What You Really Really Want (16 page)

Every time you listen to what feels like your intuition, you get better at separating the real instincts from the impostors. You build that muscle. And ignoring your intuition does the opposite thing. It's like a self-inflicted emotional injury. Make a habit of it, and it will leave your psychic immune system hobbled. And that leaves you vulnerable to manipulation, coercion, the Terrible Trio, and worse. Because when you regularly violate your own boundaries, it starts to seem like not such a big deal when someone else violates your boundaries. That's a downward spiral that leads to nothing good.

So let's get specific about how to take our intuition seriously. I know it can seem daunting to speak up for what you want and don't want, because many of us aren't in the practice of saying these sorts of things out loud. We've been taught that nice girls just don't. But expressing our needs doesn't have to be scary or hard—in fact, with some practice, it can be downright rewarding.

Let's start by talking about boundary setting, because one of the best ways to free yourself to say yes to what you want is to feel secure in your ability to say no to what you don't.

Say you're at a party. You're on the dance floor, getting your groove on, when a guy dances up to you. He's a friend of a friend—you were introduced to him briefly earlier that night. He starts trying to grind with you. It's nothing other couples aren't doing around you, but still you feel uncomfortable. Quick—what would you do?

If you're like most women, you answered with some variation on “nothing.” It's no mystery why: As women, we're taught from a young age to put other people's comfort ahead of our own. So in situations like this, we wind up thinking,
So he's dancing too close. It's not like he's hurting me or even saying anything weird. Besides, my friend knows him, so how bad can he be? It's not worth making a scene over.

There are three dangerous assumptions in this line of reasoning:

Which brings us to the very simple yet powerful Nice Person Test. Here's how it works:

Imagine the roles are reversed. You're dancing with someone you just met at a party. Unbeknownst to you, you're getting too close and making that person kind of uncomfortable. Would you want them to tell you?

Of course you would, because you're a nice person. You don't want to make anyone uncomfortable—in fact, you probably would make some effort to put most people at ease. And you know what? Most other people are like that, too. So expressing your boundary in this situation is actually paying someone
a compliment—it's treating that person as though you assume they are a nice, caring individual who wants you to be at ease. And if they behave otherwise, well, that tells you something crucial about that person, doesn't it?

Of course, how you express your boundary here is going to make some difference in how it's received, too. Here are two wrong ways to do it, and a right one:

Does he apologize and comply? Congratulations! You may well be dealing with a Nice Person.

Does he curse you out and walk away? Good riddance. Does he refuse to move, ignoring your request, mocking you for it or flatly declining it? Even getting more aggressively intimate than he was before? This is unlikely to happen, but if it does, it's an explicit threat. He is most definitely Not a Nice Person. Walk away from him (but don't turn your back on him entirely), flag down a friend or even a sympathetic-looking stranger, and together go safely to a different location that doesn't have him in it. If he follows you, or otherwise tries to prevent you from leaving, by all means, please make a scene. Directly and loudly tell individual bystanders what's going on (“This guy is following me and won't leave me alone!”), and if that doesn't shame him into backing off, ask someone to call 911. Would you rather be The Girl Who Overreacted at That Party That Time or risk being assaulted? I thought so.

Whatever happens, you'll have accomplished two important things:

Even the topic of self-defense can make people anxious. I know this because I taught it for years. So before we get into it, take a deep breath. Go ahead: in . . . out . . . Do it a few times if you need to.

The main reason women in particular feel anxious about self-defense is that it forces us to confront our vulnerability. I've heard from so many women and girls over the years who've said they were uncertain about taking the class because they were worried it would make them more afraid. They knew that they'd have to think about the scary possibility of someone committing violence against them, or that they'd have to remember violence they'd already suffered. They much preferred to just not think about it.

I have a lot of empathy for women who feel that way, and surely I never want to push someone into doing something they're not ready for. But I can tell you straight up that the role fear plays in my life is so much smaller now than before I learned to fight back. In other words, if you're trying to reduce the amount of energy you give to fear, the only way out is
through it
.

What do I mean by this? I'll tell you my story, and then we'll talk big picture.

I was sexually assaulted during my junior year of college. It was such an average portrait of how sexual assault happens, it's hardly worth describing—it was someone I knew; alcohol was involved; everyone wanted to know why I was making such a big deal out of it. But for me, it
was
a big deal. It was a rip in the fabric of my life—I suddenly understood that I wasn't safe
in my own body. My body could be controlled by someone else just because he felt like it. It was . . . indescribable, honestly. It plunged me into a period of fear. I didn't want to hear any songs sung by men. If I was getting into an elevator on campus and there was an athletic-looking guy already on the elevator (the guy who attacked me was an athlete), I got off. I was afraid in public all the time, and it was exhausting. Not only had my security in my body been taken, but the amount of energy my fear now occupied was the ultimate insult added to my injury.