OKMisogyny

My favourite moment in any instance of sexual harassment is the point where a dude turns on a dime from

"I would like to place my penis inside you"

and, receiving any response other than "hooray, please do so right now, right here in the supermarket car park!"

says something along the lines of

"BITCH PRICK-TEASE CUNT DYKE WHORE."

It's one of those beautifully clear-cut, undeniable moments where you get to see a particular facet of misogyny in its purest form. It is the platonic ideal of the hatred of female sexuality, whereby women who will sleep with you are sluts, and women who will not sleep with you are bitches.

Turns out if you dip a tentative toe into the murky waters of online dating, you get to see this magical moment a lot.

Sunday morning, a chap started chatting out of the blue. All good fun. Talking to me like you would talk to a human. But then...

And there it is. "Have sex with me, you Comfortable Girl!" <lack of response, in this instance because I was talking to my sister about courgettes, like the attention-seeking prick tease that I am> "I HOPE YOU DIE WHY WON'T YOU LET ME PUT MY BONER ON YOU."

Fun fact, though: they don't expect you to talk back.

The temptation to list all the people who's swimsuit areas I've ever been invited to was overwhelming ("I am pretty and have sex and stuff! I'm not a man-hating feminist! Or, I wasn't until now") but, seriously, that is not the point here.

Man, I really did miss out, didn't I? His dick is like a holiday destination I'll never get to visit. It's a club, and I'm not on the list. It's every job I'll never get and every boy who didn't ask me to prom.

I mean, this guy was hilarious as all get out, and I really enjoyed ripping him a new one, but for all my bravado I came home shaking and it took an hour and two cups of tea and a long talk with my SisterMumDaughterWifeHousemate about gender and abuse and misogyny and distance and why people are the fucking worst before I calmed down.

She said that, for her, the misogyny was secondary; that what was happening was primarily one person so filled with anger and fear that a three minute delay in achieving gratification causes them to lash out at the nearest target. She asked what I'd call it if a woman sent me the same message.

And yeah, it would be abuse, but this was a particular kind of abuse that calls on a long and ugly history of men attacking women for having/not having sex. You can't separate out this one instance from every other dude who's ever thrown a strop about who a lady chooses to touch with her velvet underground.

("Velvet Underground" is currently competing with "Georgia O'Keefe" for the top spot in my ever-evolving list of favourite vulval ephemisms.)

One day my prince will come. And he will come angrily and prematurely, judging by this exchange.