Times have changed over the years, and so have the dynamics of dating and courtship. DMs have replaced love letters and dating apps have easily taken the place of coy tricks that friends used to pull the time.
But unfortunately, the thing that hasn’t changed is the way women are manhandled by men and their toxic masculinity the moment they face rejection. Don’t get me wrong, I know some of them are aware and more sensitive to issues as such. But nothing takes away from the fact that are still many who, in their blinding entitlement, go like ‘How could she say no to me?’ And the results often read as assaults of all types.
And this is exactly what urged Elizabeth May, author of fantasy trilogy The Falconer, to tweet about the agony. In fact, she did so by asking women to share responses from men after turning them down and it’s a grim reality we have to live with.
https://twitter.com/_ElizabethMay/status/998594031528669184
Soon her tweet got the needed traction and lots of brave and courageous women stopped by to share their ordeal, in the hope that it might help someone else open up.
1. ‘Too many to count.’
Too many to count. Some of the worst ones were when I worked at a bar during uni, it was usually men twice my age, and I didn't get to work behind the relative safety of the bar because I had to sell shots on a tray, my manager told me "Just let them touch you, you'll sell more"
— 🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈Alex🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈 (@AlexLHardaker) May 21, 2018
2. Appaling!
https://twitter.com/britnidlc/status/998596203754545152
3. Every woman has gone through this once at least.
https://twitter.com/britnidlc/status/998596457249767424
4. THIS is the problem.
A man attacked me right after I told him I just wanted us to be friends, he pushed me down, grabbed my wrists and, as I yelled "No!" he whispered "You saying 'no' turns me on more". I don't really remember how I managed to escape, but I did.
— Madame Terror (@JoeyJPTerror) May 21, 2018
5. Sordid!
I broke up with him and he started hanging around the front of my building, which he claimed wasn't "really" stalking. He "joked" about wanting to kill me, couldn't understand why I didn't see the humor in it. I quit my job, sub-let my apartment, and moved to England.
— Liza Hughes (@liza_hughes) May 21, 2018
6. Talk about irony…
Was sexually assaulted after a date in a small racist town in north Alabama. Went to report it and got arrested for disturbing peace b/c his family is prominent
— Liz 🐾🎇 (@lizsutton12) May 21, 2018
7. Seems like the only way out.
https://twitter.com/AlmaViejo/status/998718191173079046
8. Why is ‘No’ so difficult to understand?
Someone I met on Twitter a few years ago. We spent some time together and I realised there was no chemistry from my side. When I told him that, furious screaming, demands that he come to my house and talk it through (nope) and an abusive text barrage as a finale.
— Kate (@KateOfHysteria) May 21, 2018
9. Scary doesn’t even cut it.
https://twitter.com/RoseTintMyWorId/status/998597277118758912
10. The gravity of this has shaken me.
I've been lucky. "Lucky." Seriously though, really, really lucky, and I STILL have enough fodder to write a five-volume essay collection about physically EXISTING, titled Times Strange Men Have Called Me a Cunt
— Brenna Yovanoff (@brennayovanoff) May 21, 2018
11. Thank you films for the glorification, I guess.
Breaking into my apartment and writing ‘game over you lose’ on my bathroom mirror in lipstick.
— Melinda 🌊 (@MelindaCaskey) May 21, 2018
And these are just a few instances of the many, by only a few women out of the lot. Doesn’t that say something? I know- it’s time for a change and there is no place for silence anymore. Do you hear me, ladies?