
The first time I was touched in a way that made my skin crawl was when I was five years old. I never really felt my body was anything more than my body before that. It helped me walk, run, reach for food and carried me up the stairs. I’d never given much thought about my body being something for someone or something else so when I was touched in a way that made me freeze from shock, it changed me forever.
It’s taken me a long time to write this. Even when I wrote that paragraph above I left my laptop to just leave the screen. I don’t like to write about trauma. I don’t like to trudge through shit to get to the light
Except. That’s exactly what I’m going to do.
As much as I could drag you and myself through the experiences that have scarred me, I’m actually going to tell you about events that happened this weekend that held me up. That made me feel way less alone than I’ve felt in years.
On Friday, I had to take my car to my mechanic in my old neighbourhood in West Molesey. If you didn’t know, I lived in a guardianship there with a group of really disturbed people. Drug addicts, nascissists, you name it. I had an enormous anxiety attack before going which resulted in taking two hours to leave the damn house.
I finally arrive and meet my mechanics who I love. Not because they’re fixing my car and really help me out but because they’re not creepy. They don’t make sexual jokes at me. They don’t talk over me or leave me out of conversations about my own car. They actually got me fixing my own car and taught me how to maintain it myself. My hands became black from oil and my dress got covered in dust.
It was marvellous.
As I drove to my boyfriend’s it struck me that spending time with them and garnering knowledge had made me more calm than I’ve felt in months. I actually contemplated signing onto a mechanic course. I felt so good.
Later that night I joined a stag/hen do with some friends and we ended up in a nearly empty pub. In the corner of the place was a piano. I asked if there was a band on tonight and the bar person said no but I was welcome to play. So I did.
I’m not a great piano player but I can read chords and work things out by ear so the bride-to-be requested a few songs to which I played and they sang along. After a couple of songs an older man (Man 1) who had been sitting with his friend came up behind us and began singing a song over the song we were playing (same chords, different song scenario). So, we began singing along with him.
When I began to play again the bar person came up to me and told me that someone at the var had complained and wanted us to stop (the pub was nearly empty – WE were the biggest party there). When I asked who, he pointed to the man who had sung with us.
When I walked past the man who had complained and his friend (Man 2) turned to me from their conversation to stop me from getting back to the piano by saying to “stop my nonsense”. I said “Well, we were just celebrating their engagement but I’m sure there’s great music on the speakers here”. Instead of dropping it, Man 1 said to me “Yeah, well, I’m a musician and there’s a difference between tinkering on the piano and being paid to play, yeah? I get paid to play here every two weeks”. I immediately said, “Well, that’s the difference between you and me then isn’t it? I get paid to play and I also play when I want cause it makes me happy to make others happy. You can be both, mate”. When Man 2 tried to interrupt me I then said “You just get back to your scintillating conversation, mate. I’m sure it’s riveting. Bye”.
What surprised me was my groups reaction. They were all livid on my behalf. My boyfriend started going red in the face and wanted to approach the men but we both knew that wouldn’t do any good.
When we went outside to cool off (I was shaking from the adrenaline) one of my boyfriends friends came out with us and said, “Look, this happens cause you’re a woman and you know it. It’s cause you’re talented and you have the courage to just go play a piano in an empty pub”. Then he turned to my boyfriend who was still steaming mad and said, “Mate, that guy in there is a loser who has to parade his pub playing status. It’s cause she’s a woman but look how she held her own. She’s doing it right, mate”.
I’ll be honest with you. People. I’ve never felt more seen and supported by a bunch of humans. I’ve never had a boyfriend who’s witnessed me be treated like that and get so angry and upset. I’ve usually been told I’m making a big deal out of nothing.
I couldn’t and still can’t believe that two years ago, the tables would have been turned. I would’ve been told by my ex to “keep quiet” and that I “invite” this drama to my life. Friends would have told me that “that’s just the way it is” while staying silent as the men berated me. None of the people I was with stayed silent as I spoke back to these men who couldn’t just stay quiet. Some members of the group also told them to go back to enjoying their drinks and leave us alone. It felt powerful.
I’ve realised that…people who make you feel safe make all the difference in the world. People who have your back and see the injustice right away reinforces the fact that you can make a difference, you can make change happen when people band together.
I barely knew this group of people. They barely know me but they saw immediately that those two men were out of turn. Not one person thought otherwise. It was a shock to the system.
Earlier on being with those mechanics and just enjoying tinkering away on my car was because they made me feel seen and safe and I’ve recently been made to feel very unsafe…which made those two events all the more sweeter.
I had a friend who works in music as a tour manager and stage manager who I’ve known for a few years. They got me a couple of jobs with them which I loved. I definitely have a flare for being organised and physically active. I truly felt this man, who is 15 years older than me, saw me as a human who worked damn hard. They supported me when I was sexually assaulted in a guardianship, they helped me construct emails to the company I lived with when I was being harassed by a guardian in West Molesey. I let them sleep at my flat for free when we worked on a stage managing job in the area. I drove them to wales in my car when we worked a festival.
When I moved out of the horrid place at West Molesey and to west London, I found a great housemate, good new friends I could see. I was doing more work around stage and not just performing (which honestly, every musician should do. It really puts things in perspective) and it really felt…things were elevating up.
In January my friend asked me to have sex with him. Behind his partner’s back. He also said if I said no he would still give me jobs and would make good on the jobs he had already offered. that included vocal recordings and being booked to do an album for an artist. It’s good to put that in so you can’t be accused of having insidious intentions, right?
I read the message and immediately wanted to vomit. I thought it was a joke. I read the huge text where he tried to justify him asking by claiming it was because we were friends, he needed more exercise and his doctor recommended it. That we “got each other” and “I think it would be really nice”.
I want to make it clear that he didn’t tell me he fancied me, or liked me, or mentioned me at all in fact. It was a huge text about him and his needs and his desires and his justifications on why it was ok to ask me to have sex with him. I don’t know what’s more shit, but being seen as a sexual object and him having literally no perspective on how it would’ve made me feel made me so fucking sad. The guy knew I’d been assaulted while I knew him. He knows it’s not the first time I’ve been assaulted. He knows I have no family unit that looks out for me. He knows I’ve had therapy to deal with a lot of trauma. He knows.
And still…did what most men do. Put their ego first.
I said no and informed him that if he meant what he said about the jobs, I’d like the details. He of course said so and again sent a long message justifying his reasoning for asking for sex, none of it about me by the way. All for him.
The reason this was awkward to write was because I was worried he’d turn nasty. He used to host my website which I’ve now taken back. He offered to help me with my music two years ago and he did. He helped me enormously which is why I don’t know why he decided to fuck up a friendship for asking for something that quite frankly, he could ask his partner for.
Part of me feels like he did it because I’m not well-known. He certainly doesn’t treat signed artists like Jade Bird, who he recently worked with like this. Perhaps because I’m unknown or he believes I’ll never become “big enough” to ever taint his rep by talking about what he did.
Later on he asked me about a job where I’d be learning to be a guitar tech and shadow him on this job. I was sick the month before and couldn’t afford to take the time off. I explained this and said if there was an opportunity to do paid work I’d be able to take the time off work to do it.
His reaction was “Wow, really?!” and went on to say that he wasn’t offering me unpaid work, he was “offering to pass in-demand skills and knowledge”.
Yeah. It’s still unpaid so I reiterated that I was very interested but couldn’t work for free at that time.
He responded “I tried to help. You’re clearly not interested…I was offering MY time (and knowledge + skills) for free to you. I will not in the future”.
I replied saying I couldn’t understand his anger and hoped he had a good gig.
Of course we understand his anger. He’s embarrassed that I rejected him and for someone who knows what it’s like to try and earn and get by, he essentially offered me to work four days completely unpaid because his skills alone are worth me not being able to pay rent and HOW DARE I SAY I NEED MONEY TO LIVE??
“I’M TRYING TO BE NICE TO YOU, EMILY AND YOU’RE MAKING IT DIFFICULT WHEN YOU DON’T ACCEPT MY INCREDIBLY GENEROUS OFFER!!”
We get it.
After that…I realised he’d gone and done what I usually do. He’d burnt that bridge down.
So that’s why I can write about it. Cause seriously, what can he do? So, he’ll bad mouth me to his “contacts”. I don’t want to work with men who abuse their power by asking for sex from their colleagues.
I don’t want to work with men or women who condone, enable or brush away this behaviour.
I’ll be nervous about posting this but I also know that this is going to set me free.
I had a gig recently where I spoke about this experience on stage and a man came up to me afterwrads and jookingly said “Will you have sex with me?”.
He went on to find me a gig and message me inviting me out (oh, men, when will you listen?).
At the gig I was talking to two audience members during my break and this man came up, put his arm around my neck (oh god, the covid alarm) and said, “Yeah, I met Emily when I asked her for sex at her last gig” and me being me I responded “Yeah, and he never got it and that’s why he won’t stop fucking go on about it”, to which this man removed his arm and said “Fuck off”.
My boyfriend was at that gig and didn’t see that interaction but did see that same said man singing my praises outside to people in the pub before we had that moment.
I get told by people, even friends “I don’t know why this happens to you/I don’t know where you find these people”, which I’m going to lay down right now, annoys the fuck out of me. Please stop saying that shit to people.
Here’s why:
A) No one gets to pick the external events in their life. We make decisions based on learned experience and as much as I was not given a healthy, constructive upbringing and taught the tools necessary to counter attack trauma, I went to therapy and still remain curious and I’m a damn quick learner. You won’t find anyone quicker than me who can learn what’s good for them. If someone wants to be abusive or shitty to someone, that’s on them and making it about the person who is being subjected to shit by other people is AGAIN enabling abusive behaviour. The world is rough cause we made it that way, so it stands to reason that we can make it better by addressing it directly, not through the bodies that have been shot in the firing line.
B) This happens to me a lot because I’m not the archetypal woman that the majority of society believe I should be. I’m confident, I’m expressive, I don’t like fading into the background, especially when it comes to music. I’m curious, I’m brave, I make big decisions, I take risks and I do it completely on my own. I don’t have a constant family unit or even that many friends who live nearby. This shit happens to women who push outside the boxes others are constantly trying to shove them in because ultimately, we don’t like women like that. I do, by the way. Women like that are fucking glorious. And until I meet more women like me, I’ll continue to work towards being the blueprint of the woman I want to be.
I’m forever grateful for Instagram for connecting me to women who are fucking suffering in their own ways and pushing through it to do their joy. I’m awed by the stories people have told me about them. I’m blown away by the increase of men in my DM’s who are genuinely supportive and have witnessed my transitional stages in life over nearly 10 years and they’re still with me.
So fuck no, I’m not going to let other people’s projections fuck me up or throw rocks on my path.
I’ve always said my mother was the most terrifying figure in my life and if my own mother couldn’t fuck me up, no one else is going to either. Not one or two and not a crowd of them. No way. Pain comes back around but always to a tougher skin and like I said, I’m a quick learner.
Right now I’m concentrating on finding a job so I can be excited to earn money again and push it into my music. I want to be kind to myself and be kind to my music. For too long it’s been something I use as a trauma response and it deserves more than that. I deserve more than that.
I will say that two men who stood up for me on Friday night are playing with me at Hanwell Hootie.
I’ve been raging quietly to myself for months and I finally feel ready to roar.
Thanks for reading and always, thanks for being here. I love you all very much xxx