Paris

My friends know that I've always been a trusting person. Like when I "loaned" a complete stranger $100 during my junior year in college. Full of my belief in the basic goodness of people, I used to do a lot of hitchhiking, too. I gladly entrusted my safety to complete strangers and enjoyed the random adventures that happened along the road. One time, this trust in strangers put my safety in jeopardy.

When I was 24, I went hitchhiking in Wales with my then ex-girlfriend. Soon, we realized that exes didn't make the best travel partners. So I headed on my own to London, on my way to Italy. There, I made the split-second decision to take a bus to Paris. When I got to Paris around 10 pm, I didn’t know where I was. I didn't have a guidebook, I didn’t have a single franc, and my French was limited to what I had picked up in elementary school. So I wandered the streets of Paris looking for a place to change pounds into francs, unsuccessfully.

Around midnight, desperately tired and lost, I started scoping out a park for a place to sleep for the night. It was well-lit with no obvious place to hide for some shut-eye. About then, a man approached me and asked if I needed a place to stay. I said sure and followed him up to his small musty apartment. It was up several flights of stairs in an old building. When we got in the room, he locked the door with a key, offered me a glass of water, which I accepted, and something to eat, which I declined. Next, he offered me a place in his twin bed. I declined that as well, thinking French men were just more comfortable with their bodies than Americans.

I bedded down in my sleeping bag in the middle of the small room, next to his bed. As I was trying to fall asleep, the man turned over several times, seeming to have a hard time getting comfortable.  All of a sudden, I felt his hand on my crotch. I bolted upright and said no. He said (in French) “oh, I thought American men liked that sort of thing.” I said that no, I didn’t like that sort of thing. He promptly removed his hand from my crotch, settled back in bed, and fell asleep.

I lay there paralyzed, my mind racing.  What was I going to do?  Was it safe to stay with this man who had just groped me?  How would I be able to leave?  Where would I go? I felt so stupid, for trusting this stranger in a strange country where I barely spoke the language. And I felt powerless, completely at the mercy of this man.  I just lay there, all night, my mind racing, unable to sleep or to summon the courage to somehow open the locked door and leave.

When the man finally awoke, I rolled up my bag, got my stuff together and said goodbye. He wasn’t interested in any conversation and let me leave without a glance.

I felt dirty and ashamed by what had happened. Was it my fault? Did I somehow unconsciously invite this man's advance toward me? Was there some cue that I had missed that this man was interested in sex? Why was I so stupid and careless with my safety? I had to get out of Paris. It was my first time there, but I wanted nothing more to do with the City of Light. I got some francs and took the first train I could. I decided to go to Lorrain, the place of my ancestors. As I walked the streets of Metz, I saw the image of my Maman in the faces of strangers, and started to feel somewhat at home, and a little more comfortable in my own skin.

I have only told this story to a handful of people over the last 20 years (and finally just told it to my mom) and I haven’t set foot in Paris again. I still remember the smell of that room and I still feel the sting of shame, stupidity, and self-blame for putting myself in that situation. And now that I hear more stories from my female friends about being sexually harassed and assaulted, I am encouraged to tell my story. I was luckier than many in that when I said no, the man heard me and stopped. I wasn’t raped and I never had to see this man again, lurking in my workplace or hassling me as I went to school every day. But I have some small inkling of the powerlessness and violation and shame that victims of sexual assault feel. And my trust in humans is now tempered by the knowledge that people commit horrific acts, and no prayers to a higher power will ever stop evil from happening.

This month, I traveled with my daughter to a big city. When I left her on her own one day, I tried to drill in her the importance of never going somewhere with a stranger. Whatever you do, I said, don't. get. in. the. car. I hope my daughter can learn from my mistakes. And I hope that more people can feel safe in disclosing their stories of sexual assault. We will never stop it from happening if we don't talk about it as a society and if we don't listen with compassion to those who have been violated.