Hell/Bus Stop

I started writing this blog post a couple of weeks ago now, during yet another another Hell Pizza debacle. As seen here, the company posted a winning entry in their weekly 'confessional' competition on their Facebook page, in which the entrant outlined the time they sexually assaulted a sleeping dude at a party. Hell has quite rightly been dragged over the coals for the post and have tried to make amends by donating to Wellington Rape Crisis. The incident is kind of ancient history in the media world now, but it's taken me some time to feel comfortable posting this, and the subject has ongoing pertinence.

One evening when I was 18, I was waiting at the bus stop on Willis Street after work. It was summer, twilight, and there were plenty of people like myself just waiting around to go home, but I was the only one sitting on a bench. I was absorbed in text messaging, so it probably took me up to a couple of minutes before I noticed a man had edged his way over to stand uncomfortably close to me, and a few seconds more to realise the newspaper he was holding was obscuring the view of his exposed erection from everyone but me. It makes me shake with anger right now to write about it, but in that moment I was absolutely terrified. I didn't react, feigned oblivion, and stared straight along the road until my bus finally arrived.

Once I was back at my flat I hid in my bed and cried - bewildered, embarrassed, and wondering whether it was something I was supposed to report to the Police. I eventually decided to contact them through an office line and was told it definitely had warranted a 111 emergency call. I ended up going to the station that night to make a statement, and a few weeks later identified the man from a page of mug shots. Turned out he'd targeted a number of victims in a similar ways, including children.

At the time, I thought the reason I was so hesitant to contact Police was due to a lack of education about what which kind of crimes are worthy of an emergency call to Police - is my life in danger? No? No lights and sirens required, ta - and that too much emphasis was placed on calls that wasted Police time. But as time's gone by, I've realised my uncertainty was probably because I shared what the Hell incident has shown me is a fairly widespread dismissive attitude towards sexual crimes. It seems to me that unless an innocent virgin is raped by a stranger in a dark alleyway, sexual assault and harassment is often belittled.

I rejected the Victim Support I was offered at the time, and I don't think I realised how much it had affected me until a few months later, when I met someone who told me about their sexual assault and I recognised several of their resulting feelings as similar to my own.

Sexual crimes aren't something most victims can stand up and speak out about because it's horribly traumatising. Compared to the incident described in the Hell confessional entry, my experience was very mild. But posting this is still incredibly scary, despite the fact it happened five years ago. And I kind of think the fact I feel I need to acknowledge it was 'minor' just shows what a big problem we face when trying to change society's attitude towards sexual crime.