, you should be thinking about it now so it doesn't keep coming up later". And then, "Why is this such a big deal? It's not like you were raped at knifepoint or something." And hence the fog descends.
But again... it's just a moment in the past. It's only defined at present by how I perceive it. And so that perception slowly shapes itself.
And perhaps by talking about this now, I can help shape it in a positive manner.
And I still love Iceland dearly.
(Note: To those of you who know me in real life, I think it goes without saying, but just in case: please don't mention this anywhere that my family might see it. They have enough to worry about, with me living in another country and all, and I don't need them worrying about something that there's no reason for them to worry about)