Mixed Signals Are Not A Thing, You're Just a F*cking Creep
The call-outs of abusers are becoming more random, more frequent and less of an event these days. You would think by now, there would be some sort of visible headway into how sexual harassment and assault issues are addressed since these cases involving sexual violence have gained more public attention in recent years. But in the same way, naming and shaming have become routine — since the justice system has proven ineffective — the reactions that follow are now a kind of normal.
First comes the accusation of a somewhat influential personality, the revelation of other alleged abusers detailed through the accounts of the victims and customarily, defensive statements, empty ’apologies’ or threats of legal action, that mostly amount to suspects of sexual impropriety myopically trying to defend their integrity. In all cases, the accused and those who root for them always seem to gloss over why a behaviour deemed as sexual assault was reprehensible.
The accusation of Tope Akande (also known as Twitter user @T_homegas), for taking advantage of an unconscious woman spurred the latest wave of naming and shaming of sexual abusers on Nigerian Twitter. Damola Kolawole, a former HR professional at a construction company in Abuja was another alleged abuser whose name came up - screenshots detailing his conversations with women he'd encountered showed Damola using sexually aggressive tactics. Allegations against fast-rising comedian and actor, Gbolahan Olatunde (BollyLomo), also came via multiple accounts describing how he’d try to get women intoxicated, or perform lurid, often traumatising sexual acts against their will. Beloved Nigerian alternative singer, Brymo was next on the chopping block. An anonymous screenshot described an encounter where Brymo suggested the only way his accuser would escape a full-blown assault was if she switched places with her friend who was also present. In the end, she gave in to his demands to spare her friend.
At the start of the #MeToo era, many cases involved victims who didn’t have total control over their consciousness and (or) situation, and abusers who claimed to be oblivious of the limits of consent. Where the chips fall, is in the pattern through which the abusers committed their crimes, by often circumstantially side-stepping clearly defined non-erotic boundaries. Tope Akande and Damola Kolawole, typify this set because in their rebuttal statements, they blamed convoluted signals as the leading cause of their actions. This is an old wives’s tale, but even in 2020 they are not alone in their thinking.
Many men blame the context surrounding assault as the cause of their action. Tope Akande’s defence was that he misunderstood the dynamics of the encounter and only vaguely remembers how the night played out due to intoxication. Damola’s rebuttal to his allegations is that he’d merely made advances that he retreated from as soon as he realised he had overstepped. (Even though, his accusers insist he repeatedly requested for sex and suggested physical intimacy, after they vocally rebuffed his advances with the same consistency)
Men who have power or a degree of influence are even more likely to interpret a victim’s non-violent reaction for a twisted kind of begrudging consent (even though that in itself is already so fucked up). Multiple women who reported being assaulted by celebrity figures when the #MeToo era started, felt the need to remain cordial with their abusers because they didn’t know what the repercussions would be. This sums up the cases of Brymo and BollyLomo. In one victim’s account of her experience with Bollylomo, he chased her around her house, while plying her with compliments and insisting on having sex with her. When she declined him at every turn, he eventually masturbated in her presence, flipped her on her stomach and ejaculated on her body.
Growing up, my mum used to tell me the burden of knowing better is doing better. I turn 25 later this month and for as long as I can remember, having older friends in both professional and social settings has always meant contending with the possibility that the differences in perspectives on how to treat women are largely generational. At the same time, I live with a sense of guilt when gender roles are in conversation, despite also sharing the —albeit uncomfortable—laughs.
The naming of Brymo made the recent wave of sexual harassment personal for me because I have spent a considerable amount of time around him. We have mutual friends, and we both share a love for music. At first impression, he’s very knowledgeable, enjoys a good debate, and knows how to engage an audience. Where his charisma falls off, is his views on gender roles. At best, he ascribes to philosophical notions of divinity and respect for womenfolk, at his worst, he’d revel in the perks of being famous, while publicly engaging friend-circles at art parties in ‘grab-em-by-the-pussy’ locker-room style banter.
Again, at the risk of pre-positioning Gen-Z men as myself, for any kind of self-serving satisfaction of knowing better, I will also admit that as a teenager, I understood the world differently. I doubt any boy can say for sure who first suggested the idea of ‘tapping current’ as a way of sleazily and inappropriately touching close prepubescent female classmates and friends, but I can say for sure that these antics were normalised as young as 9 for most male children. Games like ‘spin-the-bottle’ and ‘truth or dare’, gave many boys their first sexual encounters in high-school, and by age 15, most of us boys already knew about introducing alcohol to make women ‘loosen’ up.
All of this would also suggest that for many women, the socialisation of self-conservation and fighting for their bodies not to be treated as objects began around the same time — even around people they should’ve trusted. False complexities and allusions to mixed signals also makes seeking justice for gender violations and sexual offences in a patriarchal world so difficult, because it creates room for victim-blaming. This is why rebuttals of sexual assault accusations that blame alchohol, or defensively suggest vaguely defined power dynamics around sexual coercion and rape will never make sense — the boundaries were barely there in the first place, regardless of the circumstance.
Amongst the many unwarranted fears that have accompanied male tears about the extremism of name and shame culture, has been the fear of what the New Yorker’s Masha Gessen dubs a “misplaced scale” that equates violent assault like rape with behaviours considered as “minor” infractions. As a result, a lot of young men are morosely more concerned with not being labelled as perpetrators than actually educating themselves on what counts as assault or not. Consent aside, denying women the agency to the right to choose, who they want to be with and how is just as damaging as viewing them as sex objects. Mixed signals are not a thing, because on the flip-side of this line of thinking is often a regressive attempt to sexually infantilise women as history has always done.
There’s still a lot for heteronormative men to learn and un-learn in relation to sexual relationships, because, perpetrators of abuse on women seem to roam free, without consequences. Last year, Chima Eyinnaiya George and his friend Segun Rasak, also known as DJ Rico, were arrested by the police as main suspects in a rape case, following an incident at De Lankanster Hotel owned by Chima’s family. Later that year during an interview, lifestyle photographer Bisola Dakolo revealed COZA head pastor, Biodun Fatoyinbo had raped her as a teenager, spurring a wave of protests. Today, all of these men walk free, even after their accusers pursued their allegations to the full extent of the law. In the larger society, many corporate environments still struggle to root sexism and abuse of power by men in positions of authority. The biggest victims of sexual violence are women in rural and low-income communities, who have been forced to normalise routine abuse, micro-aggressions and violence in their marriages.
A close friend recently so poignantly shared a common phrase in the fight to dismantle rape culture: “Every woman knows a victim, but no man knows a rapist”. Instead of being passive bystanders, the work to be done, is for us men to continue interrogating our accountability while consistently seeking new understanding, as it relates to the nuances of interpersonal relationships. This is not the time to be an ally in name only. The United Nation Women’s website lists 16 ways to help end rape culture, including promoting healthy enthusiastic consent, ‘speaking against root causes’, ‘redefining masculinity’, encouraging an intersectional approach to sexuality, ending victim-blaming, investing in women and more strategic ways to support the most vulnerable women to rape culture.
Perhaps, one thing that may come from women continuing to raise these issues would be an improved dating and hook-up culture amongst young people. The goal is to inspire a kinder world for women today, and generations of those coming after. Every time we speak a little louder, the clock turns a little bit more.
Credits:
Edited and Structured by Ayoade Zarah Bamgboye
Illustration collages abridged from works of Liberal Jane and Isabel Castillo Guijarro
