Emergency code activated:
Name: Kelly Hennessy
Location: O'Connell's Pub, Huntington Beach
Will disarm upon safe arrival home.
Today's dating world is so perilous that when I started dating my best friends insisted I on real-time updates. We created an emergency code that required an activation message and a deactivation message. If at any point during the date I felt unsafe, I would send "dsfhd" or any mix of letters. To the person I was on a date with it would look like an accident but within a few minutes, a friend would call with a "class 5 emergency", something so horrible that I had to ditch this date and run to aid my friend in there time of need. Unbeknownst to my date, I was really just ditching them. If I did not respond to the phone call, my friends were supposed to send a 'search party' (the police) to my last known location. Luckily, I never had to activate the emergency response part of our code.
This isn't to say that all my dates were good, some were mortifying but ways that when I look back we all can have a laugh about it. I never needed to activate the code because none of the men I met through Tinder or Bumble, were rapists. The majority were not gentlemen but even the lack of politeness did not lead to any of them feeling entitled or forcing themselves on me. They understood consent, that I was not interested and maybe after a few insults to try and degrade me they were happy to leave me alone.
The likelihood you will meet a rapist is not as high as you would think. Rape is about power but also about opportunity. When you look at situations like Turner and Kavanaugh, these are specific special kind of men that have no regard for boundaries and took advantage of a situation other men would have walked away from. I feel the worst part of the #himtoo movement is that it tries to group these rotten individuals, with the kind loving men that protect us and even the men who may not kind but at least respect our physical boundaries. Society already devalues women in so many ways but this movement takes that devaluation a step further and devalues the men that fight with us. Men like Turner and Kavanaugh are few and far between. They should not be protected and yet they are placed on a pedestal; their lives are given more regard because of athletics or who they know.
I remember once when my dad came to get me from after-school care. I was frantically trying to pack my things in my pink-leopard-print Lisa Frank, three-ring, zip up binder (it was basically a suitcase without handles). This boy, Sebastian, kept tossing blocks at me while I tried to pack. I was not in a hurry to go home, merely escape him. Looking back I can not fathom how stupid he was to not realize that I was packing up because the six-foot-two tank of a man in the doorway was my father here to pick me up. I told Sebastian several times to stop throwing the wooden projectiles at me. He ignored me and continued to toss the heavy objects at my legs. One sharp triangular piece struck me perfectly on the point where the fibula sticks out of the ankle. It was the tipping point. To this day I remember crying mostly from frustration that Sebastian refused to stop; not pain. My dad became a freight train, crossing the room, grabbing Sebastian by the collar of the shirt and continuing till Sebastian was pinned between a hard place ( the wall) and the rock that is my father.
"Don't you ever hit my daughter again. Matter of fact, you need to listen to girls when they tell you to stop. Don't you ever disrespect any girl like that again." There was no direct threat but invisible fists hung in the air, ready to hit Sebastian back the next time he disrespected a girl.
This day is so prominent in my brain because my dad was not just standing up for me. My dad was not going to let "some little shit", as he refers to him, mistreat any girl. All the men in my life have loved me, protected me, and respected my boundaries. They have earned their distinction in this world because they choose to be good when they are given opportunities to do wrong.
The #himtoo movement does not represent good men. It is a shield for the fragile men that need to degrade women to feel better. It is an excuse to protect men that need to be lock away to protect the women society keeps failing to stand up for. We need to acknowledge there are good men in the world and that they are in a category of their own. They are the men who stand by us at our worst, regardless of our label of survivor, who protect us by being our voice when our "no" and "I'm not interested" mean nothing because it comes from a female's lips.
Thank you to my Dad and to all the men in my life who have never let me walk home alone, or left me to fend for myself in a bar. I know that I can stand up for myself but I appreciate never having to question if I am safe standnig up for myself because I know I have an armada behind me.