Author’s Note: #metoo was written and performed as part of Hysteria, Direct Theatre Collective’s premiere show, created by Jill Raymond, Isa Sanchez, Ariel Martz-Oberlander, Kim Ho, and Lauren Martin.

*

I was seventeen.
And you made out with me while I was passed out.
I was so drunk; I had crashed into the glass patio door.
Fell right on my ass.

I got really funny when I was drunk.
I was kind of a shy kid, so, being funny was intoxicating.
I got drunk a lot. But, my friends were there.
They put me on the couch, to sleep it off.

Next thing I remember; you were on top of me.
Your tongue was in my mouth.
Your hands on my breasts.
And I heard my friends came in and say:

Hey! Kent! Stop being a fucking cunt!
Kent the Cunt.

Although it’s not really fair to cunts.
But the alliteration has kept you in my memory for years.
When so many other names have slipped away.
Names I never bothered to learn.

The man who wagged his dick at me on my way home from school.
The “agent” who put my hand on his bulge.
The “director” who held an audition in a hotel.

Getting drugged at a night club.
My boyfriend at the time, said:
“It’s not like it was the first time you got so drunk you don’t remember.”
… and that was true.

The stranger who jerked off into my panties at the local laundromat.
My boss telling me how sexy I looked pregnant.
Getting called a whore while pushing a stroller across the street.

These stories aren’t clear-cut narratives. Not rape.
Just … disrespect. Degradation.

And maybe you don’t think it’s fair that I lump you in with them, Kent.
You were a young guy. You were drunk.
It wasn’t so bad.
But I urge you, now, to be a cunt, in the truest sense of the word.

Because cunts expand.
Cunts are receptive. Cunts absorb.
So, hear this.
Because if it happens to all of us,
it’s happening because of some of you.
Some of your friends.
And yeah, some of my friends.

I know change is hard.
Change, it hurts. But I know it won’t break us.
Because cunts are strong.