This is another old blog of mine that was originally posted on 360. The events it describes happened a couple of years ago. They stick vividly in my memory.
I met a wanker on Thursday night – a real one.
I had just had a lovely evening with friends at an event at RMIT University. I currently live in North Melbourne, and can walk from my home to RMIT in 15-20 minutes, which takes less time than catching public transport. And at night it feels safer too – I would rather walk along a well-lit and busy street than wait alone on a tram stop for ages, being scrutinised by every bloke driving by in his car. I feel like a target then.
A few blocks from my home a man quickly cut across the street and intercepted my path. He was well dressed in slacks and a blue shirt – businessman’s attire – with neatly cut hair. However the most arresting thing about his appearance was the pink and silly sight of his erect penis, which he was vigorously rubbing.
I consider the average penis to be a rather disinteresting sight. As an aesthetic attraction it really doesn’t have much going for it. Of itself, it’s pretty meaningless and only acquires meaning when I consider who it’s attached to, what I feel about that person and the context in which I am viewing it.
On this particular night it was attached to an idiot who had the presumption to block my path home. I said “NO! NO!”
“Oh yeah baby… come on…”
“Get away from me or I’ll kick it.”
“Do it baby do it… hurt me baby hurt me”
Not Oscar winning dialogue I grant you. In my defence I was in shock, in his… well, he was busy…
The thing is, and I want to be absolutely clear about this, I really did want to hurt him. I wanted to cause him pain. And writing this a few days later I cannot discover any shock or guilt or regret about feeling this, for all that I am not proud of it either.
It was my dearest wish to give him a running kick right in the middle of his dick. I held off because, although I wanted to hurt him, I didn’t want to damage him permanently. I have never visited violence on anybody so I don’t know how much force you have to use to render someone damaged, but I gather that sometimes it is surprisingly little. I had visions of his appendage snapping off.
He was quite undeterred by my threats so I had to back a few paces away as I didn’t want sperm on me (this all took a matter of seconds). Unfortunately he had my path home blocked so I couldn’t just run away. My timing was good – he missed me and came on the footpath, zipped up and walked away.
I started yelling at his retreating back – I can’t remember what I said but it was profane. I just remember that I wanted him to share a little of my humiliation. He did bow his head and finally break into a run. But for all I know, being verbally abused may be part of the sexual game for him. He is probably out there planning another little foray into the evening stroll of a woman who is a stranger to him, and who will provide him with a gratifying display of shock and disgust.
I walked home feeling irritated at myself as well as at the pervert. It occurred to me how ineffectual I had been. I had had seconds, after all, between when I first saw him and when he came. Would I have had enough time to slap him hard in the face, kick him hard in the shins, or even just push him so hard in the chest that it would make him fall over backwards. And then stand over him and push him down if he tried to get up again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again. There seemed to be so many ways in which I could have spoilt his fun and I asked myself what had happened to me that I couldn’t have thought of any of them when I needed to.
The next morning I woke up and felt unclean. I realised that what disgusted me so profoundly was not the actual sight of his penis or even the fact that he was masturbating, or even the fact that he was masturbating in public. What got to me that when I had said and demonstrated no as emphatically as I could in the circumstances he not only ignored me (and that would’ve been bad enough) but he actually co-opted my response into his sexual scenario. No possible verbal response I could’ve given could have meant anything except as a spur to his orgasm, and this is what made it so violating.
I was reminded of all the times in the past this has happened to me (no, this is not the first time someone has singled me out to jerk off at in public – once in a cinema, once at a country race meeting, once on a long distance race at high school, 3 times on public transport). I have also been followed by men in cars and on foot, in daylight and darkness. I found myself thinking that OTHER people are beloved, OTHER people get through life unabused, OTHER people encounter OTHER people’s genitals in the context of a normal loving relationship, whereas the only penis I have encountered in 100 years belongs to a pervert whom I will want to hit if I ever see again.
Having started in so nicely and comprehensively feeling sorry for myself I the went onto one of my most compelling streams of thought at the moment, viz. WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY LIFE!!!
Poor
Being pushed around by the Job Search Network and Centrelink
Lonely and currently manifesting the sex appeal of a slug (and Thursday night’s encounter didn’t make me feel any better – and presenting Meredith! Number 1 walking target for random sperm)
And other things I dare not allude to in public just yet
And it seemed to me that I am being jerked off on by life. And I am being ineffectual about it.
Any verbal protests I am making about it are being seen as a part of the nasty little games I am currently involved in, and the game continues despite the fact that I don’t want to play any more. My displeasure, my being on the back foot all the time – these are being co-opted into someone else’s version as to WHAT IS RIGHT AND HOW THINGS SHOULD BE AND WHAT SUITS THEM!
One such nasty little game, which has been making me feel bent out of shape for months, has been my dealings with the Job Search Network. The agency I am registered with is disrespectful and problematic to deal with. Their idea as to what I should be doing in terms of looking for paid employment does not correspond with mine. The activities that the Job Search folks would have me undertake are absolutely pointless and a huge waste of time. Their methods of looking for work are outdated, their equipment doesn’t work, they are disorganised, and they disapprove of volunteer, casual or part time work (!). The pity of it is that in order to qualify for unemployment benefits I have had to comply and participate in the fruitless activities. And the weird thing is that I am an extremely hard working and determined job seeker, who has recently chased up volunteer and casual work which has resulted in me securing a permanent position that will start in about a month and will take me off the dole. I should be this agency’s blue-eyed girl, and yet I feel constantly anxious that my efforts will be interrupted or derailed and disapproved of.
My agency is living in la la land, where their view of the employment market bears absolutely no resemblance to real life as experienced by me or anyone else I know. They are getting off on a fantasy of life as they think it is and, because compliance with their activities is a condition of my getting the dole, I have been forced to participate. Any protest I have made has been co-opted into their fantasy that I am a member of the great unwashed, a dole bludger who is trying to leach off society and wriggle out of work. My protest is therefore taken on board as an expected part of the normal dialogue they can expect to have with me, and not seen as a legitimate opinion coming from a mature and responsible adult.
The latest part of this forced and distasteful intercourse has been a barrage of phone messages from the agency telling me in excited, breathy and husky tones that I need to get in contact with them right away as they have found a great new position for me. They always end the message telling me that they won’t leave the details of the job – I have to ring them to have a discussion. Now, I know all about these ‘discussions’. The withholding of what is surely basic but necessary information in this context is a ploy to get me to ring them and have this discussion – in other words they have found a shit job they want me to do and they want to force a confrontation about it.
To complicate matters I am currently heavily involved in a project that will culminate soon. Over the next 2 weeks I will be very busy. I have a large responsibility to the other people working on the project. This project is being produced by the organization that I will soon start working for – it is important, I think, to continue to carry out my work well and to continue to make a good impression. However, the aforementioned volunteer and casual work I have had to do to get this work is disapproved of by the agency.
I currently don’t have time to go to participate in my job search agency’s activities, and I certainly don’t have time to start working at crappy jobs. I would literally have to be in 2 places at one time.
I was supposed to go to an appointment at the Job Search Network agency recently to discuss my job search activities (and no doubt this mysterious job that has the agency in such a lather on my behalf) and I didn’t. Later on in the day I check my email and found a message from the agency saying that they had booked me an interview with a cleaning company the next morning and that my attendance at this interview was compulsory. Needless to say, I didn’t go. The fact that an interview had been arranged for a job that I have no aptitude for, and arranged with no consultation with me, offended me.
Due to my non-compliance my dole will be cut off but that’s ok. I will scrape through and survive till I start getting paid for my new permanent job. I will get a final letter from Centrelink telling me that I have been “breached” by the Job Service Network agency, but I see it differently. I have chosen to withdraw from this exhausting game and I can feel nothing but the most enormous relief. In this one area at least, there will be no more game playing, no more forced compliance, no more time wasting, no more false assumptions to be suffered. The Job Service Network has to go and aim its dick into some other unfortunate’s face. The wanking stops now.
Postscript: Brave words but the job I was about to take up turned out to be a big mistake. I suffered enormous distress from work place bullying and because I was actually very ill suited to the position and I was to quit 9 months later.
ART SUNDAY - ROUALT
1 hour ago