I knew this was a dream after all, and perhaps my brain was simply trying to substitute something more attractive than what my real memories knew to be fact. That my own dad was a decent enough man, who I witnessed many times being wildly angry - though hardly ever at me. He didn’t have to be. Plenty of others directed their anger at me instead. But I digress. In the dream, we walked into a tiny diner. A rectangle counter ran the length of it. The man behind the counter was tall, blonde, wore glasses. He had a fairly ordinary face, and a long dirty apron that he wiped his large hands on. He reminded me of those men who grace the billboards of political parties - extremely photogenic, yet unremarkable in features, and lacking substance behind the eyes. He leaned across the counter. Too far across. Further than should have been possible. His smile was more of a sneer as he looked me up and down. He licked his lips before asking “What can I get you little lady? What is it you want?” And then he winked at me. The shop seemed cold - despite the fact that the dream was taking place in the heat of summer. I shivered and tried to step behind the man playing the part of my father. But he didn’t allow me to hide safely behind his presence. Instead he pushed me in front of him. “She’s shy,” he said to the man. (I’m not.) To me he said, “Answer him hunny. The man asked you a question. You’re being rude.” I stumbled into the counter, my hands splaying across the top. The shopkeeper leaned over, grabbed a hand, and said “Aren’t you ready to order dear?” I quickly ordered the two hot dogs - one for my bogus dad with the works, the second one for me just plain. Dog and bun. No sauce. I was flustered by the fact that the man behind the counter still had a grip on my hand. But I spoke very clearly on the next part. “I can’t have mayo. It makes me physically sick. I think I’m allergic to it.” My faux father patted me on the shoulder, and chuckled. “See that wasn’t so hard.” The shopkeeper also laughed and finally released my hand. His unwanted touch left a clammy sheen on my palm. I searched for a napkin to wipe it off. “What a good little obedient girl you have there! And so delicate!” He winked at me again. I felt queasy. Quickly, in the blink of an eye, he passed a fully loaded hot dog across the counter for my fictitious father. And then… He carefully and deliberately took a new paper plate, put a sad little hot dog onto the bun, and tuned a bottle of mayonnaise upside down, pouring it on. He then passed the oozing mess straight across the counter to me. The bile rose in my throat. “This isn’t what I ordered. I said I can’t have mayo.” My words came fast, and my face felt hot. The shopkeeper tilted his head. “I’m sure what you said was that you wanted only mayo, and extra at that.” My heart started pounding in my chest. Something was very wrong. A small part of me kept thinking, “just wake up, just wake up, this is a stupid dream, so just wake up.” Yet I couldn’t. And so I turned to the man playing the role of a father figure. “Daddy? This isn’t what I ordered? Tell him?” Sentences which should be statements were said like questions. Embarrassment flooded my face with shame. “I don’t know hunny. Are you sure it’s what you ordered? Maybe you said it wrong.” He patted me on the head. “What? You were right here!” I was angry, annoyed, and flabbergasted. Suddenly though, pseudo-dad seemed to grow, tower over me. “You don’t speak to your father like that!” His words were directed to me, but his eyes cut back to the man behind the counter. Like this was some kind of show for his benefit. The shopkeeper nodded at him. “If you don’t like what you asked for, then you’ll just have to ask him to remake it for you. And he doesn’t have to do it, if you don’t speak sweetly enough. I’m going outside to eat. Hurry up.” He turned and left. “Dad, wait…” More people came in, pushing between me and my fraudulent father who stalked out of the shop. I was stuck now. The smell of sweaty people was overwhelming in the tiny space. A hand grabbed my shoulder, and the shopkeeper’s voice spoke impossibly close to my ear considering the countertop between us. “Ask nicely, and I’ll remake it for you.” My head hurt. I knew what I had ordered. I just wanted to leave. “No, it’s okay, I’m not hungry.” I tried to shrug off his hand, but he clawed on tighter. “I said ask nicely, and I’ll give you want you want.” I started flailing trying to get away. But a sea of customers now blocked me from the door. Angry faces. Hungry faces. “Would you just ask him already?” A man yelled. “You’re holding up the rest of us.” “No, it’s okay, I don’t want anything.” But the shopkeeper didn’t release his grip and now the crowd began to mutter. “Hurry up.” “Bossy bitch probably made some special request and then didn’t like what she got.” “Just do it already.” I felt the bruise forming on my shoulder where the shopkeeper wouldn’t relinquish his grasp. But it lightened when he felt me start to turn around. I kept my eyes lowered. The conscious part of me started to stir again, but I still didn’t wake up. Softly I asked, “Please may I have a plain hot dog. No sauce. No mayo.” The shopkeeper laughed. Tucked a sly finger under my chin. “Maybe if you give me a smile, I will. Such a pretty girl should be smiling.” He walked away to re-make my order. At least, that’s what I thought he was doing. But instead he began slinging out other orders. More helpers walked in. And in all the confusion, I tried to slip out. It was impossible to move. The mob kept pressing me against the counter. So I asked the other workers for my order, thinking if I got it, the crowd would see that and let me leave. But the staff yelled at me “wait” or “he’s getting it for you, I have to help others”, and “why are you being so pushy”. They turned and left me there, feeling alone in a crowd of customers. I attempted to leave again, but was crushed by the swell of people. My ribcage jammed into the front of the counter. It’s sharp edges sliced through my shirt. A small part of me thought that surely my phony parent would come in to save me. He wouldn’t just leave me to deal with this scary situation on my own! He was my dad! It was his duty to protect me! Wasn’t it? But the conscious part of me sighed. “Did he ever?” Time passed in the dream. And with a start I realized I had been there for so long, people were now handing me their trash and telling me to take their remains and be grateful. Yet still no one would let me leave. I saw the shopkeeper watching me with a grin from the back of the shop. “Should have taken what I gave you happily, and you wouldn’t have been stuck here.” He winked, pus oozing from his eyes, and his teeth now yellowed and sharp like fangs. “Guess you’re stuck now.” He picked up a backpack and left. My false father appeared at my side. “I’ve been waiting for you this whole time. Can’t you even handle something so simple like an order? Let’s go.” Miraculously, the crowd parted for him. We left. I felt ashamed as we walked out. I felt dirty from the grease in the shop, and the shopkeeper’s hands touching me. My dad looked at me disgusted. “Worthless girl”. He pushed me to the ground. “Hungry? It’s your own fault you never ate. You should have behaved better.” He turned and walked away, quickly, before I could even pick myself up from the ground. Something inside me broke. I screamed. And then, I finally woke up. The dream ended. Reality though, was still here to be faced. Now I’m sure all my armchair psychologists out there will have a field day with this dream. “Freudian much?”, they’ll laugh at the imagery of the hot dog. But the dream was never about the hot dog. In fact, the only reason I think the hot dog appeared was because of a conversation I just had with a dear friend who likes to try hot dogs every place she travels. So that particular food was on my mind last night before bed, when I made up my mind to try one in the state I just arrived in the day before. So no, the dream wasn’t some sexual longing for an appendage I wasn’t born with. The hot dog was exactly was it is. A silly rather innocent food. The kind of food that often brings out a child-like delight. It’s messy and fun, and can be made a million different ways. It’s acceptable to have a favorite topping method. Or to have no topping at all. The hot dog really was just a hot dog. But the dream WAS a nightmare. And a rather sinister one at that. Have you figured it out? If not, stay with me. In the bluntest and simplest of analyses, the dream was about how we women have been bred and raised to be second class citizens subservient to men. And yet it was so much more. It’s about every contradiction we have dealt with our whole lives. We are told it’s okay to be empowered. To ask for what we want. But the moment we do we are ridiculed (“You’re being silly. Why would you like it like that?”), ignored (“You are just going to have to wait. I have other customers.”), gaslighted (“How can you not like mayo? Of course you do. Everyone likes it.”), or insulted (“Such a bitch. So demanding.”) We are taught from a young age that we are to be nurturing, caring, loving, and kind. But we aren’t taught to expect those same things from others. In fact, we are lectured that these very qualities are adjectives for women’s roles, not men’s, and therefore we shouldn’t expect those same courtesies from them. Instead we are to excuse bad behavior, swallow our pride, and move on. Don’t believe me? Look at the world we live in right here in the good ole U.S. of A. The past ten years feel like an old VCR tape on rewind in which women’s rights are unraveled before our eyes. Yet we are told it’s no big deal, and to dismiss the evidence of what is happening. “You are fine,” they say. “Men are here to protect you. That’s our role. You are not in danger.” Yet in the dream my father figure left me alone with the “nice” man. Who had disrespected me right in front of him. In real life, the men saying they are our protectors smile sweetly for cameras. Then, in the same breath, they claim that women being denied lifesaving procedures - and thus dying outside of ERs - isn’t happening. It’s fake news. Only it’s not. We women are being “disappeared” from history, and “un-alived” from reality. It’s no longer acceptable to even used the words “murdered”, “killed”, “raped”, “denied basic health care so we bleed out until we die” on social media. Supposedly its to promote decency and uphold community guidelines. But the truth is if we soften the words in doublespeak, it’s easier to refute the actuality of what is being done to us. In fact, in 2026, women are no longer talked about as “people”. We are objectified and dehumanized. We have been reduced to a commodity. Our sole value bound to our bodies. Not even our whole bodies, just certain parts. Which apparently only exist to serve as pleasure toys for men, and incubators for future “citizens”. Social media is overrun with men who harangue us publicly, while saying that it’s our womanly duty to submit to men. Woman, they jeer, exist solely for their benefit. And then they rape us, abuse us, make decisions that harm us, and tell us their actions are “all for the future of posterity”. It sounds bad. Horrifying really. And yet the reality is even worse than we can imagine. We women aren’t just human incubators, we are farm animals turning out the next generation of mindless soldiers, and ignorant masses. Who will in turn grow up to be worker ants for a society that cares as little for them, as the women who first popped them out, and then bled out on the operating table. It won’t be long until doctors are taught that legally it is their duty to save the baby, not it’s “host”. We are on the path to this ideology now. To say that I woke up scared would be an understatement. I knew I was dreaming. And yet I couldn’t get myself to wake up. Even as more people came into the shop and pressed me so hard into the counter that I saw blood seep through my shirt from the counter’s hard edges cutting into me. It wasn’t just men in this nightmare. As women came into the shop, they asked why I was still at the front counter. Why I hadn’t been served yet. And when I told them, they rolled their eyes and said that I must have been rude to the man to get such treatment. Because he was obviously such a “nice man”, and it was such a popular shop. As they trapped me in a sea of people to the point I could no longer see the door, women pointed out that it was my fault for hating mayo. (It makes me vomit IRL.) So I should have just taken what I was given and swallowed it down with a smile. I should have been grateful he served me at all. It didn’t matter that I had been clear in my order for the food. I must not have said it sweetly enough they insisted. Perhaps I made a mistake in how I ordered. Maybe I didn’t speak loudly enough. But it doesn’t matter anyway, because he was the one IN CHARGE, and gave me what I really wanted, they said. After all, why would he have intentionally done something to make me sick? No, it wasn’t possible for this good man to have done that. So it must have been me. And surely I would stop saying such lies, because if I didn’t, I would ruin the reputation of this man’s shop. I didn’t want the responsibility for that, did I? It’s funny how such a nonsense dream can be so connected to real life. The first time I was assaulted, I went to a woman to report it. I was young. Really young. Scared. She was a trusted authority figure. And she was not helpful. Her initial response? She told that I must have done something wrong to have provoked the behavior. I vehemently denied that I had done anything to the man. So then she told me that I must have secretly wanted it. So I acted in a way to provoke him. What a confusing moment for me. I was so little that I didn’t have an understanding of human sexuality and desires. How could I have wanted something that was years from even being on my radar? My body hurt. What child ever wants someone to hurt her? I felt embarrassed and ashamed. He had done things to my “private places”. Places on my body I hadn’t been taught words for yet. Places I was told must stay hidden from sight under my clothes. She could see her logic didn’t convince me. So she said I must have been making it up because he was a "nice guy” and he would never do anything like that. Which was wild, because she also told me I was a nice girl. So why would I have made it up? Finally, when that gaslighting tactic didn’t work, she declared that if I reported the man to authorities, I would ruin his future. And of course, I didn’t want to be responsible for that, right? I was a little girl at the time. So I didn’t truly understand all that was being said to me. But I did comprehend that I was being told by a woman, that a man harming me was somehow my fault, and that if I told, I would ruin his life. No one seemed to care that this incident might severely and negatively affect mine. Years later when I was assaulted again, I kept quiet. When I finally did confide in someone, the same arguments were presented. Except this time, I was vilified for also not speaking up sooner. After all, if it had really happened, wouldn’t I have immediately reported it? Damned if we do report it, damned if we don’t. I’m an adult now, and the twisted logic hurts my head. Make it stop. Make the insanity stop. For fuck’s sake, make it fucking stop. Every day, women are assaulted. And every day, women are presented with this same runaround of “logic” damning us for our response to someone else choosing to violate our bodies. If we actually survive the assault that is. It’s a calculated breakdown in our natural self-preservation instincts. Like a war tactic in which mind control is the endgame, we are first told we are here to serve. Then they teach us that it’s virtuous to be submissive and good. And finally we are instructed that the evidence of our memories, and the marks on our bodies, are not to be trusted. As if that isn’t enough, we are hit with the whammy of guilt to hold us down. Because if we speak up, we have ruined the lives of the people we are meant to serve. And we wouldn’t want that. Only we do. We want justice. We want safety. We want to not feel frightened of strangers, let alone our partners and parents and siblings and friends and teachers and role models and the "nice guy” behind the counter who can’t fucking stop licking his lips and looking you up and down as he mumbles under his breath what he would do to you if only… Victim shaming and blaming has gone on for far too long. So we try to speak up. We tell our stories. We march in protest. We fight to get laws changed. We work harder than everyone else to prove we are worth standing up for. We are not asking for men to protect us. We are asking for men to stop hurting us. We are literally demanding men to stop killing us. And you hear us. You hear us, and you have the audacity to respond with this gag-worthy line: “But it’s not ALL men.” It’s an undeniable truth. I literally cannot dispute the veracity of this claim. It is NOT all men. But it is ALWAYS men. It is men making laws about bodies they know nothing about, which now leads to more women dying unnecessarily. We have politicians saying absurdities such as that no woman could ever be raped because her body shuts down when assaulted. (NOT true.) They’ve martyred a man who told college students that if the woman had too much to drink, assault was her fault. His face smirks at me from billboards now. It’s men shouting at us women on the internet about how we are all “whores” and "ungrateful bitches”. That to be independent humans is “unwomanly”. It’s men teaching their daughters to be submissive. To dress for whatever version of us the male gaze desires in this moment. To sit down and shut up and be waiting at the door with a beer in our hand and an adoring look on our face, even as he backhands us across the mouth. And now, after years of all this screaming by men, we have women yelling at us too. Women who don’t understand that the only reason they are even ALLOWED to be on the internet is because of all the women who came before. The women who protested and got laws changed so we women could have a voice. I cringe whenever women use that fought-for hard-earned voice to tell me that I need to know my place in society. To be a better “partner to my man”. To be happy in my womanly role. And to breed. As though my sole purpose in life is to pop out babies. I have nothing against the role of motherhood. I wish I had been blessed with one who was as loving and kind to me, as I have seen my friends who are mothers be to their own children. But the scope of my existence is not centered around this one aspect of my biology. I am more than a pussy pocket for men to use and abuse. And I am certainly more than a petri dish to grow a human in. I have a choice in how I live my life. At least, I had a choice. Every day though, I am watching the choices available to me, disappear. Take the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, for example. Federal protections for abortions are gone, wiped out in 2022 in a reversal so unexpected that I couldn’t comprehend the news at first. As of today, 13 states have already rushed to make it not only illegal. And some want it to be an action punishable by death. No matter what the circumstance. Other states are making it more restrictive and difficult to get an abortion, even though they haven’t made it completely illegal yet. But the reality is that in some states, we may eventually get condemned to die if we get an abortion. And in many cases, we are doomed to die if we don’t. Years ago I walked into my OBGYN’s office to ask intelligent questions related to MY body. What were my options to prevent the possibility of having children? And when I asked about a more permanent medical procedure, I was denied the right to even DISCUSS it. The doctor’s mind-blowing logic? My “future husband” might want me to have children. Yes, you heard me correctly. The doctor was more concerned with the desires of a mythological possibility, than the health and wellness of the person sitting in front of them. I’ve yet to hear of a single man be presented with this logic when inquiring about a vasectomy. Never mind that a few years later, I ended up having an emergency procedure to deal with female issues which were causing me to bleed excessive amounts of blood daily. Leaving me in pain, anemic, and wondering whether I simply wouldn’t wake up one morning because my body had bled me dry in my sleep. I wasn’t pregnant. But two years later, when Roe vs Wade was overturned, I wondered if, had I been pregnant at the time, would the doctors have even been willing to address the bleeding out issue I was having? Or would they left me to die, so that they didn’t “intentionally” harm an unconscious globular group of cells that had more rights than I now do? I live in a country where I am told I am free. But I am not free. Because a free human has the right to get health care, to expect that doctors are going to do their best to save HER if I am dying. A free human has the ability to ask questions about her own body without being told that she can’t have the answers in case a MAN - who isn’t even in existence in my life - doesn’t like decisions that I make to keep me safe, healthy, and happy. We are sliding backward, but not into a previous reality. No, we are creating one which is darker and more insidious then that. A world in which all the dystopian novels I’ve ever read, can’t even begin to imagine. So why does it sometimes feel like no one else is SCREAMING inside, like I am? When will we all WAKE UP to the truth? If things continue to progress at the rate we are going, it soon won’t matter that I am a human first, and a woman second. Because my basic rights are being systemically eliminated. And like the pigs sent to slaughter for the imaginary hot dog in my dream, I’ll soon be branded “WOMAN” across my forehead, and hooked up to machines for men to breed and use as they wish. Until my very life force bleeds out, or a fetus I never wanted and my body isn’t equipped to carry, murders me. After all, the main man in power has already branded us as “piggies” and told us to “shut up”. And our “protectors” stayed quiet, and laughed to themselves as they nodded in glee. I have so much more to say on that issue. And I will, at another time. But I want to stay focused on THIS atrocity. The one in which my dreams are reflections of the things that scare me when I’m awake. It’s hard to stay focused though. Because even as I wrap up this piece, I know that some man out there will read this post and all he will get out of it is a snarky thought of “haha, she dreamed of hot dogs, she must have penis envy” or “she dreamed of men and hot dogs, the bitch wants our dicks inside her”. It’s a disturbing reality to consider. Yet EVERY time I speak up about my rights as a PERSON, some idiot slides into my DMs to call me a “whore” or to tell me to “shut up” or to “kill myself” or just be the “slut you were meant to be you worthless cunt” - all comments I’ve received over the past decade. However unlike in my dream, I will no longer be silenced. And as my “protectors” continue to fail me, I’ll simply save myself. This little piggy went to market. This little piggy stayed home. This little piggy bought groceries. And this little piggy had none. But this last little piggy? She calmly looked the wolves in the eyes and said “I’m not a piggy you dumb fucks. I’m a woman, I’m pissed. And you have no rights to me or my body.” And then she went home and slept a dreamless rest, before awaking refreshed to fight off the wolves again. Because doing nothing is no longer an option for me. Thanks for reading. Stay safe out there peeps. I love you all so much. Xoxo, Tink Have something to say? Feel free to comment below. Want to support Tink's writings? Click the link to Venmo here to become a patron of her work!
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AuthorTink, world traveler, positivity muse, and adult entertainer, has also freelance written for a number of companies as their ghostwriter. Now talking directly to YOU on this platform, she is also writing two books at her community's request. Archives
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