I Am A Woman Who Has Not Been Raped

I am a woman who has not been raped.

I am a woman who:

• walks to her car at night with her keys in the ready position (go for the eyes, they say) 
• checks beneath the car from a distance to make sure nobody is hiding underneath (they stab your ankles and throw you in the backseat)
• takes a look in the backseat before getting into the car
• runs a different route every damn day, not because she wants to, but because potential attackers could learn a habitual route
• had her bra unhooked by a jerk (still don't know who) in the crowded hall of her junior high
• has her ass slapped or grabbed by strangers at concert venues often enough to have lost count
• had a man grab her between her legs on a crowded street, and when she turned around, saw him wink at her, laughing and high fiving friends
• has accepted that some colleagues in her career will always look at her chest before her eyes, thems the breaks
• has been followed by a man on a dark, empty street long enough to cause her to start running
• texts friends before first dates with the location and fella's name, not because she's excited, but because someone should be aware "just in case"
• walks with confidence until the catcall comes, then her heart folds inwards
• was assaulted more than a decade ago and still she worries that it was her fault
• loves five dear women who have been raped 

I am a woman who has not been raped.  But sexual assault is a wound. Even on the days when living in the world as a woman feels like a gift, even on those days I walk to my car aware and ready for the pounce. It is a life lived on alert, and I am not special.  I am not unique in my anxiety on these points. These are the cuts, large and small, that bleed and scab over and leave a scar. 

I've never considered myself to be a particularly vocal feminist. Equal? Of course. But let them figure that out in their own time. I'll study hard, be a good lawyer, ignore the sexist slights along the way. But "locker room talk" isn't just sexist machismo. It trivializes every unwanted touch, every terrified moment, every rushed start of the engine because that man kept following you. It lessens the import of those slices of my life that I lost to fear, harassment, embarrassment. 

Women don't bring these things up often to the men in their lives.  We don't tell fathers or friends or brothers or husbands or boyfriends about the catcalls or the leers.  In part, it's because those occurrences aren't uncommon. But mostly, I think we often don't bring it up because we fear it makes us appear weak. We worry that a reckoning of the wounds will cause others to think of us as broken, overly sensitive, damaged. But the men we love should know, because the men we love know men who may have grabbed a woman in a bar, on a street, told her to "shake it" as she walked to work. 

The men I love should know that I am a woman that has not been raped.  And it was luck.