Abigail Cervantes
Mar 08, 2018
Our Founder
Don’t Trust The Title:
The art of telling good stories is often hard for a writer because an idea can be there, but the words aren’t. Good writers tell a story from what they know. How their heart beats or that gut feeling that makes the memory of it so precise. How it relates to the reader depends on how the author helps you transcend what they are depicting. This story is sort of like a riddle that took me a year to unravel which to the defending side it might seem highly unlikely. I argue that this is what makes my story believable, the time frame, because it’s very human how memory and suffering work together. Trauma can cause the human mind to push feelings so far back that the drawer seems permanently shut, but it’s not. Memory and suffering can influence each other especially if the event and the truth of the details are too painful for the mind to accept. Memory and pain are interdependent to each other and work to keep you alive, more so to keep you sane. This is a story of personal pain, making it especially harder to put into words or even want to share publicly.
Why are we so humiliated by pain that sharing it would cause further embarrassment or even worse, attention to the situation. Stories don’t necessarily have to be for the pure purpose of entertainment. They often tell a moral and have a lesson to share. They are symbolic, and that is the purpose of my story.
Entitlement and The Lack Thereof
This is a reminder that existing as a woman in a patriarchal society can be painful. It can be physically brutalizing and then later emotionally traumatizing, and I can’t even argue which one is worse. The next few paragraphs are not for the purpose of highlighting my victimization of a female enduring ultimate male power but about learning a lesson the hard way. My words are about the preconceived ideas that society makes about titles, and strangers versus individuals in communities. It is without a doubt believed that people who go into careers serving the social wellness of the public, who are at large serving the community, are trusted respectable human beings. However, the year 2017 in the United States has finally proven and acknowledged that you can’t judge a book by its title. We’ve seen big time male figures be taken down by the victims they took advantage of. A huge milestone for the equalization of women in society everywhere. For the first time in my life, right before the turn of 2017, I personally experienced what male exertion thrusted upon me felt like.
Indecent Exposure
So much regarding the pain of women was unraveling right before the media and for the world to see. We had a misogynist president who was apparently grabbing women by the pussy, big time Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein was inviting women up to his hotel room for ‘private business meetings’ only to receive them naked and force himself upon them, there was actor/comedian Louis C.K. who would randomly ask his female coworkers if he could masturbate in front of them, and of course, Matt Lauer, NBC’s tv journalist who was fired for sexual misconduct with his female coworkers. But it wasn’t just tv stars who were finally paying for their awful mistreatment of women, but politicians like Al Franklin and Roy Moore were also ousted for the same deviant behavior. The most horrifying story that shocked the nation involved doctor Larry Nasser, the US gymnastics doctor who sexually molested over 170 of his patients. Of all the stories, that’s the one that horrified me the most because they were all children and he was a trusted professional. He was a doctor.
"Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman gives her victim impact statement in Lansing, Mich., during the fourth day of sentencing for former sports doctor Larry Nassar on Jan. 19. (Dale G Young / Associated Press)"
If Memory Hides, Trust your Gut
This also struck a personal chord with me because I was also dealing with a pain that literally went away for the year and popped back up in my life only to remind me of an awful night I thought I’d never have to remember. To be honest, when I initially saw this person back in my life after taking a year hiatus from doing whatever the fuck he was doing, I wasn’t happy. I couldn’t quite put my finger on why, I just knew that I froze every time I saw him. Perhaps I was a scorned woman who was rejected, but whatever the reason was I decided I couldn’t be at my fitness club and ignore him all the time. It was my place of happiness; my place of bliss and I’d be damned if I was going to let anyone ruin that for me, so I decided to play friendly. I smiled.. like society expects me to but this was for me, to keep the peace within my “town”.. all the while I tried not to look like my face was melting off every time I saw this individual.
I smiled back at him ONE time and somehow that gave him a personal invitation to come chat with me. He couldn’t just keep it a casual relationship where we acknowledged each other’s presence to simply tolerate our existence from across the room. He loved stalking me at the gym and talking as if we were genuinely friends and every time he came near me I felt so uncomfortable.
One night after physical therapy I came in to lift and do some endurance training which is crazy because if you knew anything about me you’d know that I despise cardio. I was wearing a tank top with a plunging neckline and a sports bra underneath. I go to a CrossFit gym and as you may have heard, this type of fitness regime is physically exhausting and you’re constantly testing your human body to do completely exhausting/challenging exercises. As a profession, I am a technical designer for the apparel industry so as a textiles and fit expert I can certify that the best way for the human body to complete full range of motion is to be as free as possible. In the fitness culture, it means minimal clothes and what your body is wearing is typically covered by tight knits.
Why am I telling you this? Basically, to reinforce this stigma in the mind of a male that women have the right to wear what they please whether it be for technical reasons or because they feel confident not for male enjoyment. Regardless of what anyone is wearing, no one is asking for it even if the neck line is plunging with good reason. On the one evening I decided to go running, my fellow box mate feels that HE has every right to sexually harass me. It was that moment when he approached me on the true form machine that he decided to pass the boundary of appropriate behavior. Like I said, I don’t run, I was breathing heavily which I’m sure was magical for him as he hung over the side of my machine. I looked over to him and asked what the fuck he was doing to which he calmly responded, “I’m watching your hot body run as your tits bounce up and down.”
It was very difficult for me to want to continue my training so I stopped and walked away from him. I walked to the opposite side, about fifty feet away and guess what, he was still behind me. He was following me! I calmly sat in the lobby trying to compose myself trying to wait him out. I sat in silence for about ten minutes while he was gone from my sight hoping that the ten minutes he spent in the locker room signified he was leaving the premises. I didn’t see him for a while, about fifteen minutes passed and so I figured he left the building. I went to the women’s locker room, quickly packed my bag and walked out. Guess who was sitting in the lobby? My stalker.
He was chatting it up with anyone who was around and I just wouldn’t engage. I refused. This brings me back to the beginning when it seemed like my story was only about verbal harassment. It was the moment I was punched in the face with the truth. I sat in silence, eagerly waiting for him to pack his shit up and leave. I didn’t want to give him an excuse to follow me out. He was still trying to converse with me in a very amicable way while I remained still, I was silent. He noticed my lack of contribution to the conversation and so he felt the need to force one on me. He calmly placed his hand on my knee cap and nonchalantly asked me about Obama and Biden, my cats. With his hand on my knee he turned to me and said, “you didn’t think I’d remember their names did you, you didn’t think I’d remember that night”. His comment hit me, knocking me out and leaving me nauseous.
In that single moment I now knew why my skin crawled every time I saw him. I realized I had pushed back that memory so far down in the basement that I couldn’t access it while I physically froze at his sight. “You didn’t think I’d remember that night”, oh you clearly remember it while I had to block it from my memory box. I couldn’t breathe. He was gloating about that night because he knew that night wasn’t consensual. It was like his little secret that I had forgotten. Forgotten that this doctor likes to get off when women are unconscious. He finally left. I went home that night and cried my eyes out because I didn’t remember that horrible night until the very moment he felt it was necessary to bring up as if it was a secret. Well it was a secret that I forced myself to forget.
Intentions First.
My anxiety isn’t just about his verbal sexual harassment. It includes a night him and I shared about a year ago right before the turn of 2017 when I first met him. I was charmed by him, I was swept away, I’ll admit that. He was smart, very handsome, athletic and was a respectable doctor, or so he claimed. Most of his professional experience was gained over seas and he was studying for some doctor test here in the states,. He usually spent his time studying and training. I don’t remember having much in common except that we were both physically attracted to each other and we were both hyper sexual people. Because of this it didn’t bother me to speak to him regarding common interests which were to eventually lead to a consensual night, or so I thought.
And Then…
I had invited him over for what we both agreed would be consensual sex, and this part is always super important for me to state when telling this story. We weren’t dating, we just wanted to fuck each other and honestly I really trusted him because he was a member of my fitness community and more importantly he was in the medical profession.. there’s that title again. I made it very very very clear to him that I would not engage in sexual intercourse with him unless he had protection. I guess it may seem strange to set up so many guidelines before engaging in such physical activity but as a woman who is hyper sexual, I’d like to think that communication with the person who’s going to see you naked, is a clear element to these types of encounters.
Could you say that the details of that evening are my fault and brought on by letting a complete stranger into my home, into my bed? Perhaps, I suppose you could say that in this day and age being sexually promiscuous can lead to dangerous scenarios, but I don’t think that’s a fair statement. I invited a good-looking man over for some planned sexual activity, but not just any man, a member of my CrossFit community, and above all, someone who’s whole career is based on a code of conduct. Above all things, without knowing him, I truly believed that a citizen with this type of credentials would automatically have a deep sense of moral thrust upon them.
As I walked through my apartment door with him and then sat down on the couch I didn’t wait long to ask him if he brought protection like I had asked him to. He had not, nor did he want to go out and purchase some. So we were reduced to fooling around, which was fine. We had stripped our clothes off and were naked in the living room, and it was here when the night got weird. In the middle of us fooling around he suddenly felt ‘ill’, and urgently guided me towards my bedroom.
This next part is hard for me to write...
He randomly was sick and wanted nothing more than to sleep, somehow that seemed normal? I fell asleep in his arms easily as we talked for about an hour, but I partly believe he insisted on spooning me because it would be easier for him to turn me around while I was finally unconscious and have his way with me. That’s the part of the evening I wasn’t expecting. When I opened my eyes, I was somehow on my knees and hands, and he was at the end of the bed pounding away. I wasn’t physically ready for his erect penis to slam into my body like a fucking hammer. It hurt me so much but more than the physical trauma from it I was horrified that there was no layer of protection between the two of us. Can you believe that? All this drama and secrecy and I’m concerned not with the nonconsensual sex that’s happening, but with my health. I felt betrayed and not because this douche bag was raping me but because I trusted his sanitary methodology of being a damn surgeon to use safety with a complete stranger.
As an athlete my lower back is not very flexible. It hinders my lifts starting with the floor position because it throws my entire balance off. What does that mean for me sexually? It means that being on my knees and having my upper body straight up actually puts a lot of strain on my lower back, a private detail I had disclosed to him. As he’s drilling away he pulls my upper body upright so that I’m parallel to him and holy shit I felt like I was about to break. He placed his hand on my throat and asked me, “who’s pussy does this belong to”. I was in so much pain and shock that I couldn’t really quite process the question but also I’d rather fucking die than to tell someone who’s raping me that my hostaged vagina belongs to them. Seriously, you can just choke me to death because I’ll never embrace the fact that a man who needed me to fall asleep in order to have nonconsensual sex was the best sex of my life. Go fuck yourself.
It was because I refused to answer his question that he finally pulled out feeling offended that I didn’t agree with him. From a defending point of view, not only did I not answer the question I didn’t say yes, have unprotected sex with me, but I also didn’t say no. I was in a deep sleep coma followed by so much disbelief. My mind just went into complete shutdown mode partially to protect myself from so much pain. I was absent minded if you will, so saying anything during that interaction was simply out of the question. After having irritated him for not answering his question, and after I finally came out of my coma of shock I crawled back to him like a victim of Stockholm syndrome. As he held me to sleep I kept thinking, this is ok this must be how he likes it and therefore it’s normal. I felt like I was 16 trying to make sense of chaos or what I thought was immature boy behavior.
Male Culture
I was trying to justify his execution regarding his power filled male dominance over me but felt it had so much more to do with male culture than my traumatic experience. I can certainly say that having many sexual partners, both of which I knew personally through acquaintances or those I had met on the worldwide internet, that the men who knew me the most were the ones who physically hurt me the most in an intimate setting. That was not the first time, second time, not even third time that power gets in the head of a male partner and over exceeds his force in bed. It’s in our culture, particularly male culture.
Let me finish the details of the story before I continue my analysis. To be clear, there were no drugs or alcohol involved. The next day we woke up, not many words were exchanged, and we actually went to the gym together like if nothing happened. You must remember that at the time, while I did feel very confused, I also believed it was consensual. Why? Because I froze. I never said no, stop, you’re hurting me, but I never said yes. It wasn’t long after that night that I wouldn’t have to see him again. He left about a month later to work overseas but we didn’t speak during his final month. I ignored him. I felt uncomfortable likely because my brain was refusing the memory.
This brings me back to the beginning of this story, when it would take me an entire year to realize what had actually transcended that night. A year later I walked into my safe haven for some lifting and there he was, back from what I can only imagine was a rape tour in some other country. He had come up to me, he greeted me, gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. My insides were exploding, I just didn’t remember why yet. On a different evening he had approached me to greet me with a real sweaty hug to which I declined. He didn’t accept my response so he forced a hug on me and I could smell his sweat on me, his hormones, I could smell that night. Days later was when his interaction with me finally made me realize the truth of that night. I can say that I remember every stroke and pain caused by him every time I lay in the same room and mattress of the event.
Rape Culture
There is a lot to say about rape culture, because it’s description implies how these dynamic behaviors become the ‘norm’. I say this because when that man was gloating, he didn’t notice that he was doing so. His words and behavior were so natural and fluent that if I were to tell him this story he would either feel embarrassed or deny my details. Either way it doesn’t cost men anything to manipulate a woman into sex. Listen, I’m not saying women aren’t at fault because we play a piece in the game too. However, there is something to say about men twisting what reality is versus what is an illusion. For example, we can’t forget that I invited him over for sex, I plainly said that to him. But we also can’t forget that he failed to tell me his actual sexual desires. I at the very least was up front, but I was never specific with the details because I didn’t think that being awake would be one of them.
If consensual sex involves complete honesty, then shouldn’t he at the very least have said, “hey, I wanna fuck you too but I’m really into some weird shit where I have to raw dog you from the back in your sleep so that you’re super tight and it feels better for me but definitely not for you”? Because then we could have avoided this whole thing by telling him I’m not really into that. This is also an extreme example of what clear rape is, but what if we take it one step further. Earlier I mentioned that this wasn’t the first time I have experienced similar sexual interactions and it’s not because I attract the same asshole over and over again.
As a woman, I have dated and been with a lot of men and many of them will assume that you know what’s happening. “We talked about this, I thought you knew?” Those are statements that I have often heard from men in order to get sex. Men don’t even realize that this is their behavior because it’s a part of how they communicate excluding the fine print. They manipulate the truth to get what they want because if he doesn’t then he doesn’t get laid. Sometimes men do it with words and phrases, by establishing a friendship so that they can feed into your weakness and others they simply just take what they want. What is it about this culture that men use women like a tissue, as if we are disposable? And at the same time why do women allow themselves to be treated like garbage?
Don’t Trust The Title is inspired by rape stories that typically are emphasized from sexual encounters with strangers brought to you by the World Wide Web, because this story is not about that. I have heard online horror stories of boy meets girl but boy likes power and sex way too much for consent. However, in my experience of consent, I find the nonconsensual sex to be by far more emotionally exhausting when executed by someone you personally know and trust. This story reminds me of a younger me, a drunker me, or even just a normal me who has told my boyfriend, a lover, or even a friend to stop or simply no, and my request was ignored. Yes, there is something to be said about consensual meetings going wrong but that’s ironically expected. A judge would think, “Of course what did you expect from a complete stranger?” but how would I from someone in my community!? That’s just not smart planning if the perpetrator continues with this method of attack.
I have learned that being highly sexual seems to only be dangerous mostly for women because men have the physical force to destroy our bodies. Today, if you ask me about my sexual activity and it’s changes I would say that men still haven’t scared me away from being promiscuous, but I am a lot more careful. I would say that because of my experience of being assaulted and hurt by men whom I know that I now have a tendency to look online to complete strangers. It’s easier for me to filter through what I want versus having someone manipulate you because they know you. I appreciate when I see a message from a handsome man that says something along the lines of, “I’d like to take you out and then afterwards have intercourse with you,” and you know what? I always respond to deny their request but also to thank them for their bluntness.
After my run in with my perpetrator I had to alert management because it was very clear that I was going through PTSD every time I saw him. He had the nerve to confront me afterwards and laugh in my face which destroyed any integrity that I had built at a facility whose whole purpose is to empower people. The situation was eventually handled but it was of no surprise that I had to step away and turn my back to a place that once made me feel so empowered. When I look back at the place I cringe but that’s a trauma that is an internal struggle which I have been slowly working on. I have been slowly building my strength to not let my stomping ground remind me of so much pain.
At the end of the day I leave my audience with this. I leave Don’t Trust the Title to all ‘decent’ men I know, who have either been my platonic male friends or have had some sort of sexual encounter, with a “thank you.” Whether the sex was good, whether it destroyed our friendship or not, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for not raping me. Thank you for having consensual sex or a consensual relationship with me. More importantly thank you for setting my moral standards so low on what decent human behavior is that I have to thank you for doing things that you shouldn’t do in the first place. To all the men that haven’t raped me, thank you.
Original Publications: https://abigailthinksblog.wordpress.com/2018/03/07/dont-trust-the-title/
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