Sexual Harassment- A perpetual loop of 68-second pandemics I Part 1

I think we have created the ultimate human sin. No weapons, no elaborate planning required, just a depraved morality.

Ninety-eight per cent of women across the globe choose to delve a little deeper into this topic every day, and the majority of men progressively choose to educate themselves about it too.

Here are crucial facts that will set the tone for what is coming next. Brace yourself.

Every 68 seconds, an American woman is subjected to sexual violence. That means creating 1400 new trauma stories every day and 511000 every year. Can we endeavour to remove one zero from the statistic every year?

One victim every 9 minutes is a child. Yes, those chubby, innocent balls of happiness.

81 per cent of women and 43 per cent of men have experienced some form of sexual harassment during their lifetime.

Only 25 out of 1000 perpetrators end up in prison. That is only 2.5 per cent of the perpetrators.

It is important to hear about the concern from all perspectives. In fact, I would strongly encourage men to write about their perception of the concern too. For today, the stage is mine. I feel compelled to express my deep-seated concerns about your mother, sister, girlfriend, and every other female you love and care for. Even if you have not directly indulged in sexual harassment, women are sexually discomforted in various forms that are not spoken about so please read on.

In the contemporary world, with the clash of values and mindsets, 14-year-olds are raping and 3 months old are being raped. Do you see the spectrum across which rape pervades? Everyone is susceptible to the irreversible taint of rape irrespective of their age, gender, sexuality, etc. It happens within marriages, friendships, relationships and families- if only we read the screaming stories engraved within the walls of households, and if only we listened to the deadening silence and made some meaning out of it.

1. The Inability to Avert Your Gaze

Not a day goes by that our bare shoulders and legs are not stared at by men. They are like golden magnets, irresistible to the eyes of illiterate perverts. Tell me, do you not have them? WOMEN ARE GORGEOUS, I completely agree but are you so unhinged that you cannot simply avert your gaze?

You should know that every time you stare at a woman you are a perpetrator of making her feel sexualized and violated. You are culpable of that guilt. IT IS NOT AN ABSURD FORM OF VALIDATION. You may not realize it but your eyes are a clear reflection of your thoughts. We know your intentions by the duration and nature of your look, we know how you steal our innocence with that sinful stare. It makes me want to incinerate men's eyes so they can never look at another woman in the same way.

Don't you think it makes us uncomfortable, terrified and infuriated that we cannot walk this insufferable world free of the apprehension of fear itself? Every single stare instils in us an unsettling whisper that serves as a petrifying reminder that we may be subject to the tragic fate that the gang-raped and tortured Nirbhaya and millions of undeserving women have shared in the past, present, and with these odds, the future. Have some empathy, I implore. The bare minimum you can do is AVERT YOUR GAZE.PLEASE.

2. The Twisted Perception of Consent

Women are not objects, we are not video games that you can play with whenever YOU feel like it. If you do not understand this, please go to primary school and learn the difference between animate and inanimate entities. Do you know what an invitation looks like? here let me show you:

If you don't find something like this in your mailbox or a verbal invitation, keep your sinful hands off her. The problem here is not men, some of them are genuinely amazing, but it is the lack of control that most of them possess and how they feebly succumb to peer pressure. Let me tell you something about consent, it is not just simply getting a “yes” it is an about observing the process though which it has been gotten. Consent is an aggregate of certain elements that you need to consolidate while calibrating its validity (Credits to Avanti Nagral) :

F - Freely Given (without pressure, force, manipulation, coercion, or under the influence of any substance)

R - Reversible (a person can change their mind/withdraw at any point)

I - Informed (all people should be informed of EXACTLY what they’re consenting to, no misinformation on any side)

E - Enthusiastic (consent must be an enthusiastic yes!!! Else it’s not consent)

S - Specific (specific to that act/moment in time. Just because someone has consented to the same thing before doesn’t mean it applies at the moment. This includes the context of marriage)

3. Unrecognized, Trivial Forms of Encouraging Rape Culture

Here are a few other phrases that both men and women use every day that you might not know encourage rape culture:

• The most ubiquitous- Rape Jokes: To a rape survivor, a rape joke can open traumatic floodgates. Remember, You don’t know who has gone through what. Rape jokes ARE A PRISTINE REFLECTION OF HOW INSENSITIVE YOU ARE TO RAPE AND HOW YOU WOULD ACT IF SOMEONE CAME AND TOLD YOU THAT THEY GOT RAPED.
• “Fuck you”: You are indirectly saying that it’s okay to force violence on someone when they are angry.
• “Boys will be boys”: You are dismissing their problematic behaviour by normalizing it and implying that they won’t be punished because it’s their nature and they can do nothing about it.
• All comments of Catcalling: Know the difference between complimenting and catcalling. Sexually-suggestive comments are a form of verbal sexual harassment.
• “I'll convince you”: "No" does not equate to " I'm up for negotiation". Not only in the case of sexual harassment but generally in life, a stern no should not be tried to be overturned against their will.

Our mindset needs to evolve through our colloquial speaking habits. I assure you, women are not born with the innate ability to control themselves and If we can do it, so can you. Consciously control your eyes, hands, and most importantly, your Thoughts. I can speak for most women: kindness, respect, and consent give you an allure that nothing else can override.

4. The Customary Blame Game

Don't EVER give the excuse, ” but she was asking for it” all because a god-given body part was exposed. Forager women used to live with clothes made of loosely-attached leaves and animal skins, half-naked and still the number of rape cases was a smidgen. This evidently shows the disparity between morals and the modern so-called “evolutionary mindset”.

WORDS ARE NOT VEHEMENT ENOUGH TO EXPRESS HOW ENRAGING AND DESPICABLE THE WORDS ” but she was asking for it” INHERENTLY ARE. Freedom of expression honey, not to express 'wanting it' but to express our FASHION SENSE. If we feel good wearing it why can't we leave our happiness untouched and move on?

THE SPEAKER OF THESE WORDS FIRST NEEDS TO REALIZE THAT THE CORE OF THIS PROBLEM IS MEN'S UNWILLINGNESS TO CONTROL THEMSELVES NOT WOMEN WEARING 'PROVOKING CLOTHES' OR SHOWING THEIR SKIN. A women's preference is not a ticket to an exhibition of their body. I understand that Society has made it an anomaly for women to wear exposing clothes but it is imperative that we expose those words etched in stone to the weathering and erosion of time.

5. Victim-Shaming

Society does not condemn these deeds enough. Like hello instead of the rapist being ashamed of his innocence-stained hands, the victim is ashamed of being raped??? If such surface-level feelings are interchanged, imagine how deeply the underlying currents of self-deception and self-loathing they are undergoing that we are not aware enough to elude them from.

If this is really the case, don’t you the only thing we’ve succeeded at is being a misogynistic society? Think about it rationally, If you make men feel like they can get away with it unscathed, why will they not do it? For instance, the only reason you might cheat in exams is that you know you won't get caught, if the teachers are strict you won't dare to cheat.

Eternal emotional guilt and a dead conscience are not enough to convince men to not commit such deplorable activities. We as a society need to denounce such uneducated animals and criticize them to such an extent that they start hating themselves forever for even thinking about doing such things. It's harsh, but what they have done is much harsher.

We need to stand up for our mothers, sister, girlfriend, and even strangers that we don’t know. Every woman is equally valuable and no woman deserves to go through something so deeply engraved in the sacred pages of her life.

You can live a day without having sex or kissing someone, but can you live without your dignity forever?