It can happen to anyone (TW: Assault)

A place to discuss topics affecting quizbowlers as a community rather than quizbowl as a game.
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Sima Guang Hater
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It can happen to anyone (TW: Assault)

Post by Sima Guang Hater »

I want to post this story in a separate thread, because I don't want to drown out other voices. You are free to ignore it at your leisure, and if you can only read n-1 threads on this forum, ignore this one please.

At one point during my quizbowl career, I was at a party in which a younger woman became very inebriated. Afterwards, she began coming onto me very heavily. After declining, she continued to press the point, putting her arms around me, almost grabbing my genitals, and at one point kissing another woman at the party and asking if she should repeat that action on my lap. This continued for some time, until the party ended.

I want to make a few things clear.

1. I never felt like I was in any real danger. I was a male, older, in a position of power, and she was none of those things. The most danger I felt in was when she said she'd call my girlfriend to tell her what a good boyfriend I was for repeatedly fending off her advances, and that was not real danger in the same sense that I'm sure many women would feel in the reversed situation.
2. The person in question and I have talked about the incident. I accepted her apology and I have absolutely zero concerns about her behavior in the future, for multiple reasons. I do not want her found, I will not be answering questions about her identity, nor do I want her to face any repercussions for what she did.
3. I am not posting this for sympathy. To repeat, I have no trauma from this incident, and at the time I (and my girlfriend, who I told later) found it more funny than anything.

The point of this post is to bring attention to the fact that not every "victim" and "perpetrator", so to speak, meets the stereotype (Terry Crews is a good example). Men can be traumatized by non-men. Not everyone would react as I would have. I want other people who have experienced anything like this to know that you deserve to be heard, and please don't be afraid to come forward and worry that your experiences will be minimized.
Eric Mukherjee, MD PhD
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Instructor/Attending Physician/Postdoctoral Fellow, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Coach, University School of Nashville

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Perturbed Secretary Bird
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Re: It can happen to anyone (TW: Assault)

Post by Perturbed Secretary Bird »

Thank you for sharing your story. I’m so sorry this happened to you.

I hope that the community as a whole reads it and really considers how misconduct, abuse, and assault can be perpetrated against people of any gender by people of any gender. And I also want to add (I am 100% NOT trying to say this was the case in Eric’s specific experience, just using his “it can happen to anyone” as a starting point) that people who abuse can be abused by others, too. It’s messy and horrible. All corners of our community have a lot of introspection, repair, and prevention work to do, and I think we are starting out on a good, endless path of improving ourselves and our ways of interacting with others. Thank you for contributing to that conversation, Eric.
Athena Kern
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Jewish Pugilist
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Re: It can happen to anyone (TW: Assault)

Post by Jewish Pugilist »

Idk if this is the right place to post, but this brought back a semi-buried memory of a woman in the QB scene pressuring me at my first event outside of UCF QB practice to cuddle with her since I said I didn't know how (I was 18 she was in her mid 30s I believe.) I believe I did it probably for some dumb reason like fitting in. I remember fellow quiz bowlers/roommates over the years mentioning how weird that was and I always made light of it, saying it was not a big deal. In hindsight, it was not cool at all and definitely like to thank people in UCF QB (besides her) for being so welcoming and kind, because I easily could have left after that incident

That person would go on to do other, questionable things to men in the QB scene but luckily she is no longer in our scene for many years now. I wouldn't call what I had trauma, but it did give me chills remembering that incident. Thanks to Eric for sharing his experience above too and starting this discussion
Peter Torres
University of Central Florida 2014-2019
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Re: It can happen to anyone (TW: Assault)

Post by alexdz »

This serves as a reminder that no one is completely immune from unwanted sexual/romantic attention. Like women, LGBTQ+ folks also show statistically higher rates.
Alex Dzurick
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