Sexual Harassment
Doris Bennett, my Grandmother’s best friend, who must be close to 90 now, always asks, whenever I see her, with a glint in her eye, and one finger pointing, whether the Italian men pinch my butt? The pointed finger is for the ending, “You know you should be careful, Becky!” It is the glint in the eye and not her wagging finger, that makes me wonder if it is nostalgia for a day past when men whistled at the beauty she surely was or if she is truly angered by the degradation of what an unwarranted pinched butt must hold? I admit I have a dichotomy of feelings on this subject too. In fact, I am somewhat afraid to announce to my friends and family my formal position, but if you promise to listen to the end, we may gain some understanding?
Anyone who reads this knows my platonic wife, Amy. You also know we are basically inseparable, in fact after I realized my prayers to become an overnight lesbian failed, I moved on to hoping that we would meet brothers, best friends or at least only have men that didn’t intrude too deeply into our nearly perfect life together.
Our friendship was quite honestly formed on the path from Opera to Noverasco, one we biked to work on, and took nightly walks for exercise. It was there that we learned our theories of religion, philosophy and even sexual harassment. The path nestled closely to the Tangenziale highway that headed directly to Milan. We soon realized that the vehicles passing, depending on our outfits, would often honk enthusiastically at us. Amy would bet me how many honks we would get a morning. I would always guess high, usually seven, her guess, three. Depending on the day, and our outfits, one of us would win. After a beep, I was known to scream, “Hellloooo Italy!” Perhaps, I was desperate, but I hate to admit, I quite honestly loved the attention.
A rule was added after I accidently screamed, “Hello Italy!” when a car beeped in the middle of town. My arms raised, face smiling, the car coming to an immediate halt ready to take whatever I had to offer. Our hands went to our mouths and we quickly ran away, embarrassed.
“No screaming thank you’s unless, the cars can’t actually stop and talk to us!” became the rule we lived by. And from there we went on about our life in Italy quite happily. We became used to the fact that people look at you from head to toe and make instant judgments of approval or distain, with little social ramifications. We soon even embraced the gawking ourselves. We kept records of our days and even celebrated the walk where we got 34 honks.
After moving to the city, the honks focused more on traffic and not too much on us and we again, became quite comfortable going unnoticed.
It wasn’t until Sunday that my views on sexual harassment had to be re-examined. We found ourselves at Porta Venezia heading to catch a ride with Jenna to go to the “Run like a Deejay” Run/Walk event near the San Siro soccer stadium. We were running late, and as Amy called Jenna to tell her, a long-haired man on a bike slowed next to us and made eye contact with me. As his eyes met mine, a slow kissing/hissing noise, reverberated through his lips. I grimaced, shook my shoulders in disgust, which just made him hiss louder.
“Are you kidding me!?” I said, not turning away from him, instead speaking right to his face. He looked back and kept eye contact and continued with that horrible noise, a “I will fucking kick your ass!” came flowing out of my mouth, without a thought. He continued to linger around us, as Amy got off the phone. We turned right on Buenos Aires, to get picked up, the man turned too and started making circles around us. When he was directly beside me, Amy leaned into me, whispering in my ear, “Kick him, Rebecca!”, with a clear emphasis on HIM.
“I can’t,” I replied, in a whisper, “You!” With that, Amy, her head on a swivel, looked left then right and before any of us really knew what was happening, she was swiftly kicking his back tire. I can honestly say I only saw his face and heard the sound of her foot getting stuck in his spoke. His reaction suddenly went from the perpetrator to the victim while Amy hopped trying to get her foot free. I realized, he didn’t think he had done anything wrong, when he announced to us “Va fanculo!” Which we repeated immediately back to him and for a brief moment we all looked at each other in complete silence, wondering how this would end. I learned later, that Amy believed she would be punched.
Marco’s car appeared and we quickly tried to motion that a crazy biker was harassing us. As we hopped into the backseat, Jenna started rather ridiculously yelling words that I didn’t even understand. Once safely seated, Amy’s toe was checked and our nervous laughter filled the car.
Since then, we can’t help but repeat the moment out loud and in our heads, and I can’t shake my disbelief that a woman who often whispers her most important statements actually turned around and kicked a man for making kissing noises or that one of Amy’s kicks made a grown, creepy sexual harasser feel like he was suddenly the victim.
Amy and I both still wish her kick had actually knocked him over, and hope he will think twice before trying it again. We also agreed, we prefer a honk to a hiss any day. Somehow, I think Doris Bennett, my Grandmother’s best friend would agree.
Anyone who reads this knows my platonic wife, Amy. You also know we are basically inseparable, in fact after I realized my prayers to become an overnight lesbian failed, I moved on to hoping that we would meet brothers, best friends or at least only have men that didn’t intrude too deeply into our nearly perfect life together.
Our friendship was quite honestly formed on the path from Opera to Noverasco, one we biked to work on, and took nightly walks for exercise. It was there that we learned our theories of religion, philosophy and even sexual harassment. The path nestled closely to the Tangenziale highway that headed directly to Milan. We soon realized that the vehicles passing, depending on our outfits, would often honk enthusiastically at us. Amy would bet me how many honks we would get a morning. I would always guess high, usually seven, her guess, three. Depending on the day, and our outfits, one of us would win. After a beep, I was known to scream, “Hellloooo Italy!” Perhaps, I was desperate, but I hate to admit, I quite honestly loved the attention.
A rule was added after I accidently screamed, “Hello Italy!” when a car beeped in the middle of town. My arms raised, face smiling, the car coming to an immediate halt ready to take whatever I had to offer. Our hands went to our mouths and we quickly ran away, embarrassed.
“No screaming thank you’s unless, the cars can’t actually stop and talk to us!” became the rule we lived by. And from there we went on about our life in Italy quite happily. We became used to the fact that people look at you from head to toe and make instant judgments of approval or distain, with little social ramifications. We soon even embraced the gawking ourselves. We kept records of our days and even celebrated the walk where we got 34 honks.
After moving to the city, the honks focused more on traffic and not too much on us and we again, became quite comfortable going unnoticed.
It wasn’t until Sunday that my views on sexual harassment had to be re-examined. We found ourselves at Porta Venezia heading to catch a ride with Jenna to go to the “Run like a Deejay” Run/Walk event near the San Siro soccer stadium. We were running late, and as Amy called Jenna to tell her, a long-haired man on a bike slowed next to us and made eye contact with me. As his eyes met mine, a slow kissing/hissing noise, reverberated through his lips. I grimaced, shook my shoulders in disgust, which just made him hiss louder.
“Are you kidding me!?” I said, not turning away from him, instead speaking right to his face. He looked back and kept eye contact and continued with that horrible noise, a “I will fucking kick your ass!” came flowing out of my mouth, without a thought. He continued to linger around us, as Amy got off the phone. We turned right on Buenos Aires, to get picked up, the man turned too and started making circles around us. When he was directly beside me, Amy leaned into me, whispering in my ear, “Kick him, Rebecca!”, with a clear emphasis on HIM.
“I can’t,” I replied, in a whisper, “You!” With that, Amy, her head on a swivel, looked left then right and before any of us really knew what was happening, she was swiftly kicking his back tire. I can honestly say I only saw his face and heard the sound of her foot getting stuck in his spoke. His reaction suddenly went from the perpetrator to the victim while Amy hopped trying to get her foot free. I realized, he didn’t think he had done anything wrong, when he announced to us “Va fanculo!” Which we repeated immediately back to him and for a brief moment we all looked at each other in complete silence, wondering how this would end. I learned later, that Amy believed she would be punched.
Marco’s car appeared and we quickly tried to motion that a crazy biker was harassing us. As we hopped into the backseat, Jenna started rather ridiculously yelling words that I didn’t even understand. Once safely seated, Amy’s toe was checked and our nervous laughter filled the car.
Since then, we can’t help but repeat the moment out loud and in our heads, and I can’t shake my disbelief that a woman who often whispers her most important statements actually turned around and kicked a man for making kissing noises or that one of Amy’s kicks made a grown, creepy sexual harasser feel like he was suddenly the victim.
Amy and I both still wish her kick had actually knocked him over, and hope he will think twice before trying it again. We also agreed, we prefer a honk to a hiss any day. Somehow, I think Doris Bennett, my Grandmother’s best friend would agree.
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