Walking down the stairs to breakfast this morning I had my first ever slightly ‘off’ interaction with a man in Japan. 🙁
Now, I’m well very travelled and I think because of my extremely pale appearance, in some countries I seem to have gotten way more than my fair share of unwanted male attention – in numerous countries over the years actually. It started back when I was in my 20s with men in Italy, Greece and Turkey who would skeeze onto me in various ways with varying levels of ‘ick’.
The Italians guys it was always a kind of playful pick up attempt: “You want to see my scoot?!”, with a wink and a gesture to a Vespa that no self respecting Aussie bloke would ever be seen riding! With Greek guys, they would more direct and unfortunately were also a bit handsy with their approaches – like coming over real close to me and touching my necklace then commenting on how pretty it was, or touching my blonde hair and then getting close enough to smell you, while making a comment about blue eyes… just ick! Turkish men were always (at least outwardly) a little more romantically inclined in their come-ons, “Hey lady! Hey lady! You have dropped something – it is my heart, should you pick it up?!”, which would make you smile but would also make you glad that you are travelling in a pack of friends. I got so much unsolicited attention on my first big European adventure that the other girls were frequently joking that I had ‘FUCK ME’ tattooed on my forehead… I mean, I was always dressed like the povo backpacker I was – usually in 3/4 pants and a t-shirt or a polo shirt. I never wore tank tops or yoga pants the way girls do these days, never wore clothes that showed off cleavage or leg and yet, was always copping it.
As I got older, I sadly got kinda used to it – resigned to it, even – in most places… the lecherous glances if you were stupid enough to walk somewhere alone in the kasbah in Marrakech. The awful sKeezy fucker rubbing up against me on a Tube on the London Underground – Jesus, if that happened now I would raise all hell, but before the #MeToo, this was just the day to day situation fucking shitty, but totally normal that was the background noise of my life. I remember one occasion when I had drunken football hooligan following me from carriage to carriage on the Tube until I sat down with a huge guy and asked him to ‘be my friend’ for a few minutes.
In Pakistan, it ramped up a notch. Unwanted attention felt seriously creepy and even dangerous as you know even simple interactions can have serious repercussions – like the tailor’s assistant who brushed his hand against my thigh (twice!) felt like a full on assault compared to the dude pushing his erection into my thigh on a Tube packed like sardines. In China, I had men pulling on my hair so hard that it would snap my head backwards, and it happened so frequently, I resorted to tying it up and hiding it under a baseball cap, even indoors… I also had two absolute arseholes do a ‘fake sneeze and then face plant into my boobs’ manoeuvre in China – grown men acting like immature little highschool shits. Which is no small part of why I have no desire to ever go back there!
I honestly thought this shit would lessen as I got older, but it only seems to totally go away when I’m walking around with a man beside me which is fucking sad and depressing all round, but I acknowledge that for now at least, it just is what it is… it’s obviously not typical of the behaviour I experience around all men, but these entitled, immature or clueless fuckers are everywhere. 🙁
Anyway here, this morning, we were coming down to breakfast and Mr K left something in the room and went back up for it and I continued on down the stairs and into the dim restaurant corridors by myself. and a kitchen staffmember stepped out of a doorway in front of me… I was wearing my yukata and hanten coat (which is to say dressed in extremely modest ankle length attire) and my hair was freshly washed so was hanging around my shoulders instead of up in its usual bun. He smiled widely and spoke to me in rapid Japanese. I crossed my hands and indicated to him that I spoke no Japanese and he said in broken English, “You. Very beautiful. Look good. Yukata nice.”, which would have been fine, but he was gesturing with his hands as he did so; he touched his head to his shoulders (indicating he meant my long blonde hair), and then from his shoulders to his hip in a curvy motion, familiar the world over to mean ‘Girl, I’ve noticed your tits and curvy hips under there!’ In a culture where every one is so polite, it was unexpected and completely changed the tone of his original smile which I had originally just taken for friendly, but now had a leery kinda feel.
I hit 50 years old a little while ago… I’m not young anymore. I’m not fit or slender in anyway and have often been noted to be in possession of a fairly solid and well established resting bitch face. So why won’t they leave me alone? This interaction feels like such a stupid little thing to leave such a big impression, but I’m over it. Why can’t I just go about my day on my own, and not feel inspected, judged, and imposed upon? Why do men feel free to tell you what they think like this? I don’t want to know, think or care about what they think, all it does is remind me I’m not safe.
When is it going to end?
