“Hey girl, why don’t you smile more?” “Damn, what a pretty young thing!” “How did you get that ass in those pants!?”

All of these were said to me by men over the age of 30.

When I was twelve.

See the problem here?

At the time and the location in which I grew up, it was normal— every day in sunny south Florida was a day for bathing suits, shorts, tank tops, crop tops. And every day was another lesson in how to get men to avoid looking at you. For instance, my personal favorite is “don’t go outside— catcalling is inevitable.”

This is due to the fact that cat calling isn’t a compliment. For a 12, 13, 22-year-old individual, being singled out in a manner that is sexually aggressive is threatening and demeaning, taking our own bodily autonomy away.

For instance, what was I wearing for this to be considered acceptable? Why is it that I am singled out? Does this forty year old man honestly believe that his remarks about my ass are going to cause my 14-year-old self to swoon and collapse into his arms, to be carried off into bed?

Get real.

Catcalling is just a form of taking ownership of another person’s body even when you have less than no right to it. These men believe that young girls are things to be objectified, and due to the unattainability of them, they catcall for their own adrenaline rush, or to put a marker of “mine” on another human being. Do you know what the woman is going to be thinking about for the next five minutes? That asshole who catcalled her. And it won’t be in a positive light.

That’s the game— to infiltrate a woman’s space, to butt in on an individual’s life where you don’t belong for your own gratification. And that’s ridiculous.