It was when he veered his truck off the highway that I puzzled if I used to be going to make it out alive. As much as that time, I’d been grappling with a rising sense of unease, silently cursing myself for getting in a car with a person I barely knew. I used to be 20 years previous, touring alone by rural Bolivia. I had no cellphone. Nobody else knew precisely the place I used to be.
The hostel proprietor had appeared good sufficient, if a bit eccentric. His was the one hostel on this speck of a city, and I used to be the one visitor. He’d been overtly enamored with me from the beginning, however after six months in Bolivia, I used to be used to the unapologetic stares and theatrical proclamations. With my honest complexion and curly blonde hair, it was not possible to not stand out. Males marveled over my “horny freckles,” which had by no means been beforehand described to me in these phrases, and infrequently requested if they might contact my pelo de oro (hair of gold).
As a younger lady, consideration from males made me really feel each worthy and uncomfortable.
I’d been a late bloomer and hadn’t turned all that many heads in my teenagers. At age 20, I used to be simply rising into myself, and I had a foul behavior of being “too good” when males crossed the road from playful flirtation to aggressive pursuit.
I’d at all times been good by nature, however society had additionally taught me, because it teaches all females, to please, to smile, to keep away from offense. Besides, in fact, if I ought to discover myself in a sticky state of affairs with a member of the other intercourse. Please, smile, defer… till he places his arms on you. Then lay down the legislation. Set clear boundaries. Bear in mind, no means NO.
It was all very complicated, to say the least.
As I used to be getting right into a truck with a wierd man in rural Bolivia, I knew I most likely shouldn’t be getting right into a truck with a wierd man in rural Bolivia. However I used to be already too deep in. I didn’t know the right way to extract myself from the state of affairs. And, in fact, I didn’t need to harm his emotions.
Reality be informed, I used to be additionally lonely and bored as hell. I’d been learning overseas in Bolivia for six months and had traveled to most corners of the nation with varied mates, each American and Bolivian. This was my final hurrah earlier than heading residence, and I assumed it will be “enjoyable” to not solely strive touring alone however to strive touring alone to a string of distant and largely untouristed cities.
Picture: Natee Meepian / Shutterstock
On reflection, it hadn’t been an excellent plan. The profit, I used to be realizing, of touring to locations with different vacationers was that there have been issues to do — to not point out that locations with different vacationers have… nicely, different vacationers. And as a lot as I needed to really feel superior to vacationers — not like most of them, I spoke good Spanish, ate road meals, and used public transportation — there was no mistaking that I used to be nonetheless a gringa by and thru. A gringa nonetheless hungry for picture ops and “genuine” cultural experiences.
I’d arrived on this city, whose identify now escapes me, previous midnight.
The one paragraph my Lonely Planet guidebook dedicated to the city didn’t embrace details about lodging. A fellow bus passenger took pity on me and led me to the one hostel, banging on the locked door till the proprietor, bleary-eyed, opened it and confirmed me to a room.
The guidebook did point out a lake, so the following morning I made a decision to go for a swim. After days of principally sitting in varied city squares, I used to be determined to maneuver my physique. I did really feel just a little nervous about stripping right down to my swimsuit on the perimeter of the lake, after which I needed to wade for a couple of quarter mile to get to water deep sufficient to swim in. I used to be aware of my uncovered pores and skin, glowing towards the murky waters. However nobody else appeared to be round.
After I got here again to the hostel with moist hair, clutching a towel to my chest, I informed the hostel proprietor I’d simply gone for a swim. His mouth dropped open. “Within the lake?” he requested. I nodded, questioning the place else somebody on this city would possibly go for a swim. “However mi hijita,” he mentioned, sounding genuinely involved, “that lake is filled with piranhas!”
I shivered and sighed concurrently. I had already checked off the one factor talked about in my guidebook — a point out that did not embrace piranhas (although to be honest, didn’t embrace swimming, both) — and two days nonetheless stretched relentlessly earlier than me.
I spent the remainder of the morning and afternoon studying, writing, and wandering about city. The city may very well be comprehensively wandered round in the middle of 10 minutes, so I wandered it repeatedly. The townspeople regarded me with well mannered, if befuddled, curiosity, however principally left me alone.
It occurred to me how very self-important we Individuals make ourselves really feel with all of the issues we expect we must do, how a lot we complain about how there are by no means sufficient hours within the day.
That specific day had loads of hours, each peeling away with excruciating deliberation, like a baby eradicating a Bandaid.
That night, the hostel proprietor requested if he might “present me round” the following day. I had no thought what he might present me that I hadn’t already wandered by a dozen occasions, however I enthusiastically agreed. I merely couldn’t fathom one other 14 hours of solitary studying, writing, and wandering.
It didn’t happen to me that he is perhaps planning on displaying me sights past city, that our tour would contain getting right into a car with a person I barely knew. However by the point this dawned on me, the truck was already rumbling and he was motioning me inside.
I didn’t see a swish method to again out. I informed myself it will be okay. Then, about half-hour exterior of city, he veered his truck off the highway. He drove down a grassy hillside and parked below a tree.
That was when the panic started to set in.
I puzzled if I’d be raped and killed, raped and left on the grassy hillside, or raped and pushed again to the hostel. I puzzled if I ought to make a run for it, if I might discover my method to city — and even then, what would I do? Lock myself up within the hostel my sexual aggressor owned?
The person subsequent to me made a remark about how lovely it was, this grassy hillside, this sprawling tree. I used to be extra centered on the remoteness of our environment than on their magnificence, however I nodded in settlement. Though I had a powerful intuition that this man was about to sexually assault me, I nonetheless tried to be agreeable.
Picture: ulf stromquist / Shutterstock
The hostel proprietor proceeded to drag a plump joint from his entrance shirt pocket and requested if I needed to share it. I mentioned, “No thanks,” nonetheless attempting to be well mannered. Now my thoughts was reeling. South America’s strict marijuana legal guidelines had landed a couple of gringo in jail. I now added “raped, framed for drug possession, and imprisoned” to my listing of potential outcomes for this ill-advised tour.
He lit up the joint and took a protracted drag. We sat for some time below the tree. I can’t bear in mind what we talked about. He took a number of extra drags, then turned to me.
“¿Vamos?” he mentioned. (“Ought to we go?”)
“Sí, vamos,” I mentioned. (“Sure, let’s go.”)
And we left. That was that. We returned to the city. And although the afternoon hours nonetheless stretched forward, the promise of boredom thrilled me. Yesterday morning, I’d swum by a lake stuffed with piranhas, and this morning, I’d gotten right into a truck with a wierd man. Each mornings, I’d lived to inform the story.
Possibly I ought to have felt invincible.
However I didn’t. As a substitute, I felt weak. Weak in a approach I’d by no means felt earlier than.
Again on the hostel, I assumed concerning the dozens and dozens of solo vacationers I’d met throughout my time in Bolivia. I noticed that, with one or two exceptions, they had been all males. I’d merely by no means observed. At age 20, I wasn’t used to paying all that a lot consideration to gender, and to be sincere, I discovered self-proclaimed feminists type of annoying.
At that time in my life, I didn’t really feel that my gender had held me again in any vital methods. In elementary faculty, I spent recess enjoying handball with the boys. In center faculty, I skipped seventh-grade math. In highschool, I performed Varsity basketball and rocked AP Calculus. In school, I spoke my thoughts by writing angsty opinion columns for the campus newspaper to name consideration to what I thought-about actual social injustices — just like the exploitation of coca farmers in Bolivia.
Rising up with a working mom, a dad who cooked dinner, and adults who frequently assured me that women might do something boys might do, I assumed that the feminists had gained and we didn’t have to maintain complaining.
Wanting again, in fact, I can determine dozens of ways in which I’d been socialized to subconsciously think about myself “lower than.” As an example, my eagerness to please males, my willingness to defer to males, my need to impress males, and my reluctance to pursue topics that concerned numbers, regardless of my proclivity for math.
In just a little over a 12 months, after I graduated from school and entered the office, these socialized predispositions would come into sharper focus. However at age 20, I used to be nonetheless shining academically and customarily feeling fairly superior about myself.
It took an off-road detour with a person I barely knew, in a spot I barely knew, to shake my sense of self. To make me begin to query issues. To see my “femaleness” as a legal responsibility. To know that I merely couldn’t navigate the world with the identical ease as males.
The hostel proprietor, because it turned out, had no sinister intentions — or if he did, he did not act on them. Was it unfair of me to pin him as a possible rapist? Possibly. However I additionally felt one thing deep in my intestine that day, and if there’s one factor I’ve discovered within the 20 years since, it’s that I shouldn’t ignore my intestine.
All people, in fact, have moments of vulnerability. Girls are anticipated to succumb to it; males are anticipated to suppress it.
Vulnerability isn’t distinctive to the feminine expertise, however in a world the place 1 in 6 girls expertise an tried or accomplished rape at a while of their lives, a world the place 91% of rape and sexual assault victims are feminine, a world the place 99% of perpetrators are male, our vulnerability presents us with distinctive challenges and issues.
This sobering actuality has restricted us womenfolk in additional methods than society is ready to acknowledge. As a living proof, for years males defined the noticeable dearth of feminine standup comedians by insisting that ladies are merely not as humorous as males. In her guide Pricey Women, slapstick comedian Ali Wong presents her “radical” concept that a big a part of the explanation really has to do with security. She writes:
After I go on the highway, I’ve to get right into a automobile with a stranger 4 occasions a day. For a person that’s thought-about an journey, stuffed with potential man shenanigans like in The Hangover… For a lady although, it’s 4 alternatives to get raped and/or killed… You gotta actually need it dangerous to consistently put your self in these conditions.
I assumed I’d needed the fun of touring solo. I’d taken a bus, alone, to a string of small cities in rural Bolivia, hungry for journey. Possibly I’d even envisioned just a few shenanigans.
After I returned to the blissfully bustling metropolis of La Paz, my non permanent residence, I felt disoriented and on edge.
The vulnerability I got here to phrases with 20 years in the past hasn’t stopped me from in search of journey or residing a full life. However it has since nestled in my intestine and alongside the ridges of my backbone. It’s one thing I at all times carry with me.
Sexual abuse is quite common.
RAINN experiences that each 68 seconds, an American is a sufferer of sexual violence. Females are way more more likely to be abused and assaulted, and 90% of victims who’re adults are girls. That is particularly prevalent amongst girls who additionally occur to be school college students, which makes their threat 3 times higher.
Anybody affected by sexual assault can discover help on the Nationwide Sexual Assault Hotline, a protected, confidential service.
Contact The Hotline or name 800-656-HOPE (4673) to be linked with a skilled workers member.
Kerala Taylor is an award-winning author and co-owner of a worker-owned advertising and marketing company. Her weekly tales are devoted to interrupting notions of what it means to be a mom, lady, employee, and spouse. She writes on Medium and has just lately launched a Substack publication, Mother, Interrupted.
This text was initially printed at Medium. Reprinted with permission from the creator.
