What were you wearing?

The swimming pool is meant to feel playful, nostalgic and safe. Hot days, bare feet, bikinis, towels thrown over fences and hours spent floating around in the water.

But the bikini also represents something much less innocent.

“What were you wearing?”

It is a question that has been asked of women for far too long. What were you wearing? How much did you drink? Why were you there? Why did you go home with him? Why didn’t you leave?

Questions that subtly shift the responsibility away from the person who caused harm and onto the person who experienced it.

For Side Quest Stories, the bikini is deliberately small. It is just one little object floating in this enormous pool, but it carries a much bigger conversation about victim blaming.

What someone wears is not consent. Being drunk is not consent. Flirting is not consent. Going home with someone is not consent. Existing comfortably in your own body is not an invitation for someone to harm you.

I wanted the pool itself to remain joyful because that matters too. Women should be able to swim, wear a bikini, take up space, be loud, be sexy, be silly and feel completely at ease in their bodies without having to calculate how their behaviour might later be interpreted.

The question should never be, “What were you wearing?” The responsibility belongs with the person who chose to cause harm.