Tag Archives: communication
Guest blog: Intervening in harassment
I don’t know how to deal with harassment on public transport. I’ve been harassed on buses and tubes, I’ve read lots of advice on what should and shouldn’t be done. And I want, desperately, to be the kind of person who can step up and intervene if I see it happening. But I get it wrong. I’ve sometimes successfully helped out, other times I will try to say something and – heart hammering and adrenaline pumping – I will say the wrong thing, say it too quietly, or phrase it badly, and make a terrible situation worse.
This week’s guest blog is about that – intervening in harassment. It’s not about being a hero or getting everything right, and I think that’s why it touched me so much. It’s about not knowing what to do, but knowing that you have to do something.
Men explain things to me: examples from 2016
I’m a woman on the internet, so men explain things to me. They’re usually well-meaning. They want to help me out with an issue they have spotted, or give me the lowdown on something they think I should know. However, they also often assume a certain lack of knowledge on my part, around topics that I know already.
At the start of 2016, I started collecting examples. Here are a select few of my favourites.
Two things: consent apps and hardcore panda sex
Point-missing app developers SaSie have come up with a new ‘affirmative consent app’ – one of many sexual consent apps that fundamentally misunderstand the nature of consent, or the ways in which humans work. That fills the ‘bad news’ column in this week’s ‘Two things‘, but if you’re after some much better news, scroll down to the bottom for some hardcore panda sex.
Fucking on the sofa
I hate my sofas. I hate them with every single fibre of my being. I hate them more because I should have anticipated the problems I have had with them, and left them to rot in Marks and Spencer where they belonged. With their shitty sleek design and their evil spindly legs. And their squeaky, ill-placed, uncomfortable cushions.
I cannot fuck on my sofa. And although this might sound like an entitled whine (it is), I want you to be able to learn from my mistakes if you can. Never ever ever buy a sofa you cannot fuck on.
Relationship insecurity: why are you with me?
If I’m certain of anything about myself it’s this: I am a fucking nightmare. Anxiety means I am constantly examining every detail to see what might be right and wrong with my life. No – scratch that – every detail of what might be wrong. What’s right gets dumped on the ‘finished’ pile, and rarely given more time than a cursory ‘hooray’ before it’s time to move onto the next thing. Leaving my brain free to focus on unpaid bills, people I may have offended, and a mountain of relationship insecurity on the side.