The following was posted as an opinion piece on a large Austrian news site today. I've translated it – the original was written by Thomas Rottenberg.

The original author clearly translated some quotations that were originally in English to German. I translated them back; where the original article kept the original English wording, I added a note. (This is a throwaway account, PMs to it won't reliably be read or anything.)

Dark men, pepper spray and strange fellows

Of course it is good, important and right not to trivialize sexual assault on women. But I still don't want to be turned into collateral damage.

This time I really don't know what I did wrong. But the unknown woman who saved me from the lunatic advised me to keep running without solving the matter. "Forget the matter. You can only lose at something like this. And even if it's good that police officers believe the woman first in such a situation, this was the exception: Then you're f...cked [translator's note: censorship in original]. Not a chance. So: Forget about it."

The unknown woman was right. But: I can't forget about it. You couldn't, either, after all.

So let's start at the beginning: It was one of these spring-like pre-Christmas evenings [translator's note: tongue-in-cheek reference to the fact that Vienna has been getting extremely mild weather before Christmas in the last few years]. Dark. Breezy. Mild. I was jogging leisurely. Prater, Hauptallee. Lusthaus - towards Praterstern. There wasn't much going on: Small groups of two or three. Runtasia manager Walter Kraus. A few solo runners. Men and women.

[translator's note: Prater is a large park in Vienna that in some areas seems more like a natural forest than a park. Hauptallee is the main tree-lined road through it, a popular place to go jogging, cycling or horseriding. The original article has photos of it at night. Lusthaus is the restaurant at the end of Hauptallee that is further away from the city center. Praterstern is the large square at the end closer to the city center. This map should give you an idea. I have no idea what Runtasia is or who Walter Kraus is.]

Why I'm emphasizing that? Well: Elsewhere it isn't taken for granted that women run alone in the darkness in the park. But Vienna is different. [translator's note: "Wien ist anders" = "Vienna is different" is or was for many years the city government's official slogan] In this case, in a positive way: Obviously one can be unlucky everywhere - but as long as I see women go jogging in Hauptallee at night (or when it's dark), I refuse not to see Vienna as a generally safe city.

A standard situation

That's why I thought nothing of it when the American woman came my way. But: That she was American, I only found out later. When I noticed her, she was just a random runner who came my way: Me towards Praterstern in the right-hand third of the right "driving lane" of Hauptallee, she towards Lusthaus, at the right-hand edge of her "directional lane". A standard situation.

[translator's note: cars are not allowed in Hauptallee, so "driving lane" and "directional lane" are in quotation marks, but in practice the runners and cyclists still observe right-hand traffic on this very wide road]

So in fact I only noticed the woman when she was at my level: Then she accelerated, went across the way, put her hand into the jacket pocket and took out a thing of which - at first - I didn't know what it was. But as she was very clearly heading for me, I paused, turned toward her and took the earplugs out of my ears.

She was standing one and a half meters [translator's note: ~ 5 ft] and pointed the thing in her hand at me. "Rape! Rape! Rape!" [translator's note: English in original] she shouted. I looked around me: "Do you need help?" She shouted and waved about: "Rape! Rape! Rape!" [translator's note: English in original] Now I recognized what she was holding in her hand: Pepper spray. The woman was clearly in panic. Probably needed help. But the thing in her hand was a bit too close to my face for my taste. I took a step back.

The woman kept screaming. Waved about. Took another step toward me. "Leave me alone! F...ing Rapist! Stop molesting women!" [translator's note: English, including censorship and strange capitalization, in original] I was dumbfounded. Was she referring to me?

What to do?

I'm not discussing with pepper spray. Even less so with a crazed woman who is pointing it at me. But: How to get out of this mess? Run away? I didn't (yet) think about that - but the appearance would have been more than devastating. And someone, I hoped, would in such a case help the woman - and call the police.

Before I could react, the other female runner was there. I had just passed her not a minute ago. Most likely she had watched the entire scene while running here. "Was ist denn hier los? What is going on?" [translator's note: bilingual in original]

At least the spray was no longer pointing at my face. But the American woman was shouting. That I was threatening her. Sexually harassing her. That she was just able to get away from me. That the other woman was her savior. But - fortunately - she didn't see it like that at all: "Are you mental? The man was running dead straight - as were you. Until you suddenly ran across and started shouting", she objected. In very correct English.

No unambiguous movement of evasion

The American woman saw that differently. Very differently. Fundamentally differently: "When a man in the darkness walks or runs toward a woman unknown to him and doesn't make an unambiguous movement of evasion at least 50 meters [translator's note: ~ 165 ft] ahead of the woman, that counts as sexual assault: That violates my safety buffer zone. I have to and will defend myself against that. It's unbearable: European men really do think of female tourists as fair game."

At that point something perplexed slipped out of me. The other woman looked at me for a short time: "Shhhh! Don't make it worse." Then she turned to the American woman: "You're not actually serious about that, are you?" - "Yes, I am. This is a sexual assault." - "Are you insane?"

Now the tourist started shouting again. Now it wasn't me who was the target, it was the other woman: How women could be so submissive. So unsolidary. So incautious about the security of their own and other women's safety. And so on. Were we maybe conspiring together? The hand with the pepper spray was rising again.

I was fishing for my mobile phone: I was being threatened here - and would now call the police. The other woman felt what I was planning. Said "don't do that" and pulled me away. "Just drop it. That will backfire. This lunatic knows that very well." I understood that she was right.

We started running. Ran a few hundred meters together. I loudly thought about what would have happened if it had not been a woman but a man who turned up. "The matter would have escalated. You would both have got a load of pepper spray. Somebody would have called the police. And you would both have been up shit creek."

Collateral damage

I knew what she meant. She lectured: "You wouldn't assume either that a delicate woman of 1,60 meters [translator's note: ~ 5.25 ft] would in a dark park area threaten one or even two men with pepper spray out of malice: In at least 95 percent of cases that has exactly the backstory one imagines. It's good and right that this isn't trivialized by the police."

Yeah, right. But ... "But nothing. Forget about it. You can only come out of that mess as a loser. You'd be something like collateral damage." But I don't want to be collateral damage. Nor do I want anyone else to be. "I get that. But still: She'll be departing in a few days. End of story. So: Forget about it - it's useless."