A Rather Angry Sidenote

Hello. I was initially going to make this topic a single paragraph, but I've decided to dedicate a whole post to it. The next post, in which I fly home after we haul out the boat, can wait a bit. I don't have any pictures this time. I do, however, have funny stories to tell about certain middle-aged men and their unfortunately non-platonic interest in me.

So last week we have a party at the crew house. We’re having some great food, people are putting on nice music, we’re all dancing, life is great. This one guy in particular has been absolutely tearing up the dancing floor. He's got great energy. He’s approximately fifty years old, has a few kids, and has a small business as a massage therapist. I love talking to him and his wife; they're laid-back, easy-going, and funny. They're not originally from the West Indies, but they really have that Caribbean vibe. At some point, the guy says, "let's put our feet in the water, the water's healing." Hell yeah, the water's healing, so we all go and put our feet in the water. I happen to be sitting next to him. He says to me—and sounds slightly high at this point, but I think that that's more his personality rather than what he's smoked—he says to me, "Hey, I like your energy, Ada." Hell yeah, dude, I like your energy too. I wanna be like you when I'm fifty. So we're sitting there, enjoying the good vibes, and then he grabs my foot.

What? He grabs my foot? Yes, to him, this is perfectly logical, because he's a massage therapist, and wants to do reflexology, so he starts pressing and kneading the sole of my foot. There is a slight hitch however, and that is that I really don't like people touching the sole of my foot, especially fifty-year-old men that I've barely met. And I probably should have said Wtf, retracted my foot, and told him not to do that again, but I was very not mentally prepared for that situation—no one really thinks to prepare for what to do if a grown man randomly grabs your foot—so I froze and just kind of waited for him to stop. And he did eventually, and to my surprise, his reflexology actually worked, and I felt more relaxed. So when he asked to do it again, I said, sure man, because the vibes were still good, and I was both tipsy and still slightly in a state of shock. So he takes my foot again and starts pressing at the sole, same as last time, and now I'm slightly more relaxed because ~reflexology~ and then he starts saying some straight up weird shit. "Mm, that feels so good." "Yeah, that feels good for you, and it feels good for me." "You seem tense now. Don't worry, I'm not trying to take advantage of you, my wife's right there." Gross. Thanks dude, that's great. I've had enough. I'm done with this crap. So I go sit inside for a bit. 

A little later he passes by and apologizes for being so forward. All right man, I'll accept your apology. I still don't feel completely cool with you, but we can now safely exist in the same space. So I go back outside, and hang out for a bit, and then dude wants to have an arm-wrestling contest. Sure man, arm-wrestling is one of those okay things to do in my book. There's no table nearby, so we're lying on our stomachs face-to-face and arm-wrestling. This is normal, I guess. People arm-wrestle. Strangers arm-wrestle. Bros arm-wrestle. Except that bros don't say "clench your butt." Excuse me? "Yeah, clench your butt. Now kick your feet up. You know, you have a cute butt." I tell him to stop making comments about my butt. He does. It's a really interesting interaction between a fifty-year-old and a nineteen-year-old.

And at this point, you’re hopefully saying, "Ew! Ewwwww," and you and I are laughing about it because Jesus Christ, what the actual hell was that? The next time I'm at a party with some friends, I'll tell this story and we'll all gag and exclaim and makes weird jokes about it for the rest of the night because it's hilarious. I went out to the Caribbean to go sailing and instead I got subjected to a non-consensual foot massage. Train-wreck life. We love it. What's not hilarious, though, is that I woke up the next day feeling violated. I never wanted to see this man again. And now I couldn't get out of my room because he and his wife had spent the night in the house and in the morning they were still there. And later in the week I had to excuse myself from a dinner with some friends because I knew he would be there. But this isn't about that one guy. This is about the culture of female objectification that seems to be permeated throughout every island that I've visited.

I've written before about being approached by strange men. Funny stories. How in Carriacou, that man at the bar told me, "I'm just a nice guy looking for a beautiful woman," and decided to plant a horribly slobbery kiss on my ear to say goodbye. How in St. Maarten a stranger randomly called out to me, "you have a beautiful nose." And there are more, like how someone in a passing car addressed Nika as "lollipop." But there are too many more, and they're not that bad, but they add up. Like how my very first interaction outside the marina in Grenada was being catcalled, and how a forty-something-year-old friend in St. Vincent started getting overly touchy, and how whenever Anna and I would walk on the road around the lagoon in St. Maarten and every couple of minutes cars would honk at us. 

Towards the end of my stay in St. Maarten, I would have to walk between the apartment and the boat a couple of times each day to get the boat ready. In between the apartment and the dock is a rigging company. One particular day, there were four men working outside the rigging company building, and I'd have to pass between them every time I walked there. I was harassed so much that I resorted to walking the long way around the buildings along the busy street, which more than doubled the walking distance, but kept them away from me. It was not a good day.

I think that what disappoints me the most is that no one questions it. In St. Vincent, back when I wasn't used to it, a middle-aged (they're always middle-aged) mutual acquaintance called me "baby." When I talked about it, I was told, oh, don't worry, he doesn't mean anything by it. It didn’t prevent me from feeling squeamish. And then in Antigua, as I was polishing on deck, an outside worker addressed me the entire day as "sweetheart." I'm not your goddamn sweetheart, I'm an employee and this is a professional environment. But I didn't say that. I said nothing because it was my last day, and saying nothing was easier, and besides, it could be worse. It could be those four guys on the dock all over again. It's the little things. It's nothing outright disrespectful, but it's all those comments that make you feel less-than, and they build up, and one day it hits a breaking point and all those emotions spill over. I woke up that day after the party, and I was so, so tired of feeling disrespected. That's one of the reasons why I was ready to go home.

And I’m definitely not saying that the West Indies are a bad place; the rest of my blog can attest to that. I've had an absolutely wonderful gap year, filled with beautiful boats, dancing palm trees, and amazing friends on every island. Neither am I saying that this is a localized problem; the rest of the freaking world can attest to that. I know a friend of a friend across the ocean who was raped, and I know a friend near me who was groomed, and I know a child who was nearly molested and now cries herself to sleep every night. I'm nineteen. I haven't lived for a long time and I don't know much, but I know a hell of a lot more than when I left home in October. Sometimes, I wish I didn't.

Also, happy pride month. Homosexuality is illegal in approximately 70 countries. Included on that list are Grenada, St. Vincent, and Antigua. Good thing that roomy closets exist. My next post will come out (pun intended) shortly and will have a much happier tone. Until then, ciao.