Things had been going pretty well and so I agreed to go back to his place to watch a movie. As soon as we got there, he brought drinks out, which struck me as a bit of a warning sign, particularly after some great advice I’d received on here following a previous incident with a jerk. I told him I had to drive, so couldn’t drink, but he kept insisting, so I accepted a glass and then didn’t have any, while he was drinking fairly heavily. I didn’t keep track of how much he had during the movie, his speech never became slurred, and he didn’t appear to lose any coordination, but my step-father had been an alcoholic when I was growing up, so I knew that some people can be black out drunk and appear to be fine.
I didn’t get to finish watching the movie, since he became very physically demanding. Kissing, pawing, trying to pull clothes off. I told him no politely a few times, pushed his hands away, and said I was leaving. When I got up to go, he grabbed me and pinned me to the floor. At this point, I recognized in a very cold, intellectual way that this wasn’t something a simple “no” would handle. “Caerie,” I sighed to myself, “you have to hurt him.”
I was prepared to beat him within an inch of his life, but all it took was bending his fingers backwards with one hand, pulling his hair with the other, and one good blow with a knee. It was all over in a few seconds. Before I could do more, he curled into the fetal position and so I got myself out of there.
It took until I was home for the intellectualization of it to wear off and stark OHHOLYSHIT terror to kick in.
Ok, wait, this might count? When I was about 20 I worked at a topless club. A customer licked me. I turned around and punched him in the face. He ended up complaining to the manager that I’d hit him… manager asked me what happened, I explained, and the guy got thrown out on his ear.
And one time I may have caused a fist fight that I wasn’t involved in? Same topless club… I was dancing for a guy and he smacked me on the ass really damned hard. Hard enough that I had a hand print for a good 20 minutes. Well, before I could even react his chair fell over backwards on the floor as the bouncers dragged his ass out into the parking lot. See, this was a cool club and the bouncers sort of viewed us as their little sisters. They were very protective. Anyway, the bouncers didn’t come back in for… quite some time.
As a lifelong certified little guy, ay-men. Someone really should explain this to teachers and everyone else who deals with kids. You spend ages being picked on and beaten just enough that the bullies get away with it, and when finally one day you fight back you cannot fight back a little bit. You have to fight back like hell, scare the fuckers, or it’ll get ten times worse. So, of course, the one time you do fight back is also the one time the authorities react and function like a well-oiled machine, and you sit there wondering what the hell is going on. I just did what they do every day, how come you suddenly care now?
Because, in most bureaucracies, what they want is whatever is least trouble for the bureaucracy. You getting beat up, but not to the point they have to do anything, is no trouble for them. You fighting back, and to a level that will bring the bullying to an end, is an escalation that they must take notice of. That’s less desirable than the status quo, from their point of view.
I was picked on consistently by one person for a long time, and I put up with it. Then I reached a certain level of experience in the martial art I trained in (sankyu rank, if it matters) and one day it was a bit too much and I fought back, very much harder than he expected. Very much.
And sure enough, that was the time the authorities noticed. We both got into trouble, sort of. But I was not defiant - I simply said, very clearly, that it was going to end. If they could end it, great, If not, I would, however that needed to be done. There was a lot more talk from their side, but I wasn’t interested.