When I lived in Alburquerque, stupid men there thought I was a prostitute.
I don't mean to imply that all the men of Alburquerque are stupid but there sure was a bunch of them down there who were.
For some reason, any women who tread upon the sidewalks of Alburquerque, especially Central Avenue, the old Route 66 trail through town, were thought to be whores, hookers. As I lived close by to Central Avenue it was often necessary for me to walk on Central Avenue, to catch a bus in order to do my laundry, to get groceries, to go to a job interview, etc.
Annoying.
Cataloging the varieties of annoyances below:
It was ridiculous. I was in my forties then, definitely not my salad days, but hauling a huge bag of laundry to launder evidently made me wonderfully attractive.
One day, as I walked on Central to the University District -- I was sans laundry bag so I must have been totally devastating -- a man stalked behind me and kept offering me money. He actually got up to $100 and gave up when I refused that offer.
Contrast that with an offer I got from a little old Mexican man when I happened to be walking on one of the side streets off Central:
"Five dollars, you come with me!" I laughed myself silly, which was a good thing because I really should have done the Nordic thing and pounded him into the ground.
But his offer really put things into perspective. Maybe he was being wonderfully sarcastic. I can appreciate that.
At another point, I was plucking mulberries from a neighborhood tree and gobbling them down and a man drove and offered me $50. I actually was smart enough at that point to get it that he wasn't offering me money for the mulberries. I got it but I really didn't get it, this idea of transactional sex, I give you sex, you give me money.
Sex for me was: you have sex because you want to have sex, you want to have sex with a particular person because they are attractive, because of the prospect of pleasure.
Sex for pleasure. Not sex as a commodity, not women as a commodity. I was totally out of sync with the values and mores of Alburquerque. And, capitalism too, if you come to think of it.
But the coup de grâce was delivered to me by a small-time pimp when I refused to perform fellatio for him.
I was too innocent to recognize what he was about, Nordic background, women valued as equals, not devalued as whores, sluts, putas, prostutites, hookers, etc., I am quite sure that I have not begun to exhaust the endless litany of demeaning terms created by women-hating men for women, but I was an innocent and did not realize that I had angered a two-bit crook.
One Sunday morning, as I had coffee and croissants with two of my male quasi-intellectual buddies, the pimp stalked into the cafe with a younger, abler man and stared at me -- I felt a chill going down my back in that instant -- and set me up for a hit.
One morning, as I was walking to work, following my usual path behind Alburquerque High School past a small parking lot that served locals, an old, olive-green station wagon with wooden panels slowly followed me and parked in the lot. It was perfect. No one else was around.
A man got out of the wagon and approached me, ostensibly to ask directions.
And then he grabbed me.
I reached for his hair, desperately, to yank it out of his scalp but my actions were futile because his hair was too short.
He slapped me silly. No man had ever in my life before ever struck me. It was a totally alien experience.
Then he produced an enormous, wicked-looking screwdriver and aimed it at my kidney and forced me into the station wagon.
He ordered me to perform fellatio:
"Get me up and get me off!" per instructions of the old pimp.
I thought about using my teeth as a weapon but assessed my vulnerability and tried to apply myself to the old pimp's task.
At that point, another car drove up. I reared up and started screaming my head off. My kidnapper started up the car and started to drive away. I screamed and screamed and screamed. My volume was outstanding -- I had been taking singing lessons.
At that point, he stopped the car and snarled:
GET OUT BITCH!
I'm here to tell the tale -- but there's more.
Having to repeatedly state my experience to the police served as therapy. I discarded the experience during the process and became very angry. I was very angry at men. I became the stalker on the streets of Alburquerque. When men tried to flirt with me I snarled at them and terrorized them.
At one point, I discovered that the State of New Mexico offered payment for victims of violence who got counselling and I took advantage of that service. I frightened my female counselor:
Karen, WHY ARE YOU SO ANGRY
she asked me anxiously. She arranged for group therapy.
Dutifully, I went to the therapy.
We met in a large room and we all sat in a circle on the floor.
I particularly remember that floor. It was beautiful, polished, hard wood. It was very hard wood.
We went around the circle. Everyone else was very soft-spoken and subdued. Finally, it was my turn.
I was not soft. I was not subdued. I WAS ANGRY!
NO MAN HAD EVER IN MY LIFE BEFORE ... NO MAN HAD EVER HIT ME!
I spat out! I pounded that hard wooden floor with every word.
Counselors rushed to me to shut me up. All over the room women were sobbing.
I shut up. Seated outside of the circle, one of the women was sobbing:
I was raped when I was 16 years old and I was never able to talk of it, until now.
Oh God! My hands were sore from the pounding. But every bit of it was worth it to hear that little girl speak out.
Women! Be ANGRY! Take singing lessons so that you can scream really loud.