Having a really hard time stomaching social media today, but I wanted to share a monologue that at one point lived in RIPPED. I couldn't just let this one go though, and so I put it up on the New Play Exchange as a stand alone piece.
We need to stop enforcing the absurd culture that says it's normal for boys/men to be sex crazed and for girls/women to just get used to it. It is hurting us all.
This is stupid, and maybe pointless but um, well… So when I was like 15 or 16 there was this big red truck I used to see around my neighborhood, all the time. Just there. An old guy drove it, and he asked me for directions once, and I told him, and he drove off. Normal, totally normal stuff, right?… Yeah, well another time he stopped me and he asked me again for directions, but like the same directions, like he asked me how to get to the exact same street, and I thought that was weird but I was caught off guard so I went to tell him and he was totally naked this time. And masturbating. And he grabbed my arm, and tried to pull me in the car. I was like, WHOA! And I jumped back, and ran off to school, it was morning. I told a teacher at school- Well no, I was telling a friend at school, and a teacher overheard, and I thought it was hilarious, or maybe not funny, ha-ha, but really weird, and not scary weird, just weird-weird. You know?.. I mean, driving around naked? That seems pretty hazardous to your junk and everything. But the uh, the teacher, she wanted to call the police. And I was like, it’s cool, like they don’t want to hear about some stupid little thing like this. You know? I wasn’t hurt, maybe I could have been, but I wasn’t. I was fine. Totally fine. But, she uh, she got her way and she called, and I talked to them, and told them the whole thing and they, they took it super seriously. Actually everyone did. But me. I, I mean even now, it’s just this ridiculous memory and I’m not scared by it, or traumatized, at all. I don’t really feel anything about it, but- But once someone told me that maybe I am just like really really good in stressful situations, like as a defense something or whatever. Like so good that I don’t let myself feel anything, because otherwise- I don’t know I guess maybe otherwise I’d feel too much…
And so, I think it happened again, and I don’t feel what I’m supposed to feel, what everyone says you’re supposed to feel, and, and when it happened when I was younger my teacher was like, what if this happens to another girl or what if it’s worse and you could have stopped it by saying something but you didn’t and that’s true now too because it could happen again and it could be worse and so… Okay. I woke up this morning, and I wasn’t dressed, and I don’t remember how I got there, or even like who the guy was or anything, like I’d never met him before… I think, um, I think I was raped…. No. I was…. I was raped.