Nina in Neukölln

I wish I could have joined the other ladies on the Slutwalk but, unfortunately, I had other important things to do last Saturday.

Ever since I was followed by a guy at 1:00 in the morning while walking the dog, I am overly conscious of my surroundings or rather: the men in my surroundings. I was wearing jeans and a black hoodie, it was dark and raining a little. The guy walked past me, then turned around and started to follow me down a street which was lined with a kindergarten and a school on one side and mostly dark apartment buildings on the other side. No one else was out and about. I only realized that he was following me because the dog started to turn his head back while walking, nearly walking straight into a fence. I then heard the footsteps coming closer and closer, the dog getting more and more anxious and angry.

“So, what’s your name?”, he asked.

“Please leave me alone. I don’t want to talk to you.”

“What do you think about going for a beer?”

“As I just said, please leave me alone. I only want to walk the dog.”

The dog started to growl, angrily peering up at the unknown man.

“So what’s the name of the dog?”

I started to pull the dog down the street, hoping that the man would leave me alone. No such luck.

“Do you know a bar around here, beautiful?”

…

“What’s your name?”

…

“Oh, the dog doesn’t like me.”

He came closer and closer while I was tellling him to back off or otherwise the dog would certainly bite him. I think he was scared of the dog who was working on giving an Academy Award worthy impression of “big angry scary dog”. He finally turned and walked across the street. Or at least that’s what I thought.

In reality, he just used the street to pass me, walking behind the line of cars, and then climbed the sidewalk again, popping up just in front me.

“So, what about the beer, bitch?”

“Just leave me the fuck alone! I want to go home. Don’t come closer because I cannot vouch for the dog!”

The dog tried to jump at the man, growling and barking. The man finally left, shouting obscenities as he walked on. In my mind, I had already made a plan about how I would run to the nearest “safe” place, a bar down the road, even though that would have been impossible with my angry dog at the other end of the leash.

I was terribly scared that he would start to follow me again, getting to know where I lived. Thanks Godess he just walked on, leaving us behind. Scared. Nearly terrified.

I told this story to several people. I was asked what I was doing outside at 1 in the morning, implying that it was my fault that the man had harrassed me. I did not ask to be harrassed. It’s ALWAYS the aggressor’s choice to harrass/touch/rape another being, never the victim’s. In 2011, too many people are still too ignorant to realize this.

He did not follow me because it was 1 in the morning. He did not talk to me because of the way I was dressed.  He harrassed me because he wanted to, because he felt that he had the right to do so. This seriously and urgently needs to change.

And that’s why I would have loved to walk the Slutwalk.

Photo credit:

Slutwalk Berlin 2011 by pierreee on Flickr.