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[{"type":"txt","id":"rich_1569498151714","data":" Well, I wasn't very keen about writing this up because I didn't want to go back to something that doesn't even remotely make me feel okay to think of. I was sitting and plotting excuses that would sound natural to skip this. But then, I decided I must write it up  and get done with it once and for all maybe, because, I actually never spoke about it. It's weird how despite wanting and trying to be a fierce and brave woman, I assumed that telling people around me about something as such would make them question my behavior in return. And, I certainly didn't want to feel any more worse than how I had already been feeling. I am being this precise with every detail that runs through my head while I write this because, if any of you reading this have ever gone through sexual harassment: I want you all to not feel even the slightest amount of self-doubt that I had felt back then about the possibility of me being on the wrong end.<\/p>It was a casual brunch that I was out for with a friend of mine, we went to a Mall to just roam around and hog on some food for the starters, we didn't see the other side of the day closing in on us yet since it was just the afternoon. At around 3pm, (broad daylight, mind you) we were returning back home and since we had not gotten an auto till the place where she exactly lived, we got down at the beginning of her street and walked to her apartment. All this while, we didn't know that someone was right behind us. We were lost in our own talk. We were in her building, on the stairs, we suddenly felt a hand running right up our thighs through our dresses. It felt disgusting. I don't want to get into the details. We screamed and turned around. We saw a man of about 24 years or so standing behind us with a scary grin on his face. We started screaming at him about what he was trying to do. He screamed back at us and blamed us in return for having worn 'filthy' dresses, saying that we 'deserve' to be touched without our will and he ran away. I swear, I had never felt that disgusted about being a woman any day before. Not even on the worst of my period-cramp days. My friend and I went back to her house and decided to never tell this to our families because we feared that they would panic and become over protective in the days to come.  I still remember how she cried. I was in a state of shock and disgust to even respond to my senses. <\/p>I was only 15 and she was 18. She wore a knee-length skater dress and I wore a knee-length bodycon skirt. We looked at ourselves in the mirror. Exchanged empty glances wondering whether we were actually dressed as what people call 'filthy' or deserving of 'sexual harassment.' We both received the incident at different emotional scales of course. I wouldn't know how she coped since we never uttered about it even with each other. I didn't wear any short dresses for about 3-4 months until I was successful in convincing myself that I am not at fault: by reading articles about women who have been sexually harassed. I needed the assurance from someone with a similar experience that wearing a short dress is not a yes for inviting unwanted gaze\/sexual advances from anybody. I was too young to know what held right and what held wrong on such grounds. I was scared to go out alone without my family for about 6 months. I judged all my male friends thinking that they'd probably be carrying the same outlook on women who dress according to their wish.<\/p>It's been 4 years and it still disgusts me just as much. That was the first and the last time I felt an unwanted touch on my body. Along these 4 years, I have managed to teach myself and educate myself enough about how to respond during such situations and how to cope with the disgust and terror of it later. It is not your fault to want to dress as you wish. It is not your fault that people who barely have common sense and self control flash their privates at you with the unsolicited advice- 'dress decently and you can avoid it' or anything else for that matter. It is not your fault that you want to be as much free as men roaming on the street in shorts or roaming out late at night. We don't look at men on the street wearing a shorts with a weird gaze as much as we do it to our women. We don't question our men about their ideas or actions as much as we dictate our women about their choices and behavior. <\/p>No matter what, under whichever circumstance it was that you were sexually harassed- YOU were NOT at fault. There is nothing under the sun which makes a woman (or any person in general) deserving of 'sexual harassment.' Now when I think of it I regret not slapping his face with my heel. What worthy work would my footwear have done that day! Do not have such regrets. Fight back. Talk about it when you gather the courage to. Confide in your loved ones. Though they'll be worried for about a while, you will bear a light heart post your talk with them. It eases your stress out by at least a tad bit.<\/p>Talking about the incident after years altogether doesn't make you less worthy of justice, having had or not having had sexual relationships earlier doesn't demean your consent for a new one to zero. There a hundred things that people blame you for during or post such incidents with zero regard for your trauma, but DO NOT pay attention to them. Saying 'no' is a sentence in itself. (I picked this quote from PINK because it holds relevance.) It doesn't require further explanations, unless YOU want to give one. Your body and what you wear on it, what you do with it, is all YOUR choice. <\/p>All of this, every bit of this was something that was running through my mind post that incident. I did blame myself many times for having been careless. But today, I am aware and respectful enough with myself, to tell myself, that I wasn't careless. My friend wasn't careless. We weren't dressed to invite sexual harassment. We just wanted to feel pretty and have a good day. No one dresses to invite sexual harassment. No one deserves being touched without their consent. No one deserves to see or experience unpleasant visual\/verbal exchanges of sexual advances without their will.<\/p>I have forgotten more than half the details of how I had felt back then. The anger, the terror, the rush to slap the devil out of his rotten mind. It can all come back to my head within a jiffy and I can go on about it. But, I don't want to. At the end of the day, how healthy and free my mind wants to be of the negative emotions inside of me, matters. Whether or not you want to talk about something still remains your wish just as much as it remained my wish until today.<\/p>What matters is, how you feel about it and what you want to do about it. It's your call as to when, how and whether or not you want to discuss your experiences with someone. If I've been too repetitive about something through the write-up, try and understand the level of disturbance that it caused to my mind. Try and understand that such incidents scar people for life and when they talk about it, they cannot sound like they rehearsed for it. They just talk. You just listen. And, offer support if they need it. <\/p>If any of you reading the article has the views of people who blame the victim for sexual harassment, irrespective of your reasons, you can just shut yourselves out from the victim's life (or in general, though). They don't need such negativity. (The world doesn't need such negativity.) I've been harsh and stern while saying the last lines but honestly, in my opinion, people with the nature of victim-blaming don't even deserve this bit of politeness. Also, you don't get to tell someone whether their experience of being harassed is less scarring\/more scarring. Harassment is a crime. It doesn't depend on levels at which there can be excuses. <\/p>"}]

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