abish dawn jamon

As a woman who is attracted to men, I found someone I thought was funny and cute and agreed to meet up with him and hang, thinking we could get to know each other more.

This man raped me.

Now, by no means do I raise torches and riots against male coworkers and men I see in the streets or in my daily life. It’s a thing that happened, and it’s sad, but I think out of all the people I’ve come across that I’ve handled it really well.

Now here’s the point:

I’m afraid of men now, and it sucks. I see a group of them come near me and I’m afraid that one will try to talk to me. I very clearly understand that they probably won’t, and I understand that it’s possible that none of them have any interest in me or even women in general, and probably are just minding their own business at McDonald’s or the mall or wherever I am.

But what if?

That’s what we think. “Not all men” but what if? “Not all men” but WHAT IF? What if that guy you like…? What if that dude across the street…? What if your coworker…?

Because we know not everyone does. We know that there are decent men in the world who are nice and respectable. We know that not every John and Larry is going to be an attacker or a rapist.

But what if?

Edit: So people are coming at me because I’m not good with words so here’s the deal:

My point was not to justify prejudice. My point was to show how it starts. My story only shows that a bad personal encounter has given me a hesitance to specific social occurrences. Because of this one man, I’m now more aware of others, and more aware that this bad encounter is something that happens. It might not ever happen again, but it goes to show how prejudice happens.

I apologize for coming off the way I did.

I am by no means afraid of every male I see. All my male classmates and friends I see as perfectly fine, because I know it’s the individual and their morals and ideas that change. I know who’s safe, but for every stranger I do not. I believe that everyone is always a little on-guard for an encounter with a stranger, because we don’t know who they are and what they’ll do.

My experience doesn’t give me permission to deny men the right to be correctly represented. My experience only shows me that, because of one dude, I have a harder time trusting a person I get close to that reminds me of him. That’s an issue I have to deal with personally and is not anyone else’s responsibility.