On a Shockingly Casual Case of Sexual Assault

On a spring day in recent memory, I was strolling up Ninth Avenue alone, after leaving a bistro lunch with a gentleman caller and my soon-to-finish-N.Y.U.

在最近记忆中的一个春日，我独自一人沿着第九大道漫步，与一位来电的绅士和我即将毕业的纽约大学的小酒馆午餐结束后。

son.

儿子。

It was sunny but not yet steaming.

天气晴朗，但尚未冒热气。

Businessmen had their ties tugged loose or suit jackets slung over their shoulders.

商人把领带拉得松松的，或者把西装外套披在肩上。

There were floral frocks and filmy blouses among the adorably pierced and punked-out goths of Hell’s Kitchen.

地狱厨房里有可爱的穿孔和朋克风格的哥特人，其中有花卉连衣裙和薄纱衬衫。

I could almost feel the financial yoke of my son’s college tuition slipping off my neck.

我几乎可以感觉到儿子大学学费的经济束缚从我的脖子上滑落。

Then an approaching guy chatting equably with a tall friend dodged at me to grab my crotch.

然后，一个正在和一个高个子朋友平静地聊天的家伙走近，躲到我身边，抓住我的胯部。

I don’t mean brushed by it maybe accidentally; I mean he grabbed between my legs with a meaty claw, big as a waffle iron.

我的意思并不是说可能不小心被它擦过；而是说。我的意思是，他用一只像华夫饼烤盘一样大的肉爪抓住我的两腿之间。

He also called me the C-word with breath that stank of beer.

他还叫我“C”字，带着啤酒味。

Then he passed on into a sandwich shop with his buddy.

然后他和他的伙伴一起走进了一家三明治店。

He wore a royal-blue plaid short-sleeve shirt you might find in a J.

他穿着一件宝蓝色格子短袖衬衫，你可能会在 J.

Crew ad, nicely hemmed jean shorts, and pricey sneakers.

圆领广告、镶边精美的牛仔短裤和昂贵的运动鞋。

He was half my age and twice my weight and had the wide, muscled form cultivated by Equinox aficionados.

他的年龄是我的一半，体重是我的两倍，拥有春分爱好者所培养的宽大、肌肉发达的体型。

Translation: he wasn’t dope sick or a flat-out loon.

翻译：他并没有吸毒，也不是一个彻头彻尾的疯子。

In case you haven’t been on the receiving end of this sort of assault, you should know the primal physiological response it evokes—in this woman, anyway.

如果你没有遭受过这种攻击，你应该知道它所引起的原始生理反应——无论如何，在这个女人身上。

The stomach drops, as if you’ve been shoved backward from a skyscraper and are flailing through space.

胃部下垂，就好像你被从摩天大楼上向后推，并在太空中翻滚。

Time dismantles.

时间会消解。

There are more frames per second, and people’s facial features become very specific.

每秒的帧数更多，人们的面部特征变得非常具体。

This guy had a squashed-down forehead, wide-set eyes, and heavy but neatly waxed brows.

这家伙额头凹陷，眼睛睁得大大的，眉毛浓密却整齐。

Cops later told me my description was uncannily detailed—the result, I think, of the kind of change in perception post-traumatic-stress experts call “hypervigilance.” The reptilian area of the brain jolts you either to do battle or to bolt.

警察后来告诉我，我的描述异常详细——我认为，这是创伤后压力专家所说的“过度警惕”的认知变化的结果。大脑的爬虫类区域会震动你，要么战斗，要么逃跑。

Adrenaline and cortisol juice through you like a hit of meth, so you might find yourself still up and jittery at 4 A.M.

肾上腺素和皮质醇就像吸了冰毒一样涌入你的体内，所以你可能会发现自己在凌晨 4 点仍然睡不着，而且神经兮兮。

(maybe even watching something as god-awful as “Waterworld,” the way I later did).

（也许甚至会像我后来那样看一些像“水世界”这样可怕的东西）。

I stood outside the doorway of the sandwich shop—pulse pounding in my ears, my heart doing mule kicks in my chest.

我站在三明治店门口——耳边的脉搏在跳动，我的心在胸口剧烈地跳动。

Inside, the Grabber, as I thought of him, was waiting in line to order a sandwich.

在里面，抢夺者，正如我所想象的那样，正在排队等候订购三明治。

He was fine; I was the one with the problem.

他很好；他很好。我就是那个有问题的人。

Shame hit, a cold backwash of elemental shame: something bad had been done to me; therefore I was bad.

羞耻感袭来，基本羞耻感的冰冷反流：我做了坏事；所以我很糟糕。

Even though I knew better, I started scanning for how I’d incited this.

尽管我知道得更清楚，但我开始审视自己是如何煽动这件事的。

Pedestrians glided past.

行人从身边掠过。

A sandwich was being made.

正在制作三明治。

I took stock of what I had on: in some ways, I wish I had been wearing booty shorts and Lucite heels and prissing past the Port Authority Bus Terminal holding my décolletage in my hands and saying “hubba hubba.” I should be able to dress that way if the urge possesses me.

我盘点了一下自己的着装：在某种程度上，我希望自己穿着紧身短裤和有机玻璃高跟鞋，手里拿着我的低胸装，穿过港务局巴士总站，嘴里喊着“哈巴哈巴”。如果我有这种冲动，我应该能够穿成那样。

Instead, I was wearing a modest dress and platform slides with big cork soles to save the feet from pounding concrete.

相反，我穿着朴素的连衣裙和带有大软木鞋底的厚底拖鞋，以免双脚受到混凝土的撞击。

For an instant, the shoes looked radiantly slutty, the old-maid equivalent of dominatrix spikes.

有一瞬间，这双鞋显得光彩夺目，放荡不羁，相当于老处女的施虐狂尖刺。

I was drenched in sweat, and part of me wanted to bolt the two blocks to my apartment, scramble up the stairs, double-latch the door, and crawl behind some heavy furniture.

我浑身是汗，心里有些想把这两块楼用螺栓固定在我的公寓上，爬上楼梯，锁上门，爬到一些笨重的家具后面。

But inside all that noise in my head, some space bar got hit, and a moment of quiet opened up.

但在我脑子里的所有噪音中，按下了某个空格键，片刻的安静开始了。

One good side effect of a childhood as chaotic as my own is that I’ve worked up habits that can pay off in the middle of a butt-whipping.

像我一样混乱的童年的一个好处是，我养成了一些习惯，这些习惯可以在鞭打屁股的过程中得到回报。

(I take twenty minutes of silence morning and night, and I see a therapist.) While the Grabber paid for his tidily wrapped sandwich, I noticed all the young women passing by—some, yes, in booty shorts, and with bodacious tatas—and I thought, If this sick bastard will do this to me in broad daylight, what’s he doing to these young’uns at 3 A.M.

（我早晚都会安静二十分钟，然后去看治疗师。）当抢夺者为他包装整齐的三明治付钱时，我注意到所有经过的年轻女性——是的，有些穿着短裤，有着大胆的塔塔——我想，如果这个恶心的混蛋在光天化日之下对我做这种事，那么他在凌晨 3 点对这些年轻人做了什么？

?

？

My mind shuffled through the myriad times that run-ins like this had happened before.

我的脑海中闪过无数次类似的冲突。

Then I came to and shouted from the doorway, “Not today!

然后我醒过来，在门口喊道：“今天不行！

Not this bitch!

不是这个贱人！

You picked the wrong woman to fuck with today!”

你今天找错女人了！”

The counter guy, bills in hand, craned around the line to see the madwoman outside.

柜台人员手里拿着钞票，伸长脖子绕过队伍，看到外面那个疯女人。

As the Grabber half-turned, the size of him shocked me and I backed away farther, to the other side of a parking meter, where my eyes could still shoot flying cartoon daggers at his broad back, albeit with some yardage between us.

当抓斗者半转时，他的体型让我震惊，我退得更远，到了停车计时器的另一边，在那里我的眼睛仍然可以在他宽阔的背上射出飞舞的卡通匕首，尽管我们之间有一些距离。

Then a voice rose from the sidewalk.

然后一个声音从人行道上响起。

“What’d he do?” It was a man on a rectangle of cardboard you might normally step around.

“他做了什么？”这是一个坐在一块长方形纸板上的人，你通常会在上面走来走去。

“He grabbed”—polite words didn’t seem fierce enough, and the gross ones struck me as obscene—“my private zone!” This was the name my kid’s grade-school teacher had used for any area covered by a bathing suit: private zone .

“他抢走了”——礼貌用语似乎不够激烈，粗俗的话让我觉得下流——“我的私人区域！”这是我孩子的小学老师对任何被泳衣覆盖的区域使用的名称：私人区域。

So many guys might shrug it off: What’s the big deal?

很多人可能会耸耸肩：有什么大不了的？

This one jutted his jaw out, saying, “He cain’t do that” with such fire that I started dialing 911.

这个人张大了下巴，怒气冲冲地说：“他不能这么做”，我开始拨打 911。

In a moment, I was on with a police dispatcher, describing the Grabber as he got his change and hustled out of the shop with his friend.

一会儿，我就和一名警察调度员聊了起来，描述了抢匪拿到零钱并和他的朋友一起冲出商店的情景。

They ignored me and started to get away, walking fast toward the bus station.

他们不理我，开始走开，快步朝公交车站走去。

My new friend on the cardboard said, “Go, go, go!” and I started to trot.

我在纸板上的新朋友说：“走，走，走！”我开始小跑。

They broke into a sprint, outpacing me right off.

他们全速冲刺，立刻超过了我。

Around Forty-first Street, a cop car pulled up, and I hopped in and recounted it all as they peeled out like they do on “Law & Order.” The female officer riding shotgun radioed the description I gave her to other cops, who nabbed him and hauled him, handcuffed, before me outside the Port Authority.

在四十一街附近，一辆警车停了下来，我跳上车，讲述了这一切，就像《法律与秩序》中的那样。那位骑着猎枪的女警官通过无线电将我对她的描述告诉了其他警察，他们抓住了他，并把他戴上手铐拖到了港务局外面。

“That’s him!” I said.

“就是他！”我说。

He was blank-eyed, as if this whole thing were happening to somebody else.

他眼神空洞，仿佛这一切都发生在别人身上。

His buddy was amped up, though, claiming his friend hadn’t done anything.

不过，他的朋友却很兴奋，声称他的朋友什么也没做。

I shot back that that was horse hockey—yes, he had—and the buddy walked off as an officer put the Grabber in the back of a cruiser.

我反驳说那是马术曲棍球——是的，他打过——当一名军官把抓取器放在巡洋舰的后面时，那个伙伴走开了。

En route to the station, the female officer looked back through the cage: Did I need counselling?

去车站的路上，女警官透过笼子回头看：我需要辅导吗？

I told her I’d had enough counselling to chase the sucker up Ninth Avenue.

我告诉她我已经接受了足够多的咨询，可以沿着第九大道追赶这个混蛋。

I only wanted to press charges.

我只是想提出指控。

I filed a report.

我提交了一份报告。

Later they told me the guy was a thirty-something from Jersey.

后来他们告诉我那家伙是泽西岛的三十多岁的人。

He had a light rap sheet with no record of sexual assault.

他有轻微的前科，没有性侵犯记录。

Nobody ever called me to court, but the cops had cuffed him, dragged him out of the bus station, and booked him.

从来没有人叫我去法庭，但警察给他戴上手铐，把他拖出公交车站，并给他登记。

A woman should be able to count on follow-through from the justice system—they’d eventually fail to charge him—but at least he spent a night at Rikers.

一个女人应该能够指望司法系统采取后续行动——他们最终不会起诉他——但至少他在赖克斯度过了一晚。

At the time, I felt somewhat vindicated.

当时我就觉得有些平实了。

For days after, I kept chewing on what thrill the Grabber got from his move.

之后的几天里，我一直在思考抢夺者从他的举动中得到的兴奋。

It just won’t translate to my gender.

它只是不能转化为我的性别。

There are plenty of guys I might fancy kissing on the mouth, but to grab a passing one in the crotch and say, nice package ?

我可能喜欢亲吻很多男人的嘴，但抓住路过的男人的胯部并说，漂亮的包裹？

One pal joked, “Oh, yeah, try it,” suggesting that, for men, any sexual overture is welcome.

一位朋友开玩笑说，“哦，是的，试试吧”，这表明，对于男人来说，任何性暗示都是受欢迎的。

I asked how he’d feel if a fellow weighing three-forty cornered him somewhere isolated and manhandled him.

我问如果一个三四十岁的人把他逼到一个偏僻的角落并粗暴地对待他，他会有什么感觉。

Suddenly this struck him as way more sinister.

突然间，他觉得这件事更加险恶了。

Statistics show that nearly twenty per cent of women in the U.S. have been raped at some point in their lives, and around forty-four per cent of women have reported some other kind of sexual violence.

统计数据显示，近 20% 的美国女性在一生中的某个阶段曾被强奸，大约 44% 的女性曾报告过其他类型的性暴力。

But I suspect that the figure is more like a hundred per cent for women who will have endured things many men might consider minor—an unwelcome penis pressed against your leg at a party; being humped at the water cooler; being fondled, lunged at, felt up, squeezed, rubbed against.

但我怀疑这个数字对于女性来说更像是100%，她们会忍受许多男人可能认为微不足道的事情——在聚会上不受欢迎的阴茎压在你的腿上；在饮水机前驼背；被抚摸、猛扑、摸摸、挤压、摩擦。

Verbal assaults few try to count.

很少有人试图统计言语攻击的次数。

I’m glad to have aged out of the days when every street worker or blunt-puffing idler was part of a masculine gantlet I had to clear.

我很高兴自己已经摆脱了这样的时代：每个街头工人或直率的闲人都是我必须清除的男性威胁的一部分。

Since ending a ten-year relationship this fall, I’ve been subject to several gropings and gross jibes of the type you’d expect behind a junior-high gym dance, and they’ve been delivered by grownups, putative pals, not one of whom I even dimly considered getting jiggy with.

自从今年秋天结束了一段长达十年的恋情以来，我曾遭受过几次猥亵和粗鄙的嘲笑，就像你在初中体操舞后所期待的那样，这些都是由成年人、所谓的朋友提供的，而我什至没有想过要和他们一起跳舞。

Did they think that coarsely describing some body part or restraining me in locked arms or bending me over furniture would help to bed me?

他们是否认为粗俗地描述身体的某个部位，或者用双臂锁住我，或者把我压在家具上会有助于让我上床睡觉？

A few tried to say that at my age I should be flattered.

有些人试图说，在我这个年纪，我应该感到受宠若惊。

Not all offenses hurt the same way.

并非所有的冒犯都会以同样的方式造成伤害。

Crude cracks seldom overwhelm the way a physical attack can.

粗暴的裂缝很少能像物理攻击那样压倒一切。

Nor are the sloppy lunges of somebody at a well-lit party as intimidating as some random dude grabbing you in an alley.

在灯光明亮的聚会上，某个人草率的冲刺也不像在小巷里某个随机的家伙抓住你那样令人生畏。

One girlfriend of mine had a stranger in a first-class cabin turn his computer to show her snakes coming out of a woman’s private zone.

我的一个女朋友让头等舱里的一个陌生人打开他的电脑，让她看到蛇从女人的私人区域出来。

It deeply upset her.

这让她深感不安。

“Some things you just can’t unsee.” At a Thanksgiving dinner where I hosted my son and his fiancée, a boorish guest showed everybody smartphone shots he’d taken of a woman’s breasts.

“有些事情你就是无法忽视。”在一次感恩节晚宴上，我招待了我的儿子和他的未婚妻，一位粗鲁的客人向大家展示了他用智能手机拍摄的女性胸部照片。

(I told him that if I wanted to look at boobs, I’d go to a titty bar.) The point is: even a boundary violation mild enough to invoke nudges and winks among less sympathetic people can leave you feeling slimy.

（我告诉他，如果我想看胸部，我会去奶吧。）关键是：即使是轻微的边界侵犯，足以引起不太有同情心的人的轻推和眨眼，也会让你感到粘糊糊的。

Underlying all these actions exists the apparently unshakable tenet that any expression of male sexuality is somehow normal and every man’s right, whether or not a woman on the receiving end is repulsed or upset by it.

在所有这些行为的背后，存在着一个明显不可动摇的原则，即男性性欲的任何表达在某种程度上都是正常的，是每个男人的权利，无论接收端的女性是否对此感到排斥或不安。

All of us—male and female—envision all manner of erotic encounters without acting them out.

我们所有人——无论男性还是女性——都会想象各种形式的性爱遭遇，但不会付诸行动。

But many of my male friends brush aside the behaviors that women find truly scary, the kind we know from experience can be the prelude to a nasty or even dangerous run-in.

但我的许多男性朋友对女性认为真正可怕的行为不予理睬，我们从经验中知道，这种行为可能是令人讨厌甚至危险的冲突的前奏。

And something in the repetition of these behaviors—and in the culture’s blindness to the insult—wires itself into your body fibres and instills a debilitating sense that you’re not quite safe walking around.

这些行为的重复以及文化对侮辱的盲目性中的某些东西会融入你的身体纤维，并逐渐灌输一种使人衰弱的感觉，让你觉得自己走来走去不太安全。

My therapist—less a how-do-you-feel-about-that nodder than a wry commenter on my human comedy—didn’t argue with my estimate that all women have been to some degree sexually assaulted (as she was, as every one of her female patients over thirty-plus years has been).

我的治疗师——与其说是一个“你感觉如何”的点头者，不如说是一个对我的人类喜剧进行讽刺的评论者——并没有与我的估计争论，即所有女性都受到过某种程度的性侵犯（就像她一样，就像她三十多年来的每一位女性患者一样）。

“It’s nothing you’re doing, ” she said, adding that guys who force themselves on ninety-year-olds don’t target them for how hot they are but for how easily overpowered.

“这不是你在做的事，”她说，并补充说，那些强迫九十岁老人做事的人并不是因为他们有多性感，而是因为他们很容易被压倒。

My own pet opinion is that the guys who make creepy comments on the street or grab you or constantly seek to reassert sexual possibilities in ways that make you uncomfortable aren’t just oafs.

我个人的观点是，那些在街上发表令人毛骨悚然的评论、抓住你或不断地以让你不舒服的方式重申性可能性的人不仅仅是傻瓜。

They seem to get a perverse thrill from mortifying you.

他们似乎会因为羞辱你而获得一种反常的快感。

That’s why I chased the Grabber down.

这就是我追击掠夺者的原因。

It bothers me to say that it took a man’s urging to give me the gumption.

令我困扰的是，需要一个男人的催促才给我勇气。

Still, I’ve often wanted to find that guy living on a piece of cardboard, to thank him.

尽管如此，我还是经常想找到那个生活在一块纸板上的人，以感谢他。

Letter from South Carolina The Corrupt World Behind the Murdaugh Murders In isolated, poor regions of South Carolina, coming from an élite family offered a feeling of impunity.

来自南卡罗来纳州的信 默多谋杀案背后的腐败世界 在南卡罗来纳州偏僻、贫困的地区，来自精英家庭的人给人一种有罪不罚的感觉。

Did this license lead Alex Murdaugh to commit fraud after fraud—and then kill his wife and son?

这张许可证是否导致亚历克斯·默多（Alex Murdaugh）犯下一次又一次的欺诈行为，然后杀死了他的妻子和儿子？

By James Lasdun

詹姆斯·拉斯敦

Daily Shouts I’m Thrilled to Announce That Nothing Is Going On with Me My life revolves around the half-dozen things that comfort me, and nothing more.

每日大喊 我很高兴地宣布我一事无成 我的生活围绕着六件安慰我的事情，仅此而已。

I think I’m just wired that way.

我想我就是这样的。

By Alex Baia

亚历克斯·拜亚