Parisian Nights

So firstly I'd like to apologise for the horror of these photos. I mean the middle one in particular...no make up at all and the hair? Well, let's just say it's been a while since I've seen a hairdresser. Since I've been at clown school I've taken to wearing no make up due to the amount of time I spend rubbing my eyes in horrified sleepiness. I just avoid mirrors. Although, picture three is with make up...no, that isn't a new style of eye shadow...I was referring to the mascara.

What you are looking at here is in fact me after I've been punched by a man, could have been teenager, could have been French, might have been Albanian...I don't know. All I know is he punched me in the face after I told him to leave me alone whilst I was sat outside my flat. I think it was the eventual use of the phrase 'Fuck off' that provoked the hit but as he was by this time already cornering me against a wall, who can really say?

What I can say is that it feels like an appropriate culmination of my experience of men in Paris.

Picture if you will a city full of men, boys and teenagers living perpetually in the happy state of the thirteen year old boy. Of course, for the thirteen year old boy, this is entirely appropriate so please remove him from all possible insults that follow. A woman walks past wearing, let's say tight jeans and a t-shirt. The man boys eyes are automatically drawn despite the distinct lack of flesh on show and the following behaviour is displayed:

Seductive eyes are engaged (these look more like drunk or stoned eyes in actuality and give the man the look of either a Paedophile, psychopath, vagrant, wife beater or simpleton, in special cases all looks at once)

Pouty lips appear, followed by a nod of head and kiss of the teeth

The walk slows to a swagger

Every slight hint that said female may perhaps give in and glance his way is responded to with a nod of the head, eyebrow jiggle and smile (picture if you will that curious bird in one of the Attenborough Planet Earth shows, he bounces on his feet whilst flashing his feathers which have on them a smiley face, only that bird has charm and the woman in that clip is blatantly egging him on)

In extreme cases, said females path is blocked by the attention seeker or if she's found a really good one he'll stick his foot out to touch her leg or touch her arm

It is because of this you will find every Parisian woman you meet, cold, hard, incapable of cracking a smile, angry and prudish.

Imagine encountering this type of male all day every day and then think what it must feel like to be a woman in one of those God awful places where the men don't actually just get to behave this badly but the women HAVE to sleep with them after. I mean these men don't deserve sex. It's why the average thirteen year old isn't getting any, this behaviour doesn't even belong to the animal kingdom. Not even the Dinosaurs stooped as low as these pathetic creatures in attempts to lure a mate. I mean, have some self respect. Now in England, thirteen year old boys soon have this behaviour beaten from them in a stage of healthy self loathing and male competition. The men who go onto succeed in finding mates do so by hiding all discernible signs of attraction to anyone except when confronted with a page three girl or porn mag when old school behaviour once again creeps out. All English women can do is turn up at the same bar week in, week out and get drunk in the hope that the quick glance this week might evolve into a 'Hello', followed by a request for a date. The 'date' will then quickly dissolve into 'Back to mine right now' and you wake up the next day in a long term relationship because you've both spent two months obsessing over each other but were too frightened to show it just in case.

So let's go back to the other scenario. The one where men 'display' how they feel. Or, to put it another way, behave like thirteen year old boys. You see, as mentioned before, the average thirteen year old isn't getting sex and hopefully he isn't really trying too hard because he's far too bloody young. Mainly, he's feeling things whilst near girls/boys that are no longer to do with wanting to vomit, getting embarrassed by his seemingly uncontrollable downstairs muscle, competing with the other boys to show his feathers and failing miserably in the relative safety of the fact that he would be far more horrified to succeed as he doesn't actually have a clue what he should do if he does. Flash forward to a thirty year old man behaving in a similar manner and one can only believe that he too has never figured out what to do and wishes to sabotage himself to avoid being made a fool of. Well, surely that's why he behaves this way? Isn't it?

Because, well, the approach above doesn't appear to work. Well I've never seen it work and considering these men hang out in groups on the street all day together I'm guessing it never has. Oh and before you ask, no, they're not gay. In fact they'd beat you up just for saying the word in their presence to prove to you how 'Macho' they are. Because bonding with men and using all your skills to impress your male friends isn't remotely 'Gay'. And, please gay readers don't be offended, I'm not suggesting to be gay is a negative thing, just pointing out the irony when men who loath any display of 'gayness' can't see how 'gay' they actually are. Because these men don't love women, they love men. These men are so in love with men that they are more gay than any gay man could hope to be and they have no idea. They don't even get the benefits. And they wouldn't, because no gay man would have sex with them either. Their only hope is to approach the local paedophile in the hope that he recognises the thirteen year old boy so obviously on display.

See, now all those French women you ran into and hated in the past are taking a different picture in your mind. These poor women are on a battle field. And imagine how depressing it is trying to shut your eyes to this shit whilst living in the hope that out of the cloud a knight worth looking at might one day appear. After living in Paris I don't believe any of the stories about their adventurous sex lives and regular affairs. I mean, who are the women having these experiences with unless it's just each other?

It is into this world that I blindly stumbled eight months ago. I have felt in my various encounters with men* and regular daily 'Bonjour' plus seductive eyes as I walked to school WITHOUT make up on, looking like something the cat dragged backwards, like I have gone back in time to an age without feminism, without the sixties even. Don't try wearing anything over the knee in this town unless you'd like to be raped. Yes, I am still talking about Paris and not Saudi Arabia. And it was in my built up anger at the world I have found myself going back in time to (and I don't even have 'Doc' for company) that I shouted to the man/boy/teenager to fuck off as he decided my 'No, leave me alone's' weren't sufficient enough. And a split second later there was a white light in my head, some screaming, a passing man who helped, an ambulance that stopped, some ice, a lot of tears, shock, concussion and guilt. Yes. Guilt. Because as a girl who is the victim of an unprovoked attack my first reaction was to blame myself. As if all those years of feminist evolution have done nothing to touch the DNA that tell us when a woman is raped after drinking whilst wearing a short skirt, it's her fault for being drunk and dressing provocatively. When a woman is beaten by her husband, it's because she shouted first. And when a man punches a woman in the street, it's because she should have sat quietly and listened to what he had to say and waited to see what he wanted to do. I am angry at myself that I felt guilt but I did. And even now, days later, I am still finding ways to dismiss it and making sure that everyone knows that I said 'Fuck off.' Because that clearly makes it my fault.

* I have been punched in the arm whilst walking in the street, had a man press himself against me from behind at traffic lights in broad daylight, had two teenagers unlock and walk into my toilet cubicle, had a man walk into my toilet cubicle holding his penis and blocking my exit as I tried to leave, been followed by a man, been called a whore as I walked home.