SEXUAL ASSAULT: MY BODY IS NOT THE NUISANCE

One day in May 2008, my mum sent me to Akesan market to buy fish and on the way back, I had crossed the road just after the town hall’s roundabout and was about to step down into the Oke Ogun motor park when I felt a blinding pain on my ass. It was sharp, painful, sudden and I will never forget how much pain I felt in that moment.

It was a man on a bike. Him and the bike rider guffawed loudly and zoomed off; then the old men who usually sat by the entrance of the park also burst into laughter. All except one. First came the pain. Then the hurt. Then I broke into tears. Hot painful tears that wouldn’t stop. I did nothing to deserve that. I didn’t run into their bike, I didn’t walk on the road, I didn’t see their faces, they didn’t see my face. They just saw a little girl and decided to spank her right on the road.

I did nothing wrong.

If you knew me when I was growing up, then you know I was one of the skinniest kids around. I was a scrawny, bony kid who wore Ankara dresses larger than her frame. But even in my tiny glory, I have always had curves. My bum has always protruded. And it wasn’t the first time I was being assaulted for it; just never in public and never with me not feeling like I had done something wrong. It was just the first time I knew that I didn’t deserve to be assaulted.

It was the first time I knew I had been sexually harassed.

I had been touched inappropriately by a few people that we lived in the same area and I never understood why it always happened. That man on the bike made me understand what was happening. It was about my body. It wasn’t anything I was or wasn’t doing, saying or wasn’t saying, wearing or wasn’t wearing. It wasn’t about me.

It would continue several times over the years that followed. I did all I could to avoid it, but somehow it was never enough. One day, it’s a man who spanks me, the next it’s someone nearly forcing himself on me, the week that follows, it’s someone struggling to give me an unwanted kiss that made them draw blood from my lips, after that someone is shoving me into a wall trying to touch me inappropriately. When someone isn’t trying to enter a building after me and standing so close that they’re rubbing my ass, someone is pretending to walk into me and touching my breasts.

On and on it went.

My body took full shape when I was in the 3rd year  in University. I was 19 and I had a very good friend, Tony, whom we were so close that we were rumoured to be in a relationship. We returned for the second semester that year and some boys in my class said the changes in my body was because I was finally sexually actively and fucking Tony. I was livid, but I could do nothing about it. Anytime I approached my department building, Kenny and Doyin would see me from a distance and start screaming

‘Lekwa Ukwu’. Something about a big ass.

It embarrassed me to no end and I could never get them to stop. It drew attention to me in a way I detested but they were undeterred; through my anger, my strong words, strong warnings, curses and reporting them to their friends. They never stopped.

God, I hated my body so much. I grew to detest it. It attracted the worst kind of attention to me- maybe a few good guys, but the majority of them were horrible. Terrible terrible men who only saw and wanted one thing. It made me guarded a lot. And I admit that being guarded made me lose a few good people with good intentions. Somehow, I saw my body as the only reason men would ever want me.

It was never about my face, I wasn’t pretty. And it definitely wasn’t about my smartness. But I wanted it to be about something else asides my ass and boobs so badly. I needed it to be about something more substantial than mere pounds of flesh. Didn’t I deserve better? Wasn’t I smart enough? Wasn’t there a single other good thing about me asides the body that only attracted scums and bastards?

I lost count of the number of times I was sexually assaulted. Me being friendly somehow meant me ‘wanting it’. I hated my body so much. Me smiling was interpreted as an invitation to be touched. Me being nice somehow meant green lights to be molested.

In 2013, I visited a friend who didn’t tell me she had travelled. I got to her house and met her fiancé (now husband) outside and  told me she was in their room. Stupid, unsuspecting me entered the room and he came in right after me, shoved me into the door then started groping me. All through it, he kept muttering over and over about how my ass always tempted him.  I couldn’t scream; he bit my lips till they were bloodied, pushed me further into the door, scraped my back on it’s rough surface and was trying to rip off the short I wore under my gown when I hit him between the legs, unbolted the door and ran. I half walked and half ran home, dressed scantily and crying profusely.

I got home before noticing the blood. He had shoved me into a nail when he shoved me into the door and there was a long bleeding gash on my ass. I still have the scar till date. I never told my friend. I would be invited to their home for Christmas 5 years later; now both married to each other with a child and the first thing he commented about when he saw me?

My ass.

When you are constantly being sexually harassed because of your body, self confidence is almost an impossibility. When you feel like your body is your biggest risk, you someone wish it away. I’ve constantly had to watch out for sexual harassment over the years and somehow, it has ingrained this constant vulnerability in me- the feeling that I am unsafe with men and that I wasn’t anything more than the protruding parts of my body. It was unfair- still is; the fact that I have to look over my shoulder both in public and private spaces; the fact that I had to grow up suspicious of bikes coming behind me; the fact that it doesn’t matter what I think or how ashamed, embarrassed and uncomfortable I felt when a man is leering at me, or looking up and down my body, or objectifying me in plain sight.

It is a constant feeling of helplessness because the society looks on- like those old men looked on and burst into laughter when a 14 years old me was assaulted. Like the people who tell you to be happy a man noticed you when you complain of objectification and sexualisation.

When I go out and men leer at me; I still forget that it is not about me. So I feel a little bit of shame at myself, I feel disgust- unsure who it’s directed at, and I feel insecure- of what I’m wearing. I check what I’m wearing. I subconsciously pull down my top, or adjust my bra, or pull up my jeans at the waist. I always have something to adjust.

‘Maybe if this button wasn’t out of place, they wouldn’t leer at me’.

I still constantly remind myself  that I live in a world where the response to rape is ‘what was she wearing?’ And the response to sexual assault is questions about the victim’s story and appearance. So despite the fact that I have no control over the size of my breasts and the protrusion of my ass, I still see them as a nuisance. Unfamiliar eyes lingering on my chest for too long makes me feel ashamed of my breast and wish them away.

The society, everyday tells me that the problem is my body; not the men who feel entitled to having a piece of me, not the one who feels the need to cunningly touch them to be sure they’re real, not the one who catcalls me with his friends to make sure all eyes turn to me. It is me who still gets policed, who gets questioned, who gets doubted, who gets to feel shame.

Now I have fully embraced my body. Even if I’d still gets me ogled, and leered at, and catcalled. Even if it makes my knees knock when I pass a gathering of men; knowing that my feeling of shame and embarrassment solely depends on whether they leave me be or not. Now I even somehow expect it and have stopped letting it get to me. Sometimes I even have an extra bounce in my steps. I will not hide away because other adults do not know how to be well behaved. I will certainly not shrink because I am too aware of how the stares and comments from men I don’t even know make me feel sexualised.

My ass is going nowhere. And unless I decide to get a breast reduction surgery sometime in the future, neither is my breast. Despite the frustrations of the fashion industry and their apparent inability to make amazing clothes in large sizes, I now wear lacy bra. I buy sexier clothes. I ensure that I look good as fuck. Don’t get me wrong, wearing lacy bra and figure hugging dresses doesn’t make harassment go away; however, it has made me reevaluate how I see my body. Harassment is something I’ll probably always experience for as far into the future as possible. However, I will not hide myself away.

Some of the effects of being sexually assaulted and constantly being harassed and sexualised still remain- they may never go away. And there may still be days when I struggle to accept my body. I have accepted that big or small boobs, big or small ass, slim or fat, beautiful or ugly, being sexually harassed is sadly a part of being a woman. Hopefully things will change. Hopefully one day, women will stop being questioned about what they wear, how they look, why they did or didn’t do something, why they were in a particular place at a particular time, why they visited someone. Hopefully women will not have to hate and detest their own bodies because of badly behaved men who cannot keep their hands to themselves.

Hopefully one day, the ones who will be shamed, questioned, castigated and detested by society will be the ones still harassing, assaulting, objectifying and sexualising women.