Lovejoy and I were having a conversation yesterday about the whole Macho/girly thing. I think she’s much braver than I because she so willingly writes about the internal stuff while I stick to surface comments and snark (I hate to admit anything that sounds like possible weakness on paper). So, in the interest of being brave, I told her a story that happened to me a few years ago.

I had lost my job here and was broke. I mean broker than broke. I mean top ramen is a luxury kind of broke. I got a job offer and plane tickets for The Kid and me from a friend in Atlanta. All I had to do was pack up my stuff, stick it in storage and get the heck out of dodge. But I had no car and my driver’s license had expired (I didn’t have the 35 bucks to renew it). A neighbor who had a large truck offered to move my stuff into storage for me for cheap. I had exactly $115 and that was what he said he’d take to move it.

We loaded the stuff up in the back of the truck and he started coming on to me. Ok, that’s an understatement; he grabbed me, stuck his tongue down my throat and tried to put his hand in my pants. He had all my money. He had all my stuff. If he hadn’t had the only copies of The Kid’s baby pictures and all of my paintings I would have said “screw the dishes and the towels mother fucker and get off me”. But I didn’t have that option.

I tried telling him no. Suddenly he needed more money, or he could “stop by later that night to see about it”. I had no intention of fucking this guy ever. But I had to do something. I told him that my kid was home and I didn’t fuck around with the kid there, but if he put my stuff in storage then maybe I could send the kid to my mother’s later on. He left and I felt like I needed a shower and a disinfectant.

He left my stuff in the back of his truck overnight. It rained all over it. He wouldn’t return my calls. When he did finally call me back he wanted more money or “some kinda exchange”. I was desperate. But I was also lucky that I had an out. His mother lived down the street. I knocked on her door, told her who I was and she knew right away what her asswipe of a son had been doing. She got him on the phone and chewed him out something fierce. He was back at my house in 10 minutes and an hour later, my stuff had been literally thrown into the storage unit. I lost all of my glasses, my TV, and my mattress was ruined by mildew from the rain. But the baby pictures and the paintings were safe.

The point to this story is one more of those “it’s different for girls” things. Maybe I can’t expect you boys to comment on or even agree with these posts. But maybe if you read it enough of these from someone you know then you’ll change your perspective a little. This story is not at all unique. It’s actually sadly, infuriatingly common that when women (especially poor women) are in a tough situation sex can absolutely be used as a bargaining chip by men. I was lucky to get out of this one, but lots of women aren’t.