I'm thirty six and still have regular opportunities to tell strange men how to respect my body.

At work a customer asks me a question and scoots in close -too close- for the answer. He's not hitting on me, he's just completely unaware that our culture has such a thing as personal space. I take a step back, and he steps forward to fill the gap. I step back, he steps forward. Step back, step forward. I tell him to move back and he looks shocked. Stunned. I put the customer service smile back on my face by thinking about the box knife in my pocket. I finish answering his question.

I go to my very first acupuncture appointment ever. Having never had a serious medical problem before, I'm feeling somewhat unnerved, but I'm steering this thing. It is mine. Here we go. The acupuncturist is some sort of Chi Gung practitioner too. He talks on and on about stuff that I know I'll never believe in. I shrug my shoulders and hope that his practice is effective, if not his explanations. He is stretching my joints and, while I'm face down, bends my knees in a way that makes me suck all my breath into pain. I tell him to stop and he doesn't. Like an idiot, I think maybe he'll do it more gently now that I've told him it hurts. I don't know what the effect is supposed to be, so, like an idiot, I take a deep breath and let him finish. (Does that sound familiar to anyone?) Later, I tell him to never do that again, and he looks surprised. We talk about communication. It seems okay and, hoping we have the rules clear, I set another appointment. For almost a week my legs hurt every time I bend them, though my thyroid remains unimpressed. I cancel the appointment and find a new acupuncturist.