So, I'm meandering around the backyard of the internet the other day and I find this cool jacket. Here's a quote about it:

The No-Contact Jacket is a wearable defensive jacket created to aid women in their struggle for protection from violence. When activated by the wearer, 80,000 volts of low amperage electric current pulses just below the surface shell of the entire jacket. This exo-electric armor prevents any person from unauthorized contact with the wearer's body.

Later I found out it had been out for 5 years or so, it isn't the new thing I thought it was. Still, what a great idea! I thought about it all evening. First off, I thought they should make pants too, imagine some jerk grabbing your ass and getting knocked on his?

One of the things about getting old is that this doesn't happen to me anymore. It's probably a big reason I'm so comfortable living in Mexico this time around. I lived in DF when I was in my early 20's and the single most frustrating part of living there was the unending, unwanted, intrusive behavior of the men. It wears on you, never being able to walk down a street without the sucking air sound or the gross piropos or the blatant grabs. I came up with lots of different coping mechanisms and they would work sometimes but mainly, nothing really changed the fact that I could never just walk down a street without notice.

I told myself that it was a cultural thing, that I needed to adjust, that they didn't mean any harm, that I should take it as a compliment... none of that made it any better for more than a few minutes. I would be OK just dealing with it for a few weeks and then it would pile up in my mind and I'd be furious whenever I went outside. That's no way to live, and I knew it had to be me that dealt with it as I wasn't going to change their behavior. I lasted a year there, and it wasn't this that sent me back to the US but a serious illness. I wonder though, how much longer I would have stayed anyway.

I remember one Christmas Eve, I was staying at a apartment hotel downtown and I had Dupre with me who was about 4 years old. After he went to sleep, I needed to go out to the parking garage a block away to get his presents. I put on a huge rebozo that covered all of my upper body and my head and most of my face, loose black pants, low shoes... I did my best. I got about a half block and some guy started with the suck air sound and then turned around after he passed me and reached back towards me. I went ballistic! I started screaming at him in English and Spanish, calling him every kind of fucked up pervert, talking about how tiny his dick must be if he had to accost strangers on the street, I don't know what else I said. I also went after him and that really scared him and he started walking away fast trying to look cool. I followed that guy for a block screaming that he was a pervert, with everyone on the street gaping at us. Finally he just started running.

To be honest, I felt better for weeks after that. It was a great release. In fact, I tried it out as a solution. I'd just start after any guy that said anything and I'd yell really loud. It kind of worked but I was as embarrassed as they were and sometimes they would just yell back at me and my Spanish would fail be on the really clever replies. Mostly though, they just yelled "fooking gringa".

I don't know if it has gotten any better down here for young women, it's been 35 years since I lived in DF. Perhaps it has but my guess is that it has been slow and this kind of unwanted attention is still really common. It's a major downside to living in Latin America. In the US, we get used to pretty much being able to go wherever we want. Yes, there are jerks there too that catcall but outside of construction workers and not-so-great parts of town, I think the business districts and the suburbs are pretty free of this. For sure, it is not considered their right to harass women like that and that alone makes a difference.

Anyway, this jacket had me thinking about all of this and fantasizing about full body armor that knocked them on their ass if touched. I remember wishing I had a laser gun back then and could just zap them (you can guess where) and drop them to the ground. Ahhh, venganza.