34. Roam – B52’s 1989
Fly the great big sky
See the great big sea
Kick through continents
Busting boundaries
I like to travel. I mean, when we’re not in the midst of a
Covid induced standstill, I take every opportunity I can to travel.
I started my intrepid ways at the
age of 18 when, fresh out of high school, I hopped on a plane to the other side
of the planet to do a working holiday in the UK, and I haven’t looked back. I
never felt that I had to miss out on experiencing anything the world had to
offer just because I was on my own. Initially at least, no boyfriend to hold my
hand, and no girlfriend to do a bit of mutual back watching with. Just me.
However, travelling as a Single
White Female (film
reference intentional) did present a few challenges for me. These
challenges were not due to cultural clashes or ignorance, but because of my
gender.
I present to you Experience One.
While travelling through Egypt in
the mid-90s I had an employee of a motel I was staying invite himself into my
room in the middle of the night and try to jump in bed with me.
Thankfully the guy did back out
of the room, trying to hide his face behind his raised hands, when I woke up
and started screaming at him.
Now we move on to Experience Two.
While living and working in Los
Angles I went on a few dates, but one of these dates is a stand-out for me. The
guy picked me up in his care and drove back to his apartment to ‘change his shirt’.
Next thing I know he’s stripping off and wondering why I wasn’t doing the same.
I promptly left his apartment and
walked home.
For this guy apparently a chick
agreeing to have a meal with him was code for agreeing to have sex with him
Experience Three, and I’m now in
Papua New Guinea.
While in Madang I decided to go scuba
diving. This entailed a guide that doubled as the boat driver and the dive
master taking me out to a few different dive sites and coral atolls for the
day. Sounds lovely doesn’t it? Just me, one other and the expansive beauty of
the ship wreaks in crystal clear water and spectacular coral reefs. Only
problem was that the boat driver come dive master tried to come on to me on a
remote atoll between dives. We were alone, miles from anywhere and I was
totally dependent on this guy to get me back to civilisation.
Thankfully once I started talking
about a non-existent boyfriend waiting for me on the mainland he backed off.
Unfortunately Experience Four
also happened in Madang, Papua New Guinea.
Some guy had befriended me. Then
he offered to drive me to the PMV station in the
morning to put me on the van. Theory was that as a wait meri
there could be people with sinister intentions watching me, but if he
accompanied me to the PMV station they would think there were people at both
ends of the journey waiting for me – therefore the sinister intentions were
less likely to play out.
Only problem was that we’d
arranged to meet at seven in the morning to go to the PMV station, but it was
before six when I heard knocks on my motel room door. I ignored it and didn’t emerge
from my room until seven.
Some weeks later, once safely
back in Australia, I received a letter from this guy saying he’d wanted to have
sex with me that morning, because he’d never had sex with a wait meri
and he wanted to see what it was like.
ICK!!!
Now for Experience Five and I’m
in Florence, Italy.
The cute Italian guy working at
the backpackers invited me to a bar to play pool. Once at the bar he suggested
putting some stakes on the game. If I won, he’d give me a night’s free
accommodation. If he won, I’d have to give him a massage.
I was smart enough to recognise
that he was trying to corner me into having sex with him and just played for
bragging rights.
I also happily paid for the
accommodation rather than basically prostituting myself out for it.
Finally, we have Experience Six.
New Year’s Eve with a female
friend in the City of Light, Paris. My friend and I stopped off at a phone
booth under the Eiffel Tower to call a friend. While half hanging out of the
phone booth two guys–not French by the way–came out of nowhere and started
kissing us on the lips!
We managed to push them aside and
both cram into the phone booth, putting a barrier between us and them, but they
kept hanging around making gross suggestions to us through the windows.
Saddest part of this situation is
that they didn’t see their actions as being highly offensive. I think, a bit
like in Egypt about four years earlier, they had misinterpreted western women’s
right to sexual freedom as western women being sexually free.
After some time and contemplation
about these experiences, I only ended up more frustrated then I started. I
mean, I’d invested a lot of effort in being culturally sensitive enough to not
show bare skin, to learn the basics of each language, follow local customs, and
generally show respect and not act like an arrogant tourist. Yet in each of
these experiences the men didn’t show me enough respect to not:
- try to jump into my bed
uninvited
- take me straight to their
apartment
- abuse their position of power
on a remote atoll
- send me a letter saying that
he’d wanted to have sex with me
- try to turn me into a prostitute
- persistently try to shove their
tongues down our throats despite us fighting them off.
What gives them the right?!?!?!
If I could meet these men now I’d have news for them–nothing gives them the
right to treat ‘Oh my God! A woman!’ like that. At least not in
Australia, but women are still being stoned to death and circumcised in some
cultures so they can’t accidently enjoy sex.
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