Making Space: Setting Personal Boundaries – in person and online

It happens everyday to someone – either online or in person. You are going about your business when someone presses himself uncomfortably close to your body. Online he calls you “darling,” “dear,” “honey,” “luv” (“love”) or other intimate name, despite being a perfect stranger.

In person encroachments have to be handled to avoid escalating the assault so that escape becomes possible. As women we do what we must to escape in person sexual attacks – verbal and physical.

After we escape, if we tell others, expressing our discomfort is usually responded to with chastisement for minding the intimate behavior from the stranger. 

It happened to me in 2003 when I filed charges against a visitor to my office who thought that looking down my shirt and snapping photos of my breasts with his camera was a joke. I felt sexually violated. Rather than defending me and banishing this guy from my workspace, my entire office sided with the assailant. They said he was joking and why did I mind it? I felt so violated by the experience I nearly quit my job. I felt that unsafe.

To everyone else the crime that happened was me minding enough to press charges. Not the sexual assault. Speaking up, filing a complaint with the law. Setting boundaries. Saying “no” to this man. I was the problem – not him.

Likewise I experienced something similar recently on twitter. A strange guy I never spoke to replied to a tweet I sent – with intimate language as part of it. When I sent another tweet stating that it wasn’t okay to use intimate language with me, that I consider it encroachment on both my personal space and my dignity, the responses on Twitter were swift and just as victim-shaming. The problem wasn’t a stranger talking to me as if I was his sexual partner. The problem was me for minding it, for saying I wasn’t okay with that, for saying “no” to it. Stay quiet. Stay invisible. Sexual harassment is just part of being a woman. And that short video a strange man sent me Christmas morning on twitter of his penis and use of his hand to have sex with himself? Ignore it, pretend it never happened. Don’t talk about it. Don’t be upset about it. Shame on me for feeling upset about it and having it impact my Christmas.

The problem is never the men who violate our boundaries. The problem is women for having boundaries in the first place. That is the message we are sent as women and men receive when their bad behavior is tolerated, when no one chastises them for violating women’s boundaries. And if the problem is women for setting boundaries in the first place, the message to men is that our boundaries do not need to be respected in the first place. Too often the message becomes that women do not mean “no” when they say it, that women like men to ignore boundaries and invade their spaces. If women like to be violated, then certainly he is entitled to make whatever advances he wants and towards any woman he finds desirable.

Except our boundaries do matter. Men are not entitled to our bodies, not entitled to intimacy of any sort. Men may claim the intent was humor after the fact, but it does not change the loss of dignity and lack of respect demonstrated by his actions.

The only standard we as women need to abide by is how we feel. If something feels humiliating, feels like an encroachment into our personal space (physical and psychological), then it is. Our comfort, our dignity matters. We have a fundamental human right to decide how we feel about something, to set boundaries, and to assert those boundaries. No one, absolutely no one, has the right to demean us or shame us for doing so. If it feels wrong, it probably is.

Our world can be a better place. But that starts by recognizing women are full equals to men with the same human rights as men. The first and most important right we have is to body safety and integrity. We have the right to our own bodies and to decide who touches us, when, and how. We have the right to say yes or no to sex as we prefer and to set specific boundaries for physical contact.

To live happier ever after we need to respect our boundaries. Everyone, no matter how young or old, has the right to say “no.”

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Related post: Breaking the Religious Code of Silence in Rape, Incest, and Domestic Violence.

Related book: American Patriarchy. Also on Audible.

Breaking the Religious Code of Silence in Rape, Incest, and Domestic Violence

May 16, 2012

May 10, a New York Times article reports, “Ultra-Orthodox Shun Their Own for Reporting Child Sexual Abuse.” The story details the dire consequences many Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn continue to face for daring to report child molestation and abuse to secular authorities. As we have all heard reports about for the last few years with the recent controversy over Roman Catholic clerical sexual abuse, the incidents, and the religious community response to anyone daring to break the code of silence that keeps victims hidden and perpetrators un-noticed, transcends religions. Blaming the victims and protecting the abusers is not just a Roman Catholic problem, or an Orthodox Jewish one for that matter.

I know all about this from my personal life. I too grew up in a very conservative religious community. In my case, it was Evangelical, “Born-Again” Christian. I grew up hearing sermons from Jack Van Impe, Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, and countless others whose names I’ve forgotten across the years, all of whom would probably be considered Tea Party today for their ultra-conservatism. When I was in junior high I remember an older, teen peer being shunned in a formal church service, ex-communicated and banned from our church for pre-marital sex. With so much hidden (or not so hidden) pain of my own to go through, I did not process at the time (or perhaps could not in that religious environment) exactly what I had witnessed in seeing that shunning.

It is time our organized religions stop this conspiracy of blame and conspiracy of silence. No one makes a man or woman beat another. No one makes someone rape anyone. Responsibility for these terrible things lies on the person who does them. Surviving doesn’t make you dirty or sinful or evil or corrupt or anti your religion. When you suffer this, you are NOT to blame, no matter what someone says. Churches, synagogues, temples, religious communities of every theology and structure all need to stop this behavior. No matter how many weapons a perpetrator has or how powerful s/he is physically, not one abuser can continue without the silent consent of the group. When the group stands against these horrible things, the violence STOPS.

Violence is not the victim’s problem; it is everyone’s problem. We are all diminished every time a person is verbally demeaned, every time someone is forced into a non-consensual sexual act, every time someone is physically assaulted. Responsibility lies with all of us. If we do nothing to help the person in jeopardy, if we ignore the screams, if we turn away instead of intervening, then we have only empowered those doing these things.

Miriam’s Song in Judaism, Peers of Beinan

I realize this is the wrong time of year to be thinking about Passover, but I want to share this link with lyrics to probably my favorite Passover song:

http://www.miriamscup.com/SongPage3.htm

This song inspired the story of Miriam in the Peers of Beinan, a character echoing the Jewish stories about Miriam, the Prophetess, sister of Moses, as an unexpected leader and shaper of her society.

In The Great Succession Crisis, Lady Ecter is the eldest surviving daughter of Lord Knight Cariadoc of house Ten-Ar and Lady Jebez of house Shem, making her full sister to Lord Janus and half sister to Lord Corann.

After Janus discovers Lady Ecter has fallen in love with a nephew of Dowager Princess Wehe, Janus decides to test his plot to seize the throne out onto his sister — by raping and impregnating her.  After Lady Ecter safely delivers her daughter Miriam, her family beats and brutalizes her as a whore, despite all the evidence in her favor.  Fleeing for her life, Lady Ecter crashes the royal wedding, begging for her life and that of her now frail baby.

Corann embraces his half sister and his niece with open arms.  Together, mother and daughter start a new life in the temple of Abka Biya in the coastal city of Bira Hecen.  From her humble beginnings, Miriam grows into a strong and highly educated young woman determined stop her father from carrying out his threat of revenge against those who saved her life as a baby.

Lady Ecter and Miriam go on to found the Choire Ar Cerridwen in the mining town of Amba Narel, a secret sanctuary and archive that becomes critical to discovering who is behind the terrorist bombings of Beinarian healing centers.

Miriam’s song and the role Miriam played in Jewish history inspired this tale of Lady Ecter and Lady Miriam whose heroism and dedication to goodness saves countless Beinarian lives — just as Miriam herself saved countless lives during the Exodus.

–Laurel A. Rockefeller

The Peers of Beinan series

http://www.amazon.com/Laurel-A.-Rockefeller/e/B008YVJJFE/