Hi, I’m 19 and I just moved to University. My first night out ever was last week, my first day, (also my Birthday). Everyone was getting horrendously drunk, and although I was cautiously avoiding the punch, the cider was very strong and I could feel myself getting dizzy, light headed: drunk. On the way to the club, a boy starts to loll around, and does the ‘I’m-far-too-drunk-to-support-my-own-body-weight’ arms hanging over random people’s shoulders kinda thing. So he has his arm across my shoulder and another girl’s and he’s chatting, slurring his words, boasting about his skill at MMA (mixed Martial Arts). And I’m uncomfortable as it is, random man touching me awkwardly kinda vibe. But then takes his arm off the other girl and grips the hand of the arm around my shoulder – which is now around my neck. And he strangles me. He’s talking about his martial arts skills ‘hey look strangle hold lol’ and I can’t breathe. He’s cutting off the blood supply to my brain and I can’t breathe and no one in the group around us is doing anything and I CAN’T BREATHE. He stops and it’s all jokey jokey lmao, look at that he just strangled that random girl. ME. And I understand why he did it, he was trying to exhibit his physical prowess; and he did quite successfully at that. While he strangled me. while I couldn’t breathe. Next day; the other girl whose shoulders his arms were being draped over just shrugs it of ‘he was just drunk he didn’t mean it’ like I should shrug this off like it didn’t matter. And I understand – random shit happens when you’re drunk. But it wasn’t her neck. And it’s been 10 days and I can still feel his hands on MY neck. I don’t care how drunk a person is, they are still THEM. They still possess the same consciousness in the same body, and a man – who by the way lives across the hall from me strangled me and no-one that was there seems to care. Only my friends from back home seem to actually be on my side. I don’t want to report him, but every time I see him I’m really scared. That was assault. And he did it because I’m weaker than him – because I’m a woman. This is not okay. Men need to understand that physical strength is not cool when you use it to harm someone, and they need to realise the connotations of drunk men restraining women. Nothing happened after that – but it’s not like I knew that at the time. While it was happening and I couldn’t breathe it’s not like I knew it was going to end. I can’t believe this actually happened to me.
