“Yeah, that’s her. With the gold. I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”

“Whatever you want.”

“Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”

“Uh, yeah, those legs, all I can see is the legs.”

“Oh, it looks good.”

“Come on shorty.”

“Ooh, nice legs, huh?”

“Oof, get out of the way, honey. Oh, that’s good legs. Go ahead.”

Mr. Trump, maybe, on that bus, you didn’t sexually assault anyone.

Maybe that tape was recorded 11 years ago.

Maybe you can “apologize” by excusing this conversation as “locker room” talk.

But it’s wrong.

Everyone knows that, I hope.

Trump’s own son has said that if women “can’t handle some of the basic stuff that’s become a problem in the workforce today…you should maybe teach kindergarten,” and that suing someone because you feel you are being harassed is a “get rich quick scheme.”

Sure, people can say that the apple does not fall far from the tree– But, of course, there are more people out there who think this way. There are people who hear jokes concerning this topic and find it funny– from teens who don’t know better, to adults who should.

But they are the lucky ones: They’ve never experienced it.

Before I share this story, I want to say that I know there are so many women and men out there who have experienced far worse than I have, and I would never try to compare my experiences to what they have been through, but this is how his words affect me.

I will never forget the sound of those footsteps outside my bedroom window that night. There were just woods on the other side of that wall, but I knew somebody was out there. The blinds were almost closed, but the lights were completely on– I went about my business for an hour, still aware of the repeating sound of feet in the crunching leaves.

I tried to go to bed, but somebody was watching me– I knew it.

I called security and they said they would check it out:

I was right.

I will never forget the sound of those footsteps jumping up and running away. He knew he was in trouble– like a little kid who stole something and was trying not to get caught. He knew he was wrong, and he was going to get away. That sound made me angrier than anything.

I will never forget, after the officers examined and left that night, not being able to fall asleep– thinking of every little thing I did that this stranger had seen, feeling so uncomfortable in my own skin, and thinking of what could have happened if I didn’t call for help.

I will never forget going to class the next day– just to get out of that apartment– and sitting at my desk when I, and everyone around me, got the email that explained the incident from the previous night. That’s when it really hit me. I was scared, I was crying– yet nobody in that classroom knew I was the victim.

I will never forget having to call and tell my parents.

I slept on the living room couch for weeks after, because for some reason that felt safer. I eventually moved back into my room, but always kept the desk light on. When it rained, it would sound like footsteps outside: Those nights I would move back to the couch.

In the following weeks, I would randomly get calls from detectives– during class, lunchtime, whenever– who would ask me more questions, or tell me that I needed to come to the police station: It always caught me off guard, and it always reminded me.

I sat in the hallway whenever I was in the room alone, even in daylight: There were windows in all the other rooms, he could come back and he could see me.

For the first time in my life, I was scared to be anywhere alone.

I was deeply affected–

But I was never touched;

Nobody forced himself on me;

I never saw his face.

For these reasons, I consider myself lucky, but so many women and men out there cannot the same– I don’t want to know what they have been through.

I don’t respect Donald Trump: I didn’t before the tape was released, and it didn’t help. However, he is running to be elected as the leader of this country I live in:

To be the one who sets an example, and the one who speaks for us.

Every time anyone defends that tape, whether by saying that people need to worry less about being politically correct, that all men talk that way (??), that people need to toughen up, or whatever excuse he or she can come up with: Those words are saying, to children, teens, and adults all over this country, that this behavior is okay.

It is okay to:

Catcall women on their way to work.

Portray women in nearly every commercial, video game, movie, etc. as a sexual being, and nothing more.

To not respect someone,

To not stop when they say no,

To watch them,

To touch them,

To assault them.

Please: Try defending him to anyone who has been the victim of any of these actions.

No.

No excuses.

We cannot have a President who shakes this kind of behavior off, much less conducts it.

It’s wrong, and you know it.