Past ‘locker-room talk’: Houstonians’ stories of sexual assault
For many people, Donald Trump’s “locker-room talk” came as a punch to the gut — and it prompted many to reveal their own stories of sexual assault. Sometimes the conversations were private, revealing old and intimate injuries to loved ones; other times, they were very public, hashtagged #NotOkay, aimed at ending the silence that too often surrounds groping, ogling and rape.
A flood tide of stories was prompted by the Canadian writer Kelly Oxford, who tweeted: “Women: tweet me your first assaults. They aren’t just stats. I’ll go first.”
She then told her own tale, of being grabbed at the age of 12, and she asked women to share theirs using the #NotOkay hashtag.
Here, gleaned from social media, interviews and emails, are some Houstonians’ stories.
Susan Buchanan, United Methodist pastor and chaplain at Methodist Hospital
“I will no longer hide behind a veil of shame and perpetuate the conspiracy of silence surrounding the myth that ‘boys will be boys.’ When I saw Kelly Oxford’s call for us to tweet our experiences of sexual assault, I simply responded, hoping that my words from my role as a pastor would be empowering to others. We tend not to talk about the whispered lewdness and the hidden gropes because we’re taught to shake it off, no harm done.
“The first I can remember was when I was 7 years old and a teen-aged neighbor boy followed me into the bathroom to try to see me naked. I didn’t tell anyone because I wasn’t entirely sure what had happened. That confusion would become familiar.
“When I was fondled and kissed by a family member; when a man exposed himself on my first
day of college; when crude remarks were shouted from a passing car, I’d think, ‘What just happened? Did I really just hear or feel or see what I thought I saw?’ I doubted myself and my own perception first. Oxford’s tweet is a powerful invitation to claim my experience and declare that I will not tolerate this behavior as just one of those things.
“Being a pastor doesn’t protect me. I officiated a wedding where I was groped by the father of the bride who then tried to kiss me, with tongue. I didn’t talk openly about much of this because I didn’t want to seem weak. I was trying to lead a church and wanted to appear in charge. Silence just perpetuates this behavior, and isolates us in our feelings of powerlessness. I’ve found that we become stronger when we speak out and make that connection with others, women and men, who have these experiences. We can say together that it’s not OK. It makes a difference.”
Joni Rodgers,
Houston novelist and ghostwriter
“In New York on a ghostwriting gig several years ago, I was going up the stairs in a drugstore in the fashion district, and a man — middle-aged, white, well dressed in a business suit — came up the stairs behind me. He said, ‘Nice jeans,’ but I didn’t realize he was talking to me until I felt his hand go up the back of my thigh to cup/grab my butt/ crotch.
“I was so startled, I tripped on the steps, dropping my basket of office supplies and my laptop bag. He stepped around me, hurried up the stairs laughing and went out the door. The whole thing took less than five seconds.
“I went to the front of the store and told the manager what happened. She said, ‘I can call the police if you want to make a big deal out of it, but if all he did was goose you …’
“Another customer standing there told me I should take it as a compliment.
“I declined to call the police and even heard myself apologizing for being upset. I just wanted to get out of there.
“As I paid for my office supplies, the checkout girl was very kind and asked if I was OK. She said, ‘That’s bulls---. Normal people don’t behave that way.’
“We all need to take a moment and acknowledge that simple truth. Grabbing someone’s p---- is not normal behavior. It’s an assault, and trying to normalize it by using an innocuous term like ‘goose’ or ‘locker-room talk’ is a twisted way to step around the victim.”
Sophie Knobloch,
stay-at-home mother, Houston
In response to Kelly Oxford’s request, Knobloch tweeted: “Man gushes about how pretty I am. How he wants to devour me and marry me. He was in his thirties. I was 10. #NotOkay”
Asked whether the Trump tape had stirred those memories, she responded: “Yes, and many more. I actually cried Saturday morning upon hearing the news.
“It made me very scared and sad that something like that could be acceptable or tolerated. I felt vulnerable again. It made me think of all the times also that I had to stand up and said, ‘Hey, that is not OK’ and had been called names or ridiculed over it. Like, ‘You’re over-reacting, or being too dramatic, a prude, too serious or, ‘You need to lighten up.’ Or just, ‘What’s the big deal?’ This rape culture cannot be OK.
“Sexual assault isn’t a partisan issue, and no one should be OK with it. As a Republican, I felt the GOP has completely abandoned me.”
Amber Ambrose,
social media specialist, Houston
She tweeted: “Too many to count. Just confessed some recent incidents to my spouse that I was too worried to talk about before now. #notokay”
By phone, she elaborated: “I had a chance this weekend to actually talk to my husband about what it really meant. I’d never really talked about how many times I had been groped or touched in a public space. We were rebuilding our home after it flooded, and I was really uncomfortable with some things about the people who were working here.
“I’d tell myself, ‘I’m strong. I know what to do and what needs to be done.’
“It’s so weird that we don’t even talk about this to people. That’s what we have to deal with as women, and it’s not acceptable.
“My slow burn reached an inferno. At home was where the real work was done. I said to my husband, ‘I’m telling you this is what our daughters might have to deal with.’
“Why in hell are we OK with this in real life? Why do we hold it in?
“The release is every emotion you can feel in one moment. Why did I feel so shameful about it? Because I thought I could be stronger than that?
“I deserve better; my daughters deserve better; every woman deserves better.”
Holly Beretto,
marketer and writer, Houston
“I was a few months shy of 8. He was my father’s best friend, had been an usher in my parents’ wedding. My kid brother was a little over a year old, and this friend offered to take me rollerskating so my mom wouldn’t have two kids under foot for an afternoon.
“We never made it to the rink. He went to jail.
“I don’t think ‘coping’ is the right word for me. I’m coping just fine. I think Trump’s comments are disgusting, but I think it’s super-hypocritical for members of the GOP to lose it over this; how many of those men support anti-women policies like de-funding Planned Parenthood and being anti-choice? How many of them are on their third wives? How many of them have absolutely looked at women like they were objects? Their faux outrage is a lot more upsetting to me than all of this bringing up some long-buried memory of that day in February.
“My mother noticed something was wrong and asked me point-blank, ‘Did he touch you?’ My father didn’t blink before he called the cops.
“I’m an outlier. Most women in my situation don’t have that ending. Maybe that’s why some of them feel this brings up difficult memories. I had three things going for me: I was little and resilient; and it was once; and I had justice.”
Christina Solis,
lawyer, Houston
On Facebook, she posted about an incident at a Texans game:
“This dude either said something over the line or jostled me (I honestly can’t remember), and he felt the need to ‘apologize’ by putting his very large hands on my shoulders and giving me a back/ neck rub. While in general not appropriate, he went just a half second beyond even remotely in the realm of something you do to someone YOU’VE NEVER INTERACTED WITH BEFORE IN ANY WAY. I probably tensed or shrugged or otherwise, or maybe he just stopped on his own, and I stared forward and internally was trying to figure out what to do.
“Part of me wanted to call him on it. I mean, WTF? I did NOTHING to invite this person to put his hands on me. It was not OK, and I was internally raging about it.
“On the other hand, part of me rationalized that it was something from the heat of the game. With high-fives and random jostling and other interactions, physical contact isn’t out of the norm … “Part of me remembered that there’s a number you can text for inappropriate fan behavior, but the other part didn’t want to turn it into a thing. The dude was huge and drunk, and may not have taken it quietly. And he would have blamed me for not taking a joke or whatever. Plus, I’d be ruining the game for his pleasant companions and for the friend who was with me. And maybe some of the other people around us.
“So I did what millions of women do, what I have done in the past, in these situations: I seethed and then went on with my life and did what I could to avoid drawing further attention from him until we left the game.
“But I know that if I’d been a dude, there’s no way this guy would have grabbed his shoulders and the nape of his neck and rubbed. I know that he didn’t even hesitate for a second in his action or think about it.
“It was an unpleasant three minutes of my life, and there are tons of other interactions like this one in my 43-plus years on this planet being female. It didn’t ruin my life. It didn’t even ruin the game. I forgot about it by the time the game was over.
“But when I saw the video today of the GOP nominee telling a very sycophantic acolyte that he ‘grabs by the p----,’ I was reminded of the incident. It’s not just fame that makes men presume they can do whatever they want to to women’s bodies.”
Kathy Biehl,
actress, former Houstonian, now living outside New York
“I was 18 and in the summer break between semesters in college. I had walked through my safer-than-safe childhood neighborhood to the campus pool, a neighborhood I had walked by myself all times of day and night without incident.
“When I left the pool to walk home, I was so hot from lying in the sun that I did not put my jeans back on, but walked out with only my bathing suit on. It was the middle of the day. Absolutely bright.
“My route took me past a building called the physical plant, where groundskeepers worked. I walked along the residential side, past a house where I’d baby-sat. I heard a male voice ask where a certain street was. I turned anda saw a slight, wiry man in a physical plant uniform. I pointed in the direction of the street and kept walking.
“And then I felt a hand slips between my legs.
“I shrieked, ‘Stop following me!’ I must have turned my head because he hit me across the face, across my nose, so hard my sunglasses flew off. He ran.
“I walked home sobbing. And realized that my body was a woman’s and started covering it.
“My mom called the police. An officer came. Took notes. Refused my mom’s repeated offer to have a seat.
“[Trump’s] comment about grabbing someone by the p---- made me think of this. My first response was that the geometry of pulling that off would require a lot of effort.
“And then I remembered, ‘Oh wait, that happened to me.’
“I have had a constant level of physical anxiety since that tape was revealed.”