A girl with a guitar. Opens up a whole other vein of street harassment by men. I often walk around the city on my way to some venue or a practice with my guitar on my back. Many guys see that as an easy opening to try to talk to me. To be fair, I have on occasion met a fellow musician or two who actually plays or is in a band, and that is always legit. But the rest of the guys….. ayy.
“Do you play?” they yell out at me as I walk past. Um, I think it’s safe to say that anyone you see walking around with a soft cased guitar on them does play it.
“What kind of music do you play?” they shout as I quickly hurry by.
What does it matter? What if it’s a type of music you’re not into? You wanna become my newest fan? I seriously doubt it. I just keep walking hoping to put as much distance between me and this person shouting questions at me as possible. I used to yell back “yes”, and “everything” to the second question, but after a few times of that I realized that it’s really not about music at all – it’s about getting and trying to hold my attention by these guys.
This is evident by the follow up questions/comments: “Wanna play for me sometimes?”, “Hey honey, I got a gig for you” (said in the sleaziest way possible), “I wish I was your guitar, I’d let you play me all night”, “What, you too busy to stop and talk to me?”, “Oh, you think you’re a star, huh?” and the inevitable diss when I keep walking, “Ah, I bet you suck anyway!” and “I bet you can’t REALLY play!” and “Stuck up guitar bitch”.
One guy even said “I hope you break your fucking hand, bitch!” when I continued on past, ignoring the barrage of questions like I usually do when one of these guys starts up. It really is a f’d up thing that you find yourself having to go through on far too many occasions, and I can bet you that guys walking around the city with their guitars don’t go through ANY of this shit. It sucks and it’s not fair. Why?, I often ask myself. Why?
I have taken to wearing my headphones around my neck when I hit the streets with my axe in tow. And when I spot one of those guys, and you know what I mean, you can always spot them – the ones that get you on their radar and lock onto you immediately with that 100 yard stare – I quickly slip the headphones over my ears before I get within earshot of them. I make sure to keep something running on my Ipod so that I don’t have to hear one f*cking word or even begin to acknowledge their bullshit. Me walking around with my guitar does not make me an instantly accessible attraction or device. I truly and honestly wish that guys would grow the f*ck up. That is all.
– Kayla
Location: Manhattan/Queens
