EDITOR’S LETTER
#METOO
I’m out with some friends – drinking, laughing, having a ball. It’s the end of the Edinburgh Fringe, and everyone is in high spirits. I’m dancing with a guy, a friend of a friend. I don’t remember how it happened, but suddenly I’m aware of his hand around my wrist. He’s gripping tight. He forces a hand down the front of his jeans and holds it there, on his junk, right in the middle of the dance floor. I try to pull away but he’s too strong. What the fuck is he doing? And then, just as suddenly, he lets go, smiles, keeps dancing. Like nothing happened. I find one of my friends, tell her I’m going. “What’s wrong?” she says. I tell her what he did, that I feel gross, that I want to leave. “Oh come on,” she says, giving me a gentle shove. “It’s no big deal”. “It’s no big deal”. Those words have stayed with me for years, warping my sense of right and wrong. Making me doubt my own mind. So much so that when women started sharing their stories of sexual harassment and assault online recently, in response to Harvey Weinstein and others, I had to seriously consider whether this night – what he did to me – even counted.