eidolon

If you suffer from an aversion to overly-long entries that don't include what I had for lunch yesterday, what I heard from Tina that Ashley did after Ashley swore to Denise that she'd never do it again, the confused expression on my cats' faces after I tear off a really hellacious fart or the even more confused look on their faces when they catch me masturbating to the kinkiest of kinkies, well.....
you should know by now that you're in the wrong fucking place.

This journal is long, it's strong, and it's about to get the friction on.

Curtain

Here's a dilly of a pickle for all of you.
I, a white, mostly-hetero, suburban, oficially Protestant, American male seem to be on the receiving end of the un-welcome variety of sexual harassment.

Never saw this one coming.

Here's the skinny-

I have 4 instructors at school. 3 women and 1 man. Being a beauty school, the place is definitely slanted to fit the needs and prefferences of women; from options in acceptable clothing to sizes and shapes of shears. Yeah, it's seriously aggrivating and inconvenient, but I can't really do much complaining given the number of things clearly geared to serve the men of the world. I'm dealing with a little case of the tables being turned, but I've done that before and survived.

So, I've taken a step out of the dick-ocracy and into the chick-ocracy.

Funny thing is that, even though being a white, reasonably affluent, educated man who far preffers sleeping with women leaves me in the statistical minority (about a 1/2 dozen out of at least 100), I still feel all the power and priviledge that comes with that clasification in the larger social stratosphere. It kinda creeps me out. Add large, pierced, heavily tattoed, witty and somewhat soft-spoken to the equation and I'm an oddity within priviledge. Strange spot.

Nobody ever tells their side of the story, but both the pink elephant and the 400 pound gorilla know when you're looking at them.

Which segues nicely into my story.....

One of my instructors has been forward with me in some very, very unwelcome ways. It's fucking surreal.

At first she came across as just being cordial, as someone who knew the pantomimes of formal conversation and could be handled on a very simple, superficial level. I was outgoing and engaging in the way that people are when they just want to keep things rolling smoothly without offering anything substantive of themselves. This was all done within the context of casual conversation before and after class. In any arena, I like to know my teachers as human beings as opposed to educational dieties. Knowing them as human allows me to filter their words and perspectives somewhat - listening to them and through them simultaneously.

So, this woman....
Within the first few days, she starts telling me about one of her neighbors - describing him to me.
'He's a big guy, strong-looking. A white guy, like you. Do you have a motorcycle?'
'Not a running one, no.'
'Well, he has this motorcycle and I've been trying to get him to talk to me. You know, smiling at him, waiving whenever I see him. He seems sweet, but distant, you know?'
'Yeah. Well, it's hard when you catch someone when they're on the way to or from somewhere. Usually, there's some kind of tunnel-vision at play.'

So, that's within the first few days. It didn't sink in that she'd drawn a parallel between me and the object of her desire until later.

At the beginning of the next week, she came to me, telling me that she'd begun to wonder if her neighbor was interested in her at all; going on and on about how he hardly seemed to notice her and still seemed distant when they spoke. She'd asked him up for coffee or sandwiches a couple of times and he'd declined every invitation with the vague promise of 'another time.' In my experience, you test the 'another time' answer once, and leave it at that.

I'd begun to feel a little bit uncomfortable having her, an instructor - though not a primary one - tell me about her wanton desires, even in vague terms, but I guess I just hoped that she'd stop on her own. The school's a friendly place. Stupid sometimes but, even on the worst days, it's friendly in the golden-retriever sense of the word. I'd talked here and there with a good portion of the faculty about this and that - small talk - during the first couple of weeks. It was all light and friendly. All of it, except what I'd begun to feel from this woman.

Midway through the second week, we'd begun to get into some styling. We'd gotten the knack of some straight lines and a bit of layering. Now we were moving on to other things. For the 1st time in my life, I was playing with rollers, round brushes blow dryers, pincurls and my beloved fingerwaves (at which I rule). Before anyone thinks to themselves 'Round brush? That's so easy.' It might be. I'd just never held one in my hand. Given that I was completely new to things like roller sets, I needed to be shown a few things here and there. Just details, measurements. That kind of thing. Well, she was always quick to help out. Problem being, that she'd kinda squeeze her way in between myself and the manequin head, perform the given task for me and pat me on the back telling me 'see how easy that was, sugar.'

Yeah.
Doing it for me doesn't help.
Touching me doesn't help.
Squeezing your body in front of mine doesn't help.
Calling me 'sugar' doesn't help.
I don't play football and I'm not in danger of losing my academic eligibility. Teach me. Don't do it for me.
After a few more days of this, I finally told her that she was welcome to show me whatever it was that I needed to see, but that she would have to immediately undo it so that I'd have the chance to do it from scratch. For me, it's the only way to learn.

Around the third week, she started asking me about my lunch plans - If I'd brought anything or was planning on going out to find a bite. I was onto this one from the get-go. I'd become somewhat suspicious of her vibe by now, and the lunch thing had confirmed my every suspicion. She'd tell me that whenever I was done, if I felt like it, she'd be in the commissary if I felt like sitting down.

Ummmm, no.

Once I'd started catching the foul whif of her hinting, I was just hoping that I could keep my distance and it would go away. Should have known that couldn't happen. She's an instructor. I'm a student. No matter what - she has access to me and a degree of power over me. Right around this time is when the truth and the realities of the situation started to set in. I talked with my therapist about it that week. He told me to keep an eye on things and to choose my words carefully. Good advise.

This last week. More of the same. More thinly-veiled invitations for lunch. New questions about what I'd done the previous evening. I'd say something ambiguous like that I'd stayed home, chilled on the couch and cooked some dinner. Occasionally, I'd let a 'we' slip into my descriptions, but the plurality seemed to elude her.

Mid-week. We were involved in a project of alternating oblongs and pincurls with varrying speeds and projections (listen to the boy talk hair). Here, it took a very wrong turn. I'd hit a snag and deliberately flagged down an instructor, Pamela (shout pamalama - btw, the single coolest glassy-eyed born-aain lady ever. she used to be bad, and she's trying so hard to be good. i'm learning quite a bit about will and character from her. plus, she's a bitch-slappin stylist) for a hand. Pamela's on her way over, but she's cut-off. Yeah. I'd been trying to work with the other instructors as much as I could, hoping that Ken, Tann and Pamalama could work as a buffer zone. No dice.

I've got a nasty habit of switching gears and trying to be overly funny or outgoing when I'm uncomfortable. I must have been doing that - or something - during these few shitty minutes. I dunno, something. She showed me whatever it was I needed shown. I asked her to undo it. She made a move in to pat me on the back. I kinda stepped away and her hand caught my side. I moved away quickly. She looked at me. I'd seen that look before only this time, I wasn't hopeful or optimistic. There wasn't a tingle. I was afraid. She moved closer and asked if I'd moved away because I was ticklish.
'No.'
'Are you sure?'
'Yes. Quite sure. I just want to get this done while I've got it fresh in my mind.'

I went back to the project and the shot a hand in to try to tickle my side. Again I stepped back.
'Are you sure you're not ticklish?'
'Yes. Please let me get bac to this.'
'Does it bother you that I tried to tickle you?'
'Look, I'm trying to figure this out. I appreciate the help, but I need to focus and there's a line. The touching isn't OK.'

She went away. The power dynamic was more visible than ever. I reacted the way that I did because of that dynamic. I can't raise my voice. I can't even whisper a suggestion of 'fuck off.' This was very tricky.

The next morning, she asked if I was upset at her. Cleverly, she asked while there were other instructors around, so I wasn't in a position to answer frankly because that, alone, would have been an accusation and set-up a my word vs her word situation. No way I can come away from that intact. I again reiterated what I'd said the previous day about just wanting to get the work done and concentrate. What else could I have said? Yeah, I could have teed off on her. I could have said whatever I wanted, but the simple fact is that, in that setting, she and I aren't equals. All she'd have to say is 'I don't know what he's talking about.' and I'd be out on my gorgeous ass $17k lighter and with nothing to show for it.

I'd tried to let it go. After lunch, I came back into our little lab room. There she was. There were a couple of people around, minding their own business. She mentioned to me that she'd seen me in the parking garage that morning, but that I'd gotten to school before her. She asked if I'd run.
'No. There's a staircase. You don't have to walk down all the ramps.'
'Really? I thought for sure you'd run.'
'No, I'm not really much of a runner and I don't think anyone would mistake me for a runner.

Time stops.
Sound stops.
She looks me up and down.
The eye.
She does it again.

'Hmmm.' she said. 'I don't know about that. Looks like you take pretty good care of yourself.'
'Well, I don't run.'

The look again.
Up.
Down.

I leave the room.

I came back in and rolled through the last few hours learning that I'm alarmingly natural in working with black hair and that I'm definitely looking forward to a few days without her. She's not going to be around Monday or Tuesday either, so I've got a few days to sort this out.

I called my therapist Friday night just to see if there was anything I could actually do. We talked through all the shitty realities of the situation - power dynamic, student/teacher, whose word is worth what when push comes to shove, potential consequences for saying anything at all....

This is a properly shitty reality. If I say anything directly to her, all she has to do is call it a hostile or threatening act and I'm done. If I talk to another faculty member, it's the same thing as attempting to indict her. This isn't the kind of situation in which there's hard evidence so, again, it's a teacher's word against a student's. Everything she's said or done has been done when there are very few people around and they're all occupied with other things or when its been a noisy room with people engrossed in their own work. It's like it's all existed in a vaccum.

Sure, I could scream to the rafters. I could try to raise all kinds of hell. You have to know that's what my gut is telling me. On a practical level, it won't do any good. I think it'll create more problems than it'll solve. I need this school. I need this training. I want this training. I want to be able to keep these doors open for myself. No matter whether I scream it, whisper it, carve it, stencil it or dance it, everything comes down to my word versus hers. That's where the power dynamic comes in. That's where it gets ugly. I've written ____ and deleted ___ so many times, trying to come up with a way of saying ____ that doesn't make me uncomfortable. I can't come up with one.

Here come the ugly words:
In this instance, in this setting, when accusations of sexual impropriety, harassment and misconduct are made by a 28 year old white man toward a 50 year old black woman, the white man will never EVER be right.

I hate those words but, from where I stand, they're true.

My hands are tied.
I have to act without acting.
I haven't the faintest idea of how to do that.

Abuse of power will continue to exist even on the most level of playing fields. It's in our nature. Or, at the very least, I've seen it in my own and in the nature of others. I believe it's written into all of us - even Jesus.