John Coetzee has appropriated my story, one that was mine to tell. He seized it with his greedy, patriarchal fingers and snatched it from me. He has profited from it, both in monetary terms and in the career capital that has accrued to him.

In terms of race and class we are on an equal footing, but in every other respect he is my senior. He is older than me. He was a professor in the English Department while I was a junior lecturer. He is a man and I am a woman. There are not many things you can claim for yourself once you have been raped, but surely the right to tell your own story is one of them?

Yes. I can work with this.

I must whip up the outrage sufficiently so that anyone who points out that we could both tell the story is drowned out. Or dismissed as a cis-het, heteronormative, privileged, patriarchal misogynist.

The trouble with writing an op-ed for The New York Times is that you can’t be emotional. This isn’t Jezebel or Bitch Media. The NYT expects facts and reasoned argument, those trappings of normative oppression. The NYT is the very home of respectability politics. If I don’t play by the rules, I won’t be let in the door.

Being let in the door is important to me. John Coetzee can ignore me in every other forum, but if my story makes it to the NYT, he will be forced to pay attention.

* * *

L. BASCOMBE: How was your date with the vegan?

ME: I already told you.

L. BASCOMBE: No, you told me the fantasy version. I’d like to hear what really happened.

ME: Aren’t you interested in why I felt the need to create such an elaborate fantasy scenario? Isn’t that more of a window into my psyche than a real-world date?

L. BASCOMBE: I think it’s clear to both of us. The only way you can contemplate moving forward in a sexual relationship is if you frame it in a familiar narrative—perhaps one you grew up with as a child. I’m guessing that you read a lot of romance novels as a teenager. After what you have been through, you find the traditional seduction scenario hard to stomach, so you turn it on its head with you as the experienced seducer and the vegan as the ingénue whose innocence is being pillaged.

ME: I suppose you’re right.

L. BASCOMBE: I’m more interested in what really happened. If it had been a happy experience you would have been content to dwell on it, rather than to erase it with fantasy.

ME: It was underwhelming. I think that’s the right word. And I’m afraid he found it so, too. I fear he won’t want to see me again because it was such a lacklustre evening.