This month there have been a series of incidents in my town of men standing outside women’s homes, looking in the windows at night and masturbating.  I can’t stand the cutesy appellation “Peeping Tom” – what’s cute about this behavior?  Like most forms of sexual abuse, this perpetrator method has been lauded and mythologized and turned into a sexy little joke in the media way too often.

I know that a lot of men really do not comprehend the chronic, pervasive, and exhausting fear of being raped that women live with every day.  When I taught self-defense classes at sororities this month, no one laughed about these incidents. 

The women wanted to know what to do if one of these guys was outside their house.  Their questions included “What if he grabs me by the neck and chokes me?” and “What if he has a knife?”  and “What if I’m alone and he tries to come in and kill me?”  No one subjected to this abuse thinks it’s cute.

I point out that most of these guys have a slightly different profile than other sexual assailants.  That mostly they’re frightened guys, interested in shocking and observing, not in attacking and killing.  And I also teach them how to physically defend themselves if they have to face their fears.

And of course, it can help to close the drapes at night, keep the doors locked, and
report,
report,
report. 

I would love to see every one of these creeps on the front page of the paper, exposed to the community for the damaged and damaging people they are.

At my local library we can request books online and they’ll be marked with our last name and held on a shelf to pick up.  I love this.  Last night, I went to pick up some novel that Oprah told me to read and guess what?  Right next to the novel on the hold shelf was MY BOOK!  Someone had submitted an online request to reserve My Book, the One I Wrote. 

It felt like a special Be Happy gift from the universe after a long, gray February day.  Not only did someone want to read my book, they reserved it on the very day I would be there, and they had a name starting with M-A so it would be shelved right where I would see it.  I shyly told the librarian how excited I was, and she said “Let’s go look at it together, how wonderful!”

Thanks reader!

(Note to self - I simply must get a cell phone with a camera in it……)