Dying always just seemed like a totally normal thing, something no one could avoid, and so I was at peace with it happening eventually. So when I recently passed away in a tragic car accident and became a ghost, I was looking forward to experiencing the afterlife and all it had to offer – especially the lack of harassment by passing men on the street. But it turns out, I’m dealing with the same shit in death that I dealt with as a woman on the corporeal plane. Yeah, I’m a literal ghost and living men are still harassing me everywhere I go!
You think that things would be different for a specter like me. But nope! Whether I’m spookin’ up a bar, hauntedly chilling at a cafe, or even floating mysteriously above a bench in the park with my headphones in, I still have to deal with shitty dudes and their boundary issues.
And not that it matters, but my ghostly specter is wearing sweatpants for all of eternity.
Sometimes it’s a “Damn Casper, are you feeling friendly?” when I’m headed to the subway. Other times, it’s “Girl, I can see that ass from the front, insofar as you’re an opaque visage who I can see through completely” when I’m at the gym. Whatever the form it takes, men have managed to find a way to bother me despite my lack of physical existence.
No male ghosts I have talked to have experienced anything like this.
As if it wasn’t enough to be sex pestered in death by the same men who sex pestered you in life, I’m also finding out that ignoring these men gets the same reaction that it did when I was still occupying my flesh prison. The other day I was hovering down the street, and some dude hit me with a “Why don’t you smile, baby?” I wanted to tell him that my smile conveys the extent of the pain and suffering I experienced during my exit from this mortal coil and would traumatize anyone who saw it, but I just kept it moving. As I floated away, he called me a bitch. Like, are you serious? I’m a fucking apparition.
Really, being a ghost isn’t so bad. I get to appear in my family’s dreams at night and tell them I’m okay, I get to meet a ton of famous musicians who I enjoyed in life, I even get to play with my old childhood dog Mr. Pancake. But if there’s one thing I thought I’d be able to avoid in the afterlife, it’s harassment from wack dudes with nothing better to do. As it turns out, men will stop at nothing to hassle women, even the ghostly visages. Ugh, kill me!!
