Perpetration in perpetuity.

The video is shaky and blurry. It’s hard to make out what is going on at first. The anonymous cameraman focuses and  then you see the crowd of men milling around her. A mass of “stronger than her” male force united in one common goal. And the last of her clothes, this flimsy shield that cannot stand to the force of this “stronger than her” mob, her one barrier- is torn away.  Her body, private when she left home, is now public by force. A public viewing for anyone that has the muscle and the mob force to want to partake of it. And take it they do. Violently.  

And the camera man films on.  Sounds of her terror and the glee of the mob mix. A sound that strikes pure fear into the  heart. Because, those two sounds in conjunction, herald nothing that’s ever been good for womenfolk.  They are the precursors of the bogeyman, the rapists, and the plunderers. That’s the sound Impunity makes when it’s having a bloody good day.  This sound: female terror  mixed with male glee.  Fear of this sound passed on through our genetic memory.  A collective unconscious knowledge that we were born with, and that from infancy to death, is reinforced and transmitted to us in a million and one lessons that we are taught everyday of how it feels to be prey. To be predated on.  

The video comes to an abrupt end.  She has been able to roll under a bus that was parked nearby, and the video cuts with someone exhorting someone to “…Move the bus!! Move the bus!”. He doesn’t want his fun to end!  I am shaking and scared. Even in the sanctuary that I have made my home. I have just witnessed a sexual assault. 

And I look at the view counter. “This video has been viewed 834 times”. This moment of when the crime was committed against her has been replayed for the voyeuristic eyes of 833 people. And me. I have participated in the continuation of her assault. An assault that lives on, easily shared in a plethora of online videos.

Perpetration in perpetuity.