#if they were older I’d say ‘just fuck and be martial buddies’ but they’re teenagers so. gotta pg-13 the whole emotional venting stuff

[cinnamonglaive]

noooooooo wormy and grue are dating now auuuughghh this is so juvenile (of course it’s juvenile. they’re teenagers)

[carissaleeblog]

Anything may happen when womanhood has ceased to be a protected occupation

When I was fifteen, I told my mother that my eighteen-year-old boyfriend had hit me in the face in front of my friends at lunch time. She immediately told me the relationship was over. Through my adolescent tears, I tried to explain that it wasn’t that big a deal, and he wouldn’t do it again, but then my mum, a survivor of domestic violence at the hands of my father, said “They never just hit you once.” I then went on to carry on the relationship in secret, run away from home, then at seventeen proceeded to get assaulted and stalked by said boyfriend, leading to people- female friends of his- asking me why the hell was I getting a restraining order against such a nice guy. In an attempt to cleanse the trauma from my broken body, I went to parties, clubs and gatherings in the pursuit of promiscuity, but could never go through with it, leading to repeated accusations of being a cock tease and a crazy bitch, whenever I’d freak out about a guy touching me. I went to my school formal dressed in a suit in an attempt to cover up, and took my close female friend as my date, which then led to rumours that I was gay.

I then went on to date a guy who was a young dad, who expected this awkward teenager to want to be his new son’s baby mama. Sufficed to say, he was less than impressed when I wasn’t up to the task and broke off the brief fling. Years passed of having male friends who assumed I’d fuck them because other female friends were up for that, getting inappropriate comments from one of the superiors at my work for seeing me kiss a girl at a night club, and get the reputation for being a crazy bitch for punching my boyfriend in the face after finding out he’d cheated on me.

In my adult years, and after moving to a bigger city, I started training in martial arts and feeling a little better about myself. At uni I fell in love, and ended up with a guy who wanted to get married, buy a house and have kids. For a lot of that time, I wanted those things too, but then one day I didn’t, and so I broke his heart and left. I ended up in a new relationship years later and moved to an even bigger city. I got busted at the airport for carrying a self-defence item which was illegal in that state, and when I went to court, the judge told me he was scared for the person who I could have hurt with this weapon. To which I replied “You mean my attacker?” I went without a conviction, but a $500 fine and a stern talking-to in front of a room full of shoplifters and other petty crims like me.

Then last night. Survival Day. Well, a lot of you call in Australia Day, and that’s cool. Some people call it Invasion Day, and that’s cool too, it’s a lot of things to some people, and one thing to others. Either way, it’s always a day that puts me in a weird way. I was out with one of my closest girlfriends and we’d done brunch, movies, and were getting some drinks and dinner at a bar where we’d made some new male friends. The guys were all lovely, but one guy in particular was ridiculously drunk and was progressively getting worse as the night went on. I ended up sitting next to this guy, who started putting his hand on my leg, which I removed, and told him to stop. He ended up repeating to act, to which I promptly hit him across the face and went to the other side of the table to sit next to my friend, who wanted to stay. I was called a cunt and of course you guessed it-  a crazy bitch. I sat with my friend and her new friend, uncomfortable, and wanting to leave, but she was having fun. Creepy fuck across the table kept making eyes at me, which was annoying.

Somehow during the night my friend ended up on the other side of the table with the creep, and seeing I was keeping an eye on them, he started touching her, trying to lick her, put his hands on her, to which she didn’t react to, but I got up and shoved him away, only to be held back by my friend’s new buddy, telling me that the creep was just trying to get a reaction out of me, and even my friend told me I was overreacting. We stayed and had dinner with these people because my friend wanted to stay. Then I decided we were leaving.

On the walk back, my friend told me I was being “too defensive”, that I was reacting inappropriately, and I was “jumping the gun” when it came to dealing with that sleazy fuck. By the end of the night, I was ready to throw up, I was in tears and so goddamn angry, but the weird thing was, I wasn’t angry at those guys as much as I initially was, I was angry at my friend. She had not only insisted we stay in that situation, but told me I was wrong for reacting the way I did within it. I ended up in the arms of my boyfriend, feeling sick and ashamed of the night, but not of me, for once in my life, I didn’t doubt my actions for a second.

I guess I’m writing this because that situation made me think of times when I was 15 and drinking with my friends, and they were putting me in situations with older guys where I felt uncomfortable and knew that I probably wouldn’t be able to stand up for myself if the occasion called for it. It made me think of training at Krav, and my instructors telling us over and over that the best form of self defence was to just “not be there”. In a life of being small and defenceless, I have made it my personal goal to be able to defend myself and feel safe in all situations where possible. Now that I can, I have people like that mansplaining judge telling me I have no right to defend myself if someone is hurting me, my so-called school friends telling me that a horrific incident is no reason to get a restraining order against my ex, and now my best friend is telling me that a lifetime of trauma and training to prevent it has been for nothing because I have become “too defensive”.

No one needs people telling them that they should stop being “frigid” when they’re single because other female friends are happy to put out. No one needs to be called a slut because they are attracted to both males and females. No one should ever be told that they are overreacting, “too defensive” or a “crazy bitch” for wanting to be safe, and for their loved ones to be safe, and I’ll be damned if anyone is going to challenge me on this, because I’m just not going to be nice about it anymore.