Content warning: this article contains explicit discussion of sexual violence.
Every woman in my life has something in common with Aimee Gibbs from Sex Education. That shared something is a story of sexual harassment or assault.
Aimee Gibbs' assault storyline has proved one of the most talked-about moments from the recent series. Not only is Aimee's storyline moving to watch and painfully relatable, it's also based on Sex Education writer Laurie Nunn's personal experience.
In the third episode of the Netflix show's new series, Aimee gets on a bus to go to school. She's carrying a homemade birthday cake she's made for Maeve's birthday and trying to keep herself in an upright position when she becomes aware of a man standing behind her. We see Aimee's confused face at his proximity before it dawns on her. "He's wanking on me," she yells out. No one on the bus does anything. She gets off the bus and walks instead. When she gets to school, Maeve asks what happened to the cake. "It didn't look so bad before but then I was on the bus and a guy wanked on my leg and I got a big of a shock and I shmushed the cake," Aimee says, before blithely asking: "Do you think it'll stain, I love these jeans?"
When Maeve tells her to report the incident, Aimee bats it away, making a comment about the cheapness of her jeans. "No, you've been assaulted," Maeve says. Aimee responds by saying she thought the perpetrator was "just lonely." Not a big deal. "It's silly. I'm fine. Honestly," she says.
As the series progresses, though, it becomes clear that Aimee is not fine. When she tries to get on the bus in the weeks that follow, she sees the face of the man who assaulted her. She walks to school instead of taking the bus. She doesn't want her boyfriend to touch her. None of her friends or family really know the full extent of the effect the assault has had on her.
It's difficult not to be moved as you watch Aimee blinking back tears and doing her utmost to carry on regardless. It's a feeling I — and many others — can identify with: trying to tell yourself that you're fine, when you're anything but. Aimee's assault while making her way to school is relatable for another reason. Research by Plan UK in 2018 found that 35 percent of girls in the UK have been groped, stared at, catcalled and wolf-whistled while wearing their school uniform in public.
This powerful storyline is based on something that actually happened to Laurie Nunn, the writer and creator of Sex Education – an incident she spoke about in conversation with Laura Bates (founder of Everyday Sexism) and cast members Aimée Lou Wood (Aimee) and Patricia Allison (Ola).
"The inspiration for Aimee's storyline in series two came from a personal experience that I had myself," said Nunn in the video. "This thing happened to me about five years ago where I was on my local bus and I was on the way to King's Cross station." It was early in the morning when someone got on the bus and sat next to Nunn, despite the bus being completely empty except for one other woman at the back. "This man got on and he just made a beeline straight for me and came and sat right next to me. Which was just so weird, I was like, you have so many seats you could sit on but you've come and sat right next to me," Nunn said. "I had my bags on the floor and he put his feet on my bags so that I couldn't move and he started inching himself toward me and then he was rubbing himself on me and touching himself."
Nunn got off the bus and burst into tears straight away, she said. "It was really strange 'cause I kind of shook it off and got on with my weekend and it just really stayed in my head and I started having panic attacks where I couldn't get back on my bus, I didn't like getting on the Tube, this lasted for weeks afterwards," she said. What helped Nunn was posting about her experience in a feminist women's Facebook group and hearing other women say "that happened to me," which made her feel heard, gave her solace, and made her feel "a bit braver."
Talking on a Netflix panel in London this week, Nunn elaborated on her experience and explained another parallel with Aimee's storyline. "The experience that I had, nobody helped me," said Nunn.
"I think that's something that just needs to be interrogated. We just need to ask, why is that the norm, that people just sit back and don't do anything?"
The female solidarity that helped Nunn after the incident is also mirrored in Aimee's storyline. In episode seven, Aimee is in detention with fellow female classmates Ola, Maeve, Lily, Olivia and Viv when she breaks down and admits she can't get on the bus. That's when something really moving happens: Her fellow classmates stop arguing and rally around Aimee.
"I always felt safe before and now I don't. It probably sounds stupid," Aimee tells them after explaining what happened.
"It doesn't sound stupid," Olivia responds. "I was groped at the train station last year."
Then, one by one, each of them shares a story of harassment or assault. The episode ends with all five girls showing up at the bus stop to accompany Aimee to school in an act of female solidarity. It is, by far, the most emotive and powerful episode of the entire series.
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Actor Aimée Lou Wood also shared her own story of sexual harassment in the video with Nunn. "I smiled at the person and [...] and then I just felt this person following me, this looming presence, and he would not go," said Wood. "It's just so sad because I feel like every woman has a story and that's why I love this storyline so much because it brings out the other female characters' stories."
What's also striking about Aimee's storyline is her attempts to minimise the trauma she's experienced and bat away Maeve's assertions about just how serious it is. "She doesn't think she deserves to be traumatised by it, she keeps saying, 'It's not a big deal, it's just a little stain,'" said Wood.
The storyline in this way raises the issue of sexual violence hierarchies. Culturally, there is a tendency to look at acts of sexual violence as a hierarchy, whereby we rank some acts as more serious than others. This idea has been questioned by sexual violence academics. In 1987, Liz Kelly — a professor of sexualised violence at London Metropolitan University — proposed her "continuum of sexual violence" framework which rejected any hierarchical ordering of sexual harms. In this continuum, it's posited that all forms of sexual violence are capable of causing harm.
Alix Fox, a sex educator who worked as a script consultant on season 1 and 2 of the show, told me that she thinks Aimee's assault and the trauma she lives through delivers a crucial message "that it's absolutely OK to be upset" after experiencing an assault. "The show challenges this idea of an assault hierarchy," said Fox.
That cultural messaging surrounding hierarchising harm can stand in the way of someone reporting an assault or seeking support services.
"If someone hasn’t experienced a serious physical injury, they feel like it’s not OK for them to report to police if they haven't sustained an injury. They have some guilt about feeling uncomfortable or shaken up. They feel they should pull themselves together because they didn't get 'hurt,'" said Fox.
"It's a crucial message to deliver that it’s absolutely OK to be upset about that," she added. "We need to make sure anybody who needs help and support doesn’t feel any guilt about getting help."
Emma Mackey, who plays Maeve, echoed these sentiments while appearing on the panel with Nunn.
"You can show people that this kind of thing is sexual assault and that sexual assault is a whole spectrum, we're not hierarchising," she said. "It is not a hierarchy. We're not saying one is worse than the other."
If you have experienced sexual abuse, call the Rape Crisis UK national hotline on 0808 802 9999 or use their online live chat facility. If you're based in the U.S., call the free, confidential National Sexual Assault hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673), or access the 24-7 help online by visiting online.rainn.org.
Topics Netflix
