Showing And Giving Respect

Showing And Giving Respect

As a woman in this world, I, along with many young ladies am subjected to flirtatious remarks on a regular basis. While some of these remarks are usually harmless and actually can be considered mere compliments, there are some people, particularly on social media that take their advances a little too far when it comes to attempting to attract a woman. These kinds of people are often referred to as creepers.

For women in the professional wrestling industry, unwanted creepy comments unfortunately become even more common, so common there is a Facebook page that will publicly expose creepers that are disrespectful to women in the wrestling industry. On a regular basis, I am usually asked inappropriate personal questions such as what kind of undergarments I wear underneath my ring gear, what my bra size is, if I am a virgin, if I will mud wrestle someone in a bikini or wrestle in nothing but my undergarments etc. I am also sent unwanted dirty pictures and repeatedly asked to send dirty pictures (The answer is still no!). As a woman, these unnecessary and inappropriate questions, remarks and messages that I receive makes me feel disrespected. Women who have to deal with inappropriate actions from creepers online often feel as if they are only being seen as eye candy or sexual objects rather than the successful, strong, intelligent and talented women that they truly are.

Many of us female wrestlers hate dealing with creepers because we want to be respected as athletes devoted to our craft. We want to be seen as women breaking the barriers in a male-dominated sport. We want our skills in the ring to be praised instead of only hearing how hot we look in some spandex shorts or pants.

No matter how much I blocked these people, the creepy comments and overly personal questions being asked got so hand out of hand that at one point, I had to turn what was once my personal accounts into public accounts. I had to hide personal details on Facebook such as my phone number (something Facebook pretty much requires you to have in order for you to have an account nowadays) so I would stop getting random texts from creepers and unwanted phone calls at 4 a.m. I had to take off my birth name and have my ring name be featured so people would stop referring to or asking to refer to me by my birth name but even after doing all of that, the creepers still make inappropriate remarks and ask questions that are too personal to ask someone you don’t know.

So here’s the thing. If you don’t want to be blocked by us women (not just women wrestlers but women in general as even women from all sorts of careers including teachers, cosmetologists, actresses, secretaries etc receive inappropriate messages and comments), then please just learn to be respectful by observing what you say. Despite what some of you may argue about your “feelings” towards us, you can control your words. Need some tips on how to do that? I’ll break it down for you.

First, please do not ask us what our phone number is, what our address is, if we are virgins, what type of undergarments we wear, what our bra sizes are or any other questions that would be considered personal and inappropriate to ask someone you don’t know. If we wanted you to know any of that information, we’d tell it to you without you having to ask. Furthermore, if you wouldn’t want your mother, sister, daughter, grandmother, aunt, niece etc. being asked those questions, what makes you think we want to be asked those questions, especially repeatedly when you don’t get the answer you want to hear from us.

Secondly, do not send us dirty pictures because if we didn’t ask for them, we don’t care to see them. Anytime I get sent dirty pictures, it’s an instant block and many other women block instantly when they are sent those as well. Some women will even inform their boyfriends, husbands, brothers, fathers, best guy friends that you are sending dirty pictures or inappropriate messages and comments. You don’t want these men to get involved for bothering women in their lives that they care about because when that happens, the situation can get ugly real quickly. Furthermore, if you wouldn’t want your little sister, niece or daughter receiving dirty pictures like that from men, you should think twice about sending it to other women who are daughters, sisters and nieces to someone, even if they are grown adults.

Third, please don’t ask us to accept your friend request if we don’t know you or if we delete you, after previously being our friend on social media. If we deleted you, we removed you from our friends list for a reason. Recently, I had to explain to someone why I removed them from my friends list. After explaining to this person that I removed them because they were being disrespectful, they continuously begged me to re-add them, kept asking why I removed them as a friend after already explaining and continuously kept bothering me after I asked them to leave me alone repeatedly.

 It eventually got to the point where I warned this person that if they kept bothering me and being disrespectful, I would block them, to which they responded that they would kill themselves if I did. Before that happened, the craziest thing a creeper had done was say they were going to pray to God that I would fall in love with them and marry them, after I rejected their proposal. First of all, you should never pressure, blackmail or try to guilt or force a woman into doing or not doing something. Finally, if a woman does not want to do something, she doesn’t have to do it, plain and simple and if a woman wants you to leave her alone, please just respect her request. There are plenty of other women looking for someone special so if a woman doesn’t have any interest in you, go find one who does instead of continuously harassing one that does not.