Content warning: This piece contains references to sexual violence.

The night was loud and sepia yellow. I lounged by the nightclub entrance, a glowing cigarette tucked between my fingers, and took one parching breath after another. I inhaled, exhaled and expanded; I billowed in the crowded alley like the smoke that spilled from my lips. 

Such is the ambivalent memory I have of my first cigarette. I count it not only as a coming-of-age experience, but one that freed me from a period of debilitating fear. I spent the summer researching at a German university, and in those 12 weeks found blessings and trials. Among the latter was a series of violent, traumatic events.

My honeymoon phase was marked with round-eyed wonder at the German mundane. Ironically, I remember discussing with another Canadian-Indian intern how we had never been catcalled in Europe — “The men here are so much more respectful,” we agreed. Then, not even a week later, as we walked back from a night at the harbor, we had to almost run when a group of men started calling out and following us. That was after several instances of catcalling earlier that night.

“Can girls just breathe? Exist? Without fearing for their lives?” I wrote in my diary at five a.m. 

From there, it spiraled.

There was the man I met at a house party who followed me home and shouted my name outside my window at three a.m. Afraid he could see into my room, I turned off the lights and lay motionless as my phone rattled with his calls and texts. Weeks later, he saw me at a bar and followed me to my table. My friend and I sat rigidly, eyes down, as he drunkenly cursed and demanded to know why we were ignoring him. We were powerless to push past or force him to leave, and his companion had to manhandle him away.

There was the man who owned the grocery on my way to work and gave me his number. When I casually mentioned my father’s age, he interrupted me: “No, no, I don’t want to hear.” Later, he asked why I hadn’t texted him and mentioned going on a date. I changed my commute to avoid his store.

There were the catcalls, the “nihao’s” on the street. Men would fall silent as I walked by, and then mutter something in German to each other and burst out laughing. Unable to understand them, I grew more and more paranoid. Attempts to confide in others were extinguished by well-intentioned, but ultimately alienating dismissals: “That is so hard to believe,” “Muenster is so safe.”

Then there was the horrific incident. After a late night at lab, I stopped by a bar for drinks — stupid decision. As I sipped my daiquiri, I ignored the table of drunk, ogling men. One uncomfortable drink was enough. I got up to leave and didn’t realize they had followed me outside until a rough hand grabbed my arm.

“Nihao,” they slurred as they surrounded me. 

I have never felt weaker and more powerless, more violated than I did as I struggled to get their hands off my body. I tried to call for help, but I felt sick and dizzy. Hands on my waist, hands on my arms, trying to drag me somewhere. I thought I was going to die. I cracked. I started screaming and twisting, and somehow broke away. They were too drunk to give chase, and I ran until I miserably retched a sour, acidic pink mess into the street.

I became a skittish, nervous wreck. I dressed in baggy clothes and walked quickly with my head down. I couldn’t bear the idea of being seen, of being perceived at all. Lab was the only place where I didn’t feel vulnerable. In the grocery, I jumped whenever someone came up behind me, and I had to keep all men within sight. In the street, I dreaded having to pass any gathering of men.

Don’t look at me, don’t look at me. The mantra rang in my head. I quickly realized I hated my Instagram profile as I stared at a bathroom mirror selfie I had recently posted. My tilted hips, my bare midriff. My brilliant, confident grin. I thought of anyone looking at my profile and seeing my body in such a way, seeing me in any way at all.

And I crumpled.

Don’t look at me!

I frantically disabled my account and tried to disappear. I found that when I let the world shrink around me, it was less threatening. That tiny straitjacket world was so comfortable that before I knew it, I had shrunk to fit the confines of my fears. 

When my friends and I visited Belgium, I had started exposure therapy: I pushed my limits with more revealing clothing in safe spaces. I felt comfortable going clubbing in my silky chemise, surrounded by my friends. We danced wildly and sexually on a raised platform in a gay club, and I lost myself in my body, feeling safe under the male gaze. My sexuality was my own. I felt loud and brave and big.

When we took a break outside and my friend offered me a cigarette, I took it. I wanted it. And I realized as I smoked with my friends in the midst of night life, I was taking up a space that I had always known to belong to men — and in my performance of masculinity, I found power.

I’m not endorsing tobacco; that cigarette was my only. Truly, I found freedom in the de facto assumption of space that accompanied such gendered behavior. 

I am still a smaller person than before. But if I could share advice with anyone, it’s finding a safe space — physical or one with people you trust — and claiming the power held in constructed behavior. Take a nighttime walk, play frisbee on cross campus, wear a shirt and tie. Make that power your own.

Spread your legs like a man. Take up your space. 

HYERIM BIANCA NAM is a junior in Saybrook College. Her column ‘Moment’s Notice’ runs on alternate Wednesdays. Contact her at hyerim.nam@yale.edu.