STORY OF THE DAY: When a Woman Sexually Assaults a Man

When a Woman Sexually Assaults a Man
Yesterday my colleague Conor reported on new research into “the understudied female sexual predator.” Here he relays some of the conclusions
from the peer-reviewed paper by Lara Stemple,

Andrew Flores, and Ilan H. Meyer:
Stereotypes about women “include the
notion that women are nurturing,
submissive helpmates to men,” they
write. “The idea that women can be
sexually manipulative, dominant, and
even violent runs counter to these
stereotypes. Yet studies have documented
female-perpetrated acts that span a wide
spectrum of sexual abuse.”
They argue that female perpetration is
downplayed among professionals in
mental health, social work, public health,
and law [...] And according to the paper,
when female abusers are reported, they
are less likely to be investigated, arrested,
or punished compared to male
perpetrators, who are regarded as more
harmful.
Largely because of those female stereotypes and the
stigmas feared by men, such stories of sexual assault
are rarely told (James A. Landrith’s being a notable
exception). But when we opened the hello@ door for
reader experiences, several men came forward. The
first story is from Down Under:
I’m an American living in one of the
state capital cities in Australia, and I
used to enjoy hosting guests on an online
house-sharing site. I know how hard it is
to find safe, reliable, and cheap
accommodation while travelling, so I like
trying to give back.
Back in August, I hosted a girl from
China who was spending a “working
holiday” one-year visa out here,
travelling to my city as one of her first
stops. On her first night I showed her
around my neighbourhood and we went
to a nearby bar for a drink. After one
beer for me and one cider for her, she
said she was feeling tipsy and wanted to
go back to the house before going back
out for dinner.
When we got home, I was setting out the
sofabed for her for later when she
suddenly grabbed me around the
shoulders and told me how well we got
along, how we were great together. (I had
known her for about four hours at that
point.) I took it as the effusive
enthusiasm of a friendly traveller with
somewhere between intermediate and
semi-fluent English skills.
She said she was sleepy, so we ate in that
night. During dinner she just sort of
stared at me. I was starting to get
uncomfortable but I went with it—
cultural differences and all. It couldn’t be
easy travelling through a new country for
the first time, I thought.
In the middle of the night, I awoke to
find her next to me in my bed (I hadn’t
locked the door to my bedroom) wrapped
around me. Her hand was moving
downwards and—well, we don’t need
more detail.
I pulled away and asked her what was
going on, giving her even some benefit of
the doubt that maybe she sleepwalked or
for some reason didn’t find the sofabed
comfortable. She said she wanted to have
sex, and I clarified that I don’t sleep with
my guests, that it makes things weird.
The whole reason I do this is to provide a
safe space for people, that I wasn’t going
to be one of those guys trolling for
vulnerable travelling women. Even if she
wanted it, it wasn’t my style.
This is where it got stranger.
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She became upset, crying that I must not
like her, and mumbling semi-coherently
until I heard the word “married.” I asked
if she thought I was married, to which
she clarified that she was in fact married.
She’d wanted a divorce for a year (they’d
been married for two) but he wouldn’t
divorce her until she found someone else.
She hoped that coming to Australia for a
year would cause him to find someone
else, and she wanted the same.
At this point any remaining vestige of
doubt was out of my mind that I would
absolutely not sleep with her. Like an
idiot, and concerned for this seemingly
unstable woman in my bed, I let her
share the other side of the queen bed for
the night. I didn’t sleep much that night.
The next day we toured around the city
as I do with my guests, just a bit more
anxious than before. I figured we laid it
all out and there wouldn’t be an issue the
next day. Maybe her marriage was really
bad, and she did say she’d been tipsy
earlier, so it happens. New country, new
experiences—maybe she figured that’s
how things were in Australia (with an
American, no less). That night I again set
out the sofabed and we went to bed, and
I was confident that it was closed out and
settled.
I don’t know when I woke up, but it
must have been somewhere around
midnight. She was in my bed again, then
I thought “fine, she just crawled in again,
whatever.” Long after that, I was awoken
again and my boxers were off and she
was on top of me. Maybe I’d been
dreaming, but I’d become “ready” and
she was on top of me.
I confess, for the first few bleary
moments I went with it, but it was only
that. My brain realised where I was and
what was going on and I felt shocked and
... well, the words don’t come easily to
this reaction, but my body was acting
against me. I pushed her off, repeating
“no no no no no.” She was smaller than
me, and despite some tenacity (she
repeated some lines about how much I
would enjoy it and to relax and things
like that), I was able to push her away.
This time she had a new story. She had
become pregnant last year, and she
asked her husband if she should have an
abortion. He told her it should be up to
her and he wouldn’t give an opinion.
Between sobs, I pieced together that she
wished he’d told her he wanted the baby
and stepped up passionately. I’m not
sure that’s fair to him—hell, not much of
all this is—but whatever.
She asked me, explicitly, to “give [her] a
baby.” She pledged to take care of “it”
entirely herself, that she didn’t need me
in the kid’s life but she just wanted to
have that baby now.
Again, I had no idea how to handle this.
My emotional patience was also starting
to come up against the fact that I felt like
I’d been, well, assaulted. It didn’t sound
like she’d had an easy life in China by
any stretch, and while I wanted to help
her, I was feeling violated, taken
advantage of. For what? Because I
seemed like a future partner? Because
she wanted to get out of China? Because
she wanted a divorce? Because she
wanted a child to make up for the one
she didn’t have?
I took a deep breath and tried to calm
her down. Then, again, I let her sleep in
the bed with me. I know how that
sounds, and I feel like such a moron even
typing it out.
The next morning turned out to be our
last time together. I had barely slept,
taking every slight shift or sound
shocking me awake and check my
surroundings. I was jittery as we
prepared for the day; I was set to take
her over to one of the beaches. I was
trying to stay upbeat and energised
despite my brain having a thousand
conflicting sensations at once.
“You look fake,” she said. “I don’t like it
when you look fake.” Her face was very
serious, as though I’d lied to her and she
was my partner.
“Well,” I replied, “to be quite honest I am
pretty uncomfortable right now. I just
want to go about our business and go to
the beach and last night ... well it really
got to me.” I was shaking slightly at this
stage, my voice pitched a bit higher.
She proceeded to go into the bathroom
and slam the door, blasting sad Chinese
music from her phone as she took a half-
hour shower. I didn’t know what to
think, worrying that she was cutting
herself or worse. I did not want anything
bad to happen to her especially under my
supposed watch.
After a few knocks she emerged, saying
she was fine but looking despondent. As I
gathered my things for our outing (yes, I
was still trying to be a host), she grabbed
me by the shoulders and pushed me
towards the wall. “I want to have sex
now.” I raised my arms in the air as if to
say “don’t shoot” and turned my face
away. I twisted away and grabbed my
backpack and headed for the door. “I
cannot do this. I think you should go.”
Then I left. Yes, I left my own apartment.
I didn’t want to stay for the time it would
have taken her to gather her things. I
headed down to my favourite local cafe
and sat down, worrying whether she’d
follow me there. I spent three hours
sipping coffee wondering when to go
back and what I’d find when I got there.
Then I got a text message from her
saying she’d left and gone to a hostel. It
was two days before her original planned
last day at my place.
This all makes little sense; I should have
kicked her out earlier; I shouldn’t have
let her in my bed; I shouldn’t have left
her alone in my apartment after that last
morning; I shouldn’t have gone forward
with those activities together after that
first night even. It’s why I've never told
this story, and I don’t know yet how to
summarise it. I still don't know how to
categorise what happened, how much
sympathy to have for her situation, how
much anger I should have.
I haven’t hosted anyone since then,
because I don’t even know what I’d do if
it happened again. Could it even?
Anyway, you probably can’t do anything
with a story this long, but I thought I’d
get it off my chest ... whatever it was.
If you have your own story to share, please drop us a
note. Update from a reader who also experienced
unwanted sexual aggression while living abroad:
I very much enjoyed the article on female
sexual predators, though it was a little
difficult to get through. I find that even
using language to express sexual
predation is difficult for men. We don’t
have an easily accessible vocabulary. I’ve
found when I try and talk about my
experiences, I am met with a lot of
confusion and judgement even from
people who should know better.
I experienced what I call unwanted,
repeated, systemic sexual advances when
I was an English teaching assistant for [a
prominent U.S. organization]. I taught at
a low-performing public high school in
rural Malaysia. My school and
community was 100 percent Malay/
Muslim. The male choir teacher and a
wheelchair-bound female secretary made
a difficult placement exponentially more
so. I received strange texts, invitations,
poems, and at times, unwanted touching
and intentional isolation during my year.
For a woman, they could reliably use the
language of harassment or stalking.
There are legal as well as social
definitions for these behaviors. I’m not
sure if that describes my experience. I
didn’t report the incidences to my school
—it was the last year our program sent
teachers there—but I did to the program
officials. Despite our cohort being three-
quarter female, who themselves have a
very difficult time, it was understood that
men, especially white and straight,
couldn’t experience these things. I was
told as much by our gay male
coordinator.
The second episode occurred last year at
a hostel in Oaxaca, Mexico. I was the only
person staying in a 12-person dorm. I
was cornered in my room by the girl
working there. I tried to explain I had a
girlfriend, in Spanish, but she continued.
I call that “forced, non-consensual
touching” both giving and receiving. She
finally left. I locked the door, woke up at
6am scared, and left secretly. It was a
shitty morning.
The third incident occurred this April. I
was raped in South Africa by an Italian
PhD researcher. I like the language the
article uses via the CDC: “being forced to
penetrate.” After the initial confusion,
helplessness, betrayal, exhaustion, and
violence ended, I immediately tried to
make sense of what happened. Was this
assault? Was it rape? How is this similar
or different than what happened
previously?
It was rape, and I have no problems
saying that nowadays.
If I typed out the story and hid the
gender of each actor, you could very
reasonably assume a classic male-
assaulting-female narrative. Person one
gets two drunk, forces unprotected sex,
argues it is okay, and doesn’t think
anything is wrong even sober the next
morning. Person two feels awful, dirty,
helpless, and without any recourse to
authority formal or informal.
Was she hot? Men ask. Did you like it?
Women assume. What’s so bad about
that? Future sexual partners inquire.
It makes me sad how many men I have
shared my experiences with and they
relate similar stories. I haven’t been
public about any of this on social media,
just private conversations. Most people
are supportive, but it surprises me how,
for example, a human rights lawyer
working with women’s issues in Africa
can make rape jokes and think it’s okay.
Roles reversed, I’d be crucified.
It’s a frustrating and understandable
double standard. As the article observes,
huge strides have been made in
decreasing the stigma of reporting sexual
violence against women. But compassion
isn’t finite. Instead of choosing
misanthropy, I embrace love and
openness. I have had a few very positive
experiences since.
I didn’t seek retribution against my
perpetrator. I told one person in charge
that I trusted and moved on with my life.
I probably looked like an asshole; some
guy arriving in a community, hooking up,
and abruptly leaving.
What was I supposed to do? Get a rape
kit? I guess I should have taken pictures
of the bloody scratches and bites.
Women, fortunately, are taught these
kinds of things.