Horror and I have been dancing cheek to cheek since birth, if I were not scared, I was scaring someone else. Whether purposefully or accidental. Yet my horrors were rarely self-created, due to the prolific bullying I endured throughout my childhood and teenage years. Or if I did create them, they were much more rational than the average childhood night-terror.
Not to say that I never experienced the imagined monsters, mainly the eyes in the knots in the wood of my door, the alligator on the floor of my room, the giant floating head in the hallway between my room and my parents’ and others that I cannot quite recall. It wasn’t that they didn’t terrify me at the time; I just found that real people were scarier than what I imagined. To the point where I had a real-life experience with the paranormal and I felt no fear at all, despite all the horror I’d watched and read, condemning ghosts as things of evil.
One thing I have a real fear of is not being in control of myself, this fear has greatly impacted, and still affects my behaviour. I have refused to drink alcohol or take drugs due to their mind and perception-altering properties, thus making it easier for people to take advantage of me. This fear also applies to manipulation in other forms, especially psychological manipulation associated with abuse or charisma. However, considering society today, I am the most scared of physical manipulation and a ‘lack of control’ (Saliba, 39). I am especially scared of rape, I can watch horror films depicting brutal slayings but the second there is some sort of sexual assault. I cannot stand it.
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| Scene from 'The Last House On The Left' 2013 |
It is not only being raped that I am afraid of. I am afraid of the rape culture that our society has, people say that a girl is ‘asking for it’ if she’s wearing something deemed promiscuous, or even if she isn’t. Words cannot say how afraid it makes me when men leer at me, even in places that are deemed ‘safer’ for girls to go, like gay bars. Even there, there are still men who slip their arms around your waist, then get offended when you get scared. I’m not excluding women from people who can commit sexual assault or harassment, it’s just that I personally have never been harassed by women.
I just know the facts: I’m small, I’m not physically as strong as a man, and I have no desire for this to happen to me or anyone. That is why I carry my keys in my hand when I have no choice but to walk home alone, as the winter nights draw in and everything turns to streetlight and shadows because the facts that ‘approximately 85,000 women are raped on average in England and Wales every year. Over 400,000 women are sexually assaulted each year. One in 5 women (aged 16 – 59) has experienced some form of sexual violence since the age of 16’ are the scariest things to me.
It may be because of these experiences and fears that the genre I am most comfortable writing in, is the genre of terror, the horror and the gothic. Using how I very much feared being caught by the bullies when I was younger and how I fear rape now, as fuel for stories.
Endnotes
Endnotes
- David R. Saliba, A Psychology of Fear (Washington D.C: University Press of America, 1980), 39.
- Ejaz Khan, http://katehon.com/389-top-10-countries-with-highest-rape-crime.html (accessed 21st November, 2016).
Pretty cool post! Those statistics about sexual assault are the most haunting bit, though. However, glad you're able to put that fear to use as fuel for writing rather than letting it stop you - fear is the mind-killer, as they say. Good luck writing!
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