Stefan Mott · @PengyTwitch
22nd Jun 2020 from TwitLonger
Fuck it, me too. Guys need to know that it's okay to tell their stories.
I want to preface this by saying a couple of things. First of all, I think it’s very important to normalize guys coming forward with their stories of sexual harassment and assault. While sexual harassment/assault, especially in this male-dominated industry, affects vastly more women than men, it’s important to remember that it isn’t a gender-specific issue. Too often, male victims are overlooked because of gender. In my case, I’ve never suffered any trauma due to this, and while I was extremely uncomfortable at the time, it wasn’t until reflecting upon it a few months later when I initially told some people about it that I realized how messed up the entire thing was.
Because I was never seriously impacted, I never really thought it was a huge deal and didn’t see the point in rocking the boat. As all of this happened in person, I unfortunately don’t have any hard evidence to hand, and as a result I won’t be publicly naming the offender, especially as they are no longer active in the scene. People in the scene, feel free to DM me if you want to know who to avoid.
In early 2015 I was really excited to be able to live in Korea for 10 weeks at the MVP house. I was so grateful that they let me stay at their house and it was an invaluable experience for me. I got along really well with the guys, although nobody in the house was particularly good at English. Regardless, I enjoyed hanging out and practicing with them, and I felt extremely welcome in the house. Some aspects of the Korean team house culture were a bit baffling to me though, and it wasn’t rare to see a couple of the guys in their underwear chasing after other guys and doing suggestive stuff to them. It was all treated as a joke by all parties, so I don’t think any of that was concerning at all, but it’s an important reference point for my perspective at the time.
There were several members of the coaching and management staff at the house. While during the day I never had a problem, the issues would arise when this specific member of the staff would come home late at night after drinking until 2-4 AM. I would oftentimes be up far later than anybody else in the house because I was regularly playing in NA tournaments while I was abroad, so whenever this would occur I would be the only one in the practice room. The first uncomfortable interaction happened one night when the offender came into the practice room late at night, extremely drunk, and asked if I wanted a boyfriend. Given the type of horsing around that was commonplace in the team house (as described in the last paragraph), I thought he was joking and I laughed it off responding “no.” He stood next to me and put his hands on my shoulders and asked me again “do you want a boyfriend?” I replied again that I wasn’t into guys and laughed it off. That was the end of it.
At this point I feel like it’s important to explain the exact power dynamic at work here. I was a guest in this house, and this man was the one who had the final say on permitting me to stay (or not). While he never explicitly used this fact to pressure me, it still lingered out there and I did sometimes wonder what I would have done if he got mad at me and kicked me out. I was a visitor in a foreign country who didn’t speak the language. The same situation occurred two or three more times with him drunkenly asking if I wanted a boyfriend while rubbing my shoulders.
The night where things escalated happened about two months into my stay, about a month after the initial incident. The offender stumbled back into the apartment even more drunk than usual and pulled a chair up beside me. He asked if I wanted a boyfriend and put his arm around my shoulder while I was playing a ladder game. I pretended I didn’t hear him and he asked me again, so I responded “no thanks, I still like girls, sorry!” He sat next to me (very close) for a few minutes while I finished up the game. After the game, his arm still around my shoulder, he said “you sure you don’t want a boyfriend?” and before I could respond, forcefully licked my cheek. At that point I froze up, but thankfully another member of the staff had walked in presumably to check if the very-drunk offender had made it back okay. He angrily said something in Korean to him and pulled him into another room. After that point, I wasn’t bothered again.
I wasn’t traumatized by any of this, but I do sometimes wonder how it might have escalated had the other member of the staff not been there. While I was uncomfortable, I took the advances as a joke in poor taste up until the moment where he put his tongue on me, and it just didn’t compute what was happening. His refusal to take my rejections seriously, especially considering the power dynamic, really does make me unsure about how far he was willing to go with his advances.
I’m not trying to pretend that what I experienced was anywhere near the level of many of the accusations coming out recently. I just wanted to lend my voice and remind men that it’s okay to come forward. Thank you to all the victims who have shared their stories over the past few days. You are all an inspiration and I respect you immensely.