Lizzie Marvelly: Our normal is broken

Somewhere along the way, innocent behaviour morphs into something far less pleasant. Photo / 123RF

You may think that the #MeToo movement started with Weinstein. It didn't. For many of us, it began in our childhoods, during the heady days of first kisses, first dates and first times of various descriptions. It began long before we had a name for it. It was just a feeling then. A discomfort, an anxiety, a frisson of fear. A resignation that this was just the way it was.

It may have started with a boy trying to touch our chests at lunchtime. A hand in an inappropriate place in the darkness of a school disco. A kiss that seemed to come from nowhere. Or a social where we were told we had to dance with whoever asked us.

These things are not uncommon. They all happened during my childhood. You could even say that they are normal. And that is the problem.

This "normality" follows us into adulthood. It becomes more potent, and yet more ordinary.

Two men grope me in a bar in the space of one hour, out of the blue. One is persistent, and follows me when I try to escape his clutching arms, seemingly impervious to the meaning of the word "no". He only stops when he is physically dragged away from me.

That's just what happens at clubs. It's what men do.

A man puts pressure on me to have sex when I don't want to. I tell him I don't want to. He continues anyway until I resign myself to the fact that it's going to happen. I go through the motions, and afterwards feel ill.

Normal. Boys will be boys.

The mundaneness of this male-led tango even seeps into our inner monologues.

'It's the third date… I should probably say yes to sleeping with him.'

'He doesn't want to use a condom… oh well, it'll probably be fine…'

'He didn't really mean to do that.'

'I don't want to embarrass him.'

'If I say no, he'll be angry.'

'If I say 'no' he might do it anyway… and I don't want to have to deal with that.'

From the moment that we begin to become romantically interested in others – even before that – we are exposed to a set of rules and expectations about how human relationships operate. We're presented with a heteronormative series of scripts for interacting with each other. Men, we're told, are active in their pursuit of romantic partners, while women are passive. Men chase, and women play "hard to get". Men are persistent and women acquiesce. Men want sex, women want romance, and that's just the way things are.

These are all generalisations and stereotypes, but they form the foundation of our understanding of heterosexual sex and relationships. Then #MeToo came along and forced us to roll back the carpet, tear up the floorboards, and peek through our fingers at the swirling, putrid mess beneath.

Recently, comedian Aziz Ansari joined the ever-growing list of men accused of sexual misconduct. The accusations against him were swiftly dismissed as "normal". I found myself agreeing. The kind of behaviour Ansari's accuser endured that night is normal. But that doesn't make it in any way acceptable. It doesn't clear Ansari of wrongdoing. Reading "Grace"s' account of that night made my stomach turn. It made my heart ache for her. And it felt so familiar.

Our normal is broken. The stories of sexual assault that have been bravely shared over the past few months are just one section of the abyss. Stories like the one about Aziz Ansari are far more common. Most of the women I know have stories like that. We share them when the conversation at dinner, at work, or on the ferry to Waiheke turns to the extraordinary movement for justice in Hollywood and all around the world. We too try to make sense of our stories. We too reach out to each other to try to ascertain whether what happened to us was really that bad. We know it made us feel bad. But we also know that as women we are not trusted to be the arbiters of our own experiences. We know that these things that happen to us are normal.

I'll be accused of insinuating that women are victims. That pointing out the predatory nature of some heterosexual interactions suggests women are powerless damsels in need of protection. We are not. I'd like to think that I'd now have strong words for anyone who tried to coerce or disrespect me. But when I was 12, 16, 22? By the time I discovered the extent of my own power I'd already tolerated 15 years of being pawed at, pressured and worse. We are not victims, but why should we have to endure the death by a thousand tiny cuts that is growing into a woman?

I want us, as women, to be able to stand up for ourselves, to push back and have complete agency over our bodies, but the idea that stopping men from being selfish, pushy sleazes should be our responsibility is galling. Why should we have to do that emotional labour? Why should it be our job?

We didn't create the problem. We are not the problem. Why should we be required to fix it?

Most men don't start out as aggressive assholes. They start out as cute little boys who sometimes even hold hands (consensually) with little girls at kindergarten. Somewhere along the line our society's ridiculous ideas about sex get in the way and stuff everything up. #MeToo is not just calling for an end to sexual assault. It's calling for a rethink of the way we do relationships, particularly heterosexual ones. It's trying to prevent the kind of behaviour that has harmed so many women over so many years.

Prevention starts well before the monster stage. All the men who have been accused of sexual misconduct didn't become creeps overnight. Their behaviour probably started out as "normal".

And there's something deeply wrong with that.