Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture

by Roxane Gay

I justified my lifestyle with my politics: I was independent, and independent women could fuck random men without remorse or judgment. I didn’t get attached either because I was a “cool girl.” I am literally fighting heteronormativity, I told my feminist self—my political identity carefully constructed around defying the norms of what was expected of a straightish single woman.

It’s not that I don’t want to love unharmed people; I just don’t understand them. The scales are all off, the proportions are wrong for when we talk about how something hurts. This is not a bad day at the office, this is not a breakup, this is not that time that someone really hurt your feelings. It is more like carrying something really heavy, forever. You do not get to put it down: you have to carry it, and so you carry it the way you need to, however it fits best.