*** Content Warning: Frank Discussion of Sexual Assault ***

This happened when I was still in junior high school (middle school now mostly in America, grades 7-8, ages 12-13).

A girl was pulled into a boys’ locker room against her will.  She struggled and cried out as various boys took turns grabbing at her body and her clothing.  Eventually, one of the adults in charge came and took her out, terrified and shaking.  This is how early rape culture can be promoted: right at the cusp of puberty, if not before.  I can’t speak personally to sexual harassment and assault that happens at the hands of girls and women, but let’s just say the original Carrie girls’ locker room scene is probably not too far off the mark to what happens in real life.

This is the part I want to emphasize: nothing ever happened to those boys, as far as I can remember.  There was uneasy laughter and uncomfortable silence amongst those of us who did not take part, but the boys that had done it bragged and boasted.

Our Groper-In-Chief is right about one thing.  Locker rooms, especially locker rooms for boys and men, are where sexual abusers hide in plain sight.  They are spaces where their guard is often down and they occasionally fully admit to their predation.  They are spaces where there are very few consequences for boasting about sexual assault, if not committing it outright.  My guesses for why abusers feel safe there are twofold: one, because they want to make sexual abuse and harassment seem like “normal” behavior for men and, two, to send a warning to other boys and men that might disagree and complain that they might be subject to the same assaults or worse should they report the behavior to authorities.

Now think about the other “locker rooms” and their insular mentality that still exist, from government to cinema and entertainment to business to home and wonder no more why rape culture is as common as it actually is and why we are still very far from true equality and fairness.