Me Too

Me too.

Actually, that’s not true.

I’ve never had a sexually traumatic experience where I felt a victim. I don’t recall ever worrying about my safety nor even feeling uncomfortable due to any sort of sexual harassment or predation. I mean, I’ve endured unwelcome gropes and grabs and jeers at times, by both women and men, but as a result of my immense privilege, I’ve always felt fully in control of my fate.

Because the fact that I’m a man, a relatively large and athletic man, a well-educated man that has *learned* and acquired a high sense of confidence and associated comfort level largely because of my man-ness, and respective upbringing….

When I walk along the streets, I tend to smile and look into the eyes of each stranger passing by without the slightest tinge of concern. I don’t worry about mincing my words and whether or not I am sending the ‘wrong message’. I have embraced a life philosophy that shouts “Say YES to it all!”, of cultivating “Surrender to the unfolding present”, and of dancing with the current…

All of this, in actuality, is largely due to a fundamental lack of fear, a lack of fear that has paved the way to a heightened sense of well being, as well as a host of other personality traits, the product of which, almost exclusively, stem from my particular privileges. Privilege, privilege, privilege…it’s oozing from my entire being!

So, as much as I support this movement, as much as I dream of a more beautiful more love-filled world where women feel safe, I don’t feel that I am capable of empathy, since I have never felt myself a victim in this regard. What I can do, however, is share a story that might help others’ of privilege -especially hetero-norm men — relate, and accordingly, cultivate a bit of awareness.

— — — — — — — — — — — -

Four years ago, on a sunny Sunday I was teaching a friend a bit of yoga in one of the central parks in Quito, Ecuador. We look up and see a group of young local girls playing on a slack line. Naturally, as I tend to do, I smile their way and offer a wave. Before we know it, the kids are doing yoga besides us, and a friendship develops between their caregiver and slack line owner, Eileen.

Eileen is a twenty-four year old that has spent the past two years since graduating university as a volunteer, teaching some of the most impoverished yet amazing children in inner-city Quito. She comes from a tradition of social justice where both of her parents have offered themselves to the world in service, and she now carries the torch. She feels that she has been gifted immense privilege in her life, and as such, sees it as her responsibility to continue to pay this gift forward to those in need. Later, she admitted to me, that despite living in very basic and austere conditions while working around the clock, her and her bubble of other volunteer cohorts say they are experiencing some of the deepest states of joy any of them have ever felt.
Eileen is finishing up her stint as a volunteer that week, and I discover, that we both have rough ideas to travel to the Sierra Nevada mountains along the coast in Northern Colombia in the following week. So, naturally, we book our plane tickets and decide to journey together.

While in the airport, waiting for our delayed flight to board, we make friends with a kind soft-spoken local man from Barranquilla. We initially entertained the idea of staying there for the massive Carnival celebration — the second largest in the world — but alas, we couldn’t find, nor afford, any housing.

“No worries!” Johnathan tells us in Spanish, “You can stay with me and my family and be our guest!”.

So when we arrive to his mother’s modest working-class home in Barranquilla, Jonathan offers us his room while he stays in his mother’s room. His mama cooks us delicious traditional Barranquillan meals. We go out and celebrate the festivities with his friends. “What an amazing authentic experience!” I think throughout all the good times.

Meanwhile, while I am in this elated state, I sense Eileen becoming more distant. Finally, the second day, I ask her what’s wrong.

“What’s wrong?” What do you mean what’s wrong? Like you don’t know!” she lets out with tears running down her cheeks.

I had no idea what she was talking about or what had gotten into her.

“You really don’t know, do you?”

I gave a shake of my head.

“In the taxi cab, when the drivers talked about “Los tetones grandes, boom boom!” while I was sitting in the front seat and you and Johnathan were in the back laughing it up! How did you think that made me feel?”
I was silent.

“Or when we were at the bar with all of Johnathan’s ahem male friends, and one of them starts showing you out of the blue random porn videos on his phone? Showing big-breasted women being demeaned! OH you were pretty silent then also! All laughs eh, let the good times ride!”

I was blindsided, completely oblivious to how Eileen might have felt.

“You have no idea what it’s like to be the constant target of sexual harassment, every day! It’s awful, it’s unfair, and dammit, it really hurts!”
Again, I was silent, at once in my life at a loss for words.

“How could you let them go on and on like that without saying something?”

My response, at that time, was something to the tune of:“Yea I agree that I was oblivious to your feelings, and I agree how big of a problem all this is (even though at the time, deep down I really thought she was being overly dramatic) but really who am I to stick out and be a thorn in the side of the incredible cultural experience we were sharing! Clearly I would say something if this sort of behavior was going on back in the US, but this is their culture! Who am I to step in and tell them their way of entertainment is wrong?”

“Who are YOU to NOT say anything!” she stormed back at me. “It is YOUR DUTY to say something. You can’t really fault them, you’re right, it’s their culture and they don’t know any better. But you do! Right is right and wrong is wrong. Where do you stand, Tim?”

It didn’t take much deliberation after that initial dialogue to make me see what a giant heaping pile of utter bull shit I was standing on. I began to think what Eileen must have felt, what women in general feel on an ongoing basis. And I began to cry and hit myself. How could I be so blind, so oblivious, so stupid!

With privilege, as with knowledge, comes responsibility. We have a responsibility to speak and to act for the benefit of those whose voice may be drowned out. Yes Eileen, you’re right: “Right is right and wrong is wrong. Where do you stand?”