“The people in my orbit were all men. All men. So there was sexism straight away. Like, the day I turned up — there it was. And the sexism was fine, to be honest. The sexism was kind of … the easy bit”
When I moved down to London, on the morning of my 18th birthday, to become a young, idiotic, yet hopefully noble lady rock critic, I had a bin bag full of clothes, a laptop, a dog, and one terrible flaw — other than the tendency for my hair to assume an unflattering triangular shape if not frantically back-combed — I knew nothing about men. Nothing.
And the people in my orbit were all men. All men. Indie rock was made of men in those days. So there was sexism straight away. Like, the day I turned up — there it was. And the sexism was fine, to be honest. The sexism was kind of … the easy bit. “Hey, boys!” I said to the rest of the office. “This is fun! Does anyone else want to join in? I notice you’re all sitting on chairs, but it’s more fun on a knee! It shouldn’t just be for girls! You blokes should sit here, too! It’s awesome!”
There was the journalist I was dating who asked if I wanted to invite my 14-year-old sister — sleeping on my sofa — in for a threesome; the other journalist I was dating who said, “Do you want to experiment?” and, when I said “Yes,” reached over and pressed a lit cigarette on my arm.
But right on the edge of the reef, just where it shelves off into the deep, cold ocean, there were darker creatures with unblinking eyes and consistently observable habits. They’re in every town and city in the world. Charismatic, angry men who hover on the fringes of offices and parties, waiting until bright, young women who are new to town are alone.
They’d approach me at parties as I stood, sad and drained, next to J. They’d approach me when he went to the bar, or left my side for some other reason. And so gradually, we learned to avoid the bad men, the unhappy men, the men who were trouble looking for a place to happen. Now in our 30s and 40s, these men are our war stories; our tales we tell when we are together, marveling over how innocent we were back then. How unprepared. How defenseless. How unknowing.
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