Slut Walk Dallas 2011, April 23.
For some horrible reason I woke up at four that morning. I mostly read porn until 7:30 and got ready. My mother and I picked up my friend Autumn (aka cheshirewitch). We drove to Dallas and watched queer as folk…as it turns out I hate queer as folk. We finally got to our hotel and left around 1:15 pm which kind sucked because the thing started at one. Now then the place they held it at was JFK Memorial Plaza. We got directions to the JFK Museum >.>. By the time we got to the museum it was 1:30. We were in a rush and never having been to Dallas before, confused. We saw a group of people to the left of the museum that looked at bit too old and touristy to be our people but we went over there anyways. Only to accidently happen upon the grassy knoll. We didn’t stay to get the pamphlets. We went into the museum and they sent us over two blocks and down one (when it should been up we later discovered).
Walking across the road to our new destination we saw another group of people. I turned to Autumn and asked her ‘if she thought those were our people?’ (ps I was not wearing my glasses for any of this so I couldn’t see too well). On closer inspection we saw that they were all wearing shirts with ‘jesus’ on them…they were not our people. On our way to our second crossing of a street we saw on the other side of the road two guys who were shirtless and in shorts. Again I asked ‘do you think they are some of our people’. To which she replied ‘no I think they’re just gay’. They crossed over to our side as we were about to cross our road when the ginger one said something to us which I couldn’t understand. He repeated himself saying something that again we didn’t understand and continued. At which point we realized we couldn’t understand what he said because he had an accent….an irish accent. He asked if ‘we were a part of that walk or looking for it,’ we nodded vigorously, ‘the one for women’s rights’ he then pointed us to where they last saw them walking. We ran that way.
Can I just say these dudes were fucking hot, they were not our type. We like them girly like Tommy okay? We saw those buff dudes with short hair, manly fuckers that they were and were just like no. Then that ginger one started talking and we both went yes. Hell yes. Oh that accent, I nearly died. Instead of saying where they were from the ginger one just said ‘they were a long way from home’ oh fuck me. I have no idea why but that was the hottest thing he said. Uh damn. And really my first irish person and he was a ginger just wow. Anyways back to the story.
We saw them walking at least four blocks away. We ran to catch up with them but kept getting stopped up by lights, until we looked ahead and couldn’t see them anymore. We lost them. Six blocks from the museum we gave up and started to walk back over there. Some random people passed us by and liked our clothes, others looked on terrified and wanted to get their kids away from us. We were at another crossing when we looked over and saw our people a block over. Victory! We ran oh we ran. We got there and it was 2:00.
One of the organizers of the whole walk was talking it sounded like they had only been there for ten minutes. I don’t really remember what she said it wasn’t really memorable. But then the person from LGBT talked and he was amazing. He talked about how you can’t just vote once every few years and expect everything to change. You have to do stuff. He talked about different resent cases going on across in the states. One wear this guy was beaten nearly to death by a bunch of other guys for being gay and the only thing the school was telling them was for gay guys to act straight. He said how mad he was when watching the news and that if you weren’t mad you weren’t paying attention. He was a good speaker.
Another person came up and talked about how if your raped the police ask you what you were doing, were you drinking, what were you wearing, like it’s your fault. There was talk of how bad slut shaming is that women shouldn’t be shamed for liking sex or what they wear. While men everyone assumes they love sex. The people from the crowd started coming up. One was a black lady who started with chanting ‘black power women power’ stuff like that and told everyone about how her uncle molested her and her nieces and how other people had ‘plans’ for her in her life. I started crying when she was talking because it reminded me of my own situation. Another girl came up; she talked about how her husband had abused her for three years. Another came up; she said she was a stripper and that that didn’t make it okay for men to do whatever they wanted to them. There was a guy who came up and said that he supported everything they did. It was a woman’s body so it was her choice. A transvestite guy came up and talked.
Then there was this girl who talked about how her brother for years and molested her. That she had been raped by one of her boyfriends. That she was always afraid of saying that it had ever happen, that it was a family member, that it was her own brother. She had come out on facebook saying that it was her brother that had done this to her. And her own mother called her and her response was how often do you get raped. She was of the opinion that her own fucking daughter had come into this world asking for it. I cried the whole time she talked.
Other people talked but I didn’t pay attention, I as looking around at all the people there. Do you know what I saw? There were so many guys there actually there supporting everyone. There was a five year old with his mother and people at least in their 40s. There were so many different types of people there and even though I wasn’t talking to anyone I have never felt more a part of something. It felt like a safe circle, it was a safe circle. Where no one was judged for what they wear or what they do or who they are. It was beautiful. I thought many times about going up there and telling my story or whatever but I knew I wasn’t ready.
And then there was no one else who wanted to talk and it was over. As Autumn and I were leaving I went over to the girl who had been abused by her brother. I thanked her for telling her story for letting me know that I wasn’t alone while crying. She hugged me and told me it would get better, to talk about it and one of the people with her told me to stay with the feminist group and shit like that. We walked off and I looked at my phone and it was around 2:43ish. In 45 minutes my life was changed. I can’t even begin to express how awesome it all was, how eye opening.
There is supposed to be one in Austin and I’m going to go to that. One of my other friends already wants to go with me and Autumn.
Walking across the road to our new destination we saw another group of people. I turned to Autumn and asked her ‘if she thought those were our people?’ (ps I was not wearing my glasses for any of this so I couldn’t see too well). On closer inspection we saw that they were all wearing shirts with ‘jesus’ on them…they were not our people. On our way to our second crossing of a street we saw on the other side of the road two guys who were shirtless and in shorts. Again I asked ‘do you think they are some of our people’. To which she replied ‘no I think they’re just gay’. They crossed over to our side as we were about to cross our road when the ginger one said something to us which I couldn’t understand. He repeated himself saying something that again we didn’t understand and continued. At which point we realized we couldn’t understand what he said because he had an accent….an irish accent. He asked if ‘we were a part of that walk or looking for it,’ we nodded vigorously, ‘the one for women’s rights’ he then pointed us to where they last saw them walking. We ran that way.
Can I just say these dudes were fucking hot, they were not our type. We like them girly like Tommy okay? We saw those buff dudes with short hair, manly fuckers that they were and were just like no. Then that ginger one started talking and we both went yes. Hell yes. Oh that accent, I nearly died. Instead of saying where they were from the ginger one just said ‘they were a long way from home’ oh fuck me. I have no idea why but that was the hottest thing he said. Uh damn. And really my first irish person and he was a ginger just wow. Anyways back to the story.
We saw them walking at least four blocks away. We ran to catch up with them but kept getting stopped up by lights, until we looked ahead and couldn’t see them anymore. We lost them. Six blocks from the museum we gave up and started to walk back over there. Some random people passed us by and liked our clothes, others looked on terrified and wanted to get their kids away from us. We were at another crossing when we looked over and saw our people a block over. Victory! We ran oh we ran. We got there and it was 2:00.
One of the organizers of the whole walk was talking it sounded like they had only been there for ten minutes. I don’t really remember what she said it wasn’t really memorable. But then the person from LGBT talked and he was amazing. He talked about how you can’t just vote once every few years and expect everything to change. You have to do stuff. He talked about different resent cases going on across in the states. One wear this guy was beaten nearly to death by a bunch of other guys for being gay and the only thing the school was telling them was for gay guys to act straight. He said how mad he was when watching the news and that if you weren’t mad you weren’t paying attention. He was a good speaker.
Another person came up and talked about how if your raped the police ask you what you were doing, were you drinking, what were you wearing, like it’s your fault. There was talk of how bad slut shaming is that women shouldn’t be shamed for liking sex or what they wear. While men everyone assumes they love sex. The people from the crowd started coming up. One was a black lady who started with chanting ‘black power women power’ stuff like that and told everyone about how her uncle molested her and her nieces and how other people had ‘plans’ for her in her life. I started crying when she was talking because it reminded me of my own situation. Another girl came up; she talked about how her husband had abused her for three years. Another came up; she said she was a stripper and that that didn’t make it okay for men to do whatever they wanted to them. There was a guy who came up and said that he supported everything they did. It was a woman’s body so it was her choice. A transvestite guy came up and talked.
Then there was this girl who talked about how her brother for years and molested her. That she had been raped by one of her boyfriends. That she was always afraid of saying that it had ever happen, that it was a family member, that it was her own brother. She had come out on facebook saying that it was her brother that had done this to her. And her own mother called her and her response was how often do you get raped. She was of the opinion that her own fucking daughter had come into this world asking for it. I cried the whole time she talked.
Other people talked but I didn’t pay attention, I as looking around at all the people there. Do you know what I saw? There were so many guys there actually there supporting everyone. There was a five year old with his mother and people at least in their 40s. There were so many different types of people there and even though I wasn’t talking to anyone I have never felt more a part of something. It felt like a safe circle, it was a safe circle. Where no one was judged for what they wear or what they do or who they are. It was beautiful. I thought many times about going up there and telling my story or whatever but I knew I wasn’t ready.
And then there was no one else who wanted to talk and it was over. As Autumn and I were leaving I went over to the girl who had been abused by her brother. I thanked her for telling her story for letting me know that I wasn’t alone while crying. She hugged me and told me it would get better, to talk about it and one of the people with her told me to stay with the feminist group and shit like that. We walked off and I looked at my phone and it was around 2:43ish. In 45 minutes my life was changed. I can’t even begin to express how awesome it all was, how eye opening.
There is supposed to be one in Austin and I’m going to go to that. One of my other friends already wants to go with me and Autumn.