You didn't say no...

With another headline and another woman coming forward everyday with an allegation against the Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein, it felt too important to ignore. I read an inspiring article by Brit Marling in The Atlantic, she has such a way with words and so I decided to write a quick poem on the topic of sexual harrassment and assault. I am aware this can happen to men too and don't want to ignore that. The 1 in 5 statistic was taken from the Rape Crisis website.

You didn't say no

A pair of hands upon your shoulders,

Fingers squeeze around your thigh,

Nausea building within your stomach

Your body frozen – a silent cry

The violence that we see in movies

The sensational stories in the news

This isn’t what you’ve yet encountered

And so you find a way to excuse

He says he’s just drunk and joking around,

“All I did was squeeze your bum”

Now look at you silly, overreacting

“Drink some more, we're just having fun”.

Things have stepped up a notch

In this erotic exchange

You leave feeling dirty

And the one to be blamed

If you hadn’t drank so much

Or had shown that much skin

“You really need to be more careful”

Patience slowly wears thin

Guilt and fear begins to mount

You didn’t say no, you must’ve given consent

But you felt pressured and coerced

But still not a no, so the silence leant

Towards the swamp of shame,

You now find yourself stuck

He didn’t physically hurt you

Just put it down to bad luck

But emotional wounds

Take much longer to heal

Angry, confused or upset

You need to check how you feel

1 in 5 women

Too many to count

Consent is a yes

Absent from pressure or doubt.