When you are caught on tape saying women let you do what they want, that you COULD even grab them by the pussy, because you are famous, AND then you say, you’ve NEVER done such a thing, that it’s all TALK – women who you’ve GROPED, KISSED without consent, BULLIED, made to stand on tables, so you could see up their skirts, or RAPED will speak up. Women who felt they had no power, no voice, women who you only did it to once, women who thought no one would listen, women who maybe spoke out before and no one did, WILL speak out. These women won’t stomach you any longer. They will speak out and they won’t stop.

When you shoot your mouth off and bully and insult and demean – women will start to speak out and they won’t stop. AND women who have pushed it all down, harassment at work, on the streets, leers, whistles, cat calls, “smile, why don’t you smile”, “ok, fuck you, bitch,” “suck my dick,” will listen, and we will tell our stories, and we won’t stop because there is no end to the litany of examples because this is what it’s like being a woman in America.

Men show their dicks to us on public transportation, rub up against us, and leer, and suck their teeth, and sometimes they get off the same bus stop and chase us across the street, forcing us to run into traffic. This is what it’s like to be a woman in America, you should know that, of all people you should know. 

You shrug it off give it a cute name, say it’s normal.

Then you say, “They’re liars. It’s all lies, you say.” Fiction. Anyone could make up a story like that. BUT here’s the thing. We don’t have to make up stories. There’s no shortage of adult men leering at girls, fingering them, “sit on my lap,” “it feels good, don’t you want to feel good?” There’s no shortage of NON-FICTION tales that I, or any number of my friends could tell – the men who tried to lure us into their cars, yes, more than one, the men who turned vicious when rebuffed or rejected or exposed.

“Look at her and look at her words.” YOU said. “You tell me what you think. I don’t think so.”

“These vicious claims about me of inappropriate conduct with women are totally and absolutely false,” you said.

You have proof, you say, evidence.

You say there are no witnesses, that no one was around. WE know it’s how you operate, in the dark, under the covers, safe in first-class, money, power, influence. You say you have proof but we can’t prove you groped, bullied, leered, demeaned, raped. You’re right, we don’t have proof, no DNA evidence, no fingerprints to lift from our skin, no audio, no video, just stories, stories that we will tell, that we will keep telling because we are full, and you have lifted the lid.

Pandora is out of the box. Medusa’s head full of snakes is yanking apples off trees, and biting into them, letting their juices run, and run, and run.