![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I had all the words ready but they just slipped away.
*sadness*
I have been lying in post coital glory *grin* and, as per usual this week, was unable to just drop off to sleep. So I've been thinking. Thinking thinking thinking. Supatra warned me that birthing pains hurt. They're still hurting, and I'm still learning, and I'm just hoping that one day I will be allowed some rest. Ihad a realisation that I want to talk about, while I remember, but which is going to be difficult to write. It was easy to think about, since it all happened to me. I just didn't realise it would be difficult to write.
Reading the Beauty Myth has been a constant source of revelation. I am ... astounded... no, amazed... no... weirded out by the fact it was published sixteen years ago. And has so much relevance for me today.
When I was growing up, there was the three boys next door and my brother and I. Youngest to eldest, was K, T and C. T is my own age, and we originally met when K and I were about 3. So. We grew up together.
When I was 12, C was 15. And he started to develop earlier than the rest of us. And he started to find me attractive. (You have no idea how long it took to write that sentence.) It was a very frightening time. I was never interested in him. I was too young to even develop that sort of interest. I did, however, love T in a way that I expected to marry and be a part of his life for ever. But not C. So C would try and make me kiss him when T asked me to get something off C for him. Or once he grabbed me in the laundry from behind and tried to forceme to kiss him. I think our parents kind of knew he was interested. But no one ever really mentioned it. I remember, with bitter clarity, that my dad once made a joke about something about it. He knew he'd said something wrong as soon as it had come out I think. I don't think my parents realised how uncomfortable I was feeling.
Anyway. I was in thehabit of leaving my bike at their house, as they were half way to highschool and it was easier than taking the bike all the way to school. Whatever. Their mum was a stay athome mum, so it never occured to me that one day she wouldn't be there. So I get there, and it has to have been summer because I was desperately thirsty after the walk, so went in to grab a drink. C was there, and so I asked where his mum was. Not impolite or anything, just casual youknow. She was out. Ok. I have never drunk water so fast. I went to get my bike and get out. The thing is, the bike was in the shed down the side of junk, wood, stuff, you know. So I remember going into the narrow alley space to pull my bike out, and he followed me, cornered me in there and tried to go further. I remember pushing and screaming "NO WHEELER NO" (wheeler being his last name)and cycling home, crying the whole way and being shattered. Mum was so shattered too, and rang him up immediately and abused him, also threatening him that if he ever did anything like this again, she would tell him mum. And after that he never looked at me or looked me in the eye or spoke to me or acknowledged I existed in anyway shape or form.
Now, I say remembered a lot in that because in something so traumatic, you're certainly a lot more ... well, I expect I don't need to explain that to most of you. Nothing more happened; I was not touched beyond the attempts. So this isn't a rape story. But it may as well have been.
He gave me the fear. Every woman I know knows this fear. At 12, he gave me the fear of any person witha penis. I was terrified of any one with a penis. I was terrified of my own father. I was scared enough for my heartrate to shoot up every time I was left alone with my own father, who has never done anything untoward to me. I crossed streets because I could see a male.
And the insanity. A year or so or whatever afterwards, I started to develop, and hormones started moving, and then I once even tried to get his attention. To make him notice me. It is shameful to me. Insane.
I remember, clearer than anything else, probably, the moment I realised I had forgiven him. I was 15, in year ten. I realised I had no malice for him, I seemed to have forgiven him. I stillhad the fear. Inf act, when I was in year12 i dated a guy for a whole 2 hours and 12 minutes, 12 minutes because that's how log it took for him to get home for me to ring him and say I couldn;t handle it. I started to gain more control of it after that though. No major stress outs like that i n uni. Or maybe Ijust got used to it?
Now, still reading the beauty myth (and infact half way through, so this might allchange again when I've finished it) I realise many things, and I wonder many thngs. The point about how in literature and film, you never see the loving sex, you only get the graphic rape and violent sex, seems to have struck true.
For while I was terrified of men, I was also masturbating an average of twice a night, every night, since I was at least 12. And I never, in no way, connected what C was doing with what I was doing. I also did not fantastize back then. Back then, the sheer amazingness of my own cunt was so fulfilling and so ... everything... that I never imagined scenes, others, anything... And now that I do imagine things during sex or when randy, I imagine violence. Is this because my first introduction to sex with another person was a violence? He caught me in thelaundry, wrapped his strong and long arms around me, and tried to force me to kiss him. I didn't know what to do, so I didnt struggle, just kept trying to walk against him arms, away from him, and turn my head away. And then you see movies. And that sexual violence has always been there. I never saw any one making love. I saw people having casual meaningless sex. I saw people being raped. I grew a fascination with power and domination. In my fantasties, I'm not theperson being the victim. (Well, not often. Sometimes I am.) Usually I'm the one perpetrating violence on another.
And the beauty myth was published in 1990, 16 years ago. A couple of years after all of this, but still, I feel like she wrote my story in some ways.
Supatra said I needed to do some inner child work, and I think I've just found her. I've managed to research my way to her? I wonder what it would have been like, if I'd had someone teach me that my cunt was amazing and wondrous and initiated me much later at a better time and better place. What if I'd never had that fear. What if I'd never been hindered and blinkered so early. Who would I be?
And I guess I now have an answer to "Why did a 15 year old boy think the things he was doing were OK? Acceptable behavious even?" I don't think he did anything with malice. I am 100% certain of that. But how come he never once got told or learned "don't try and force people to kiss you." or "Don't try and corner women for yourown interests." And corollary to that,he seemed to pick up the message - "Your penis is uncontrollable. You do not need to control yourself." The answer is all around us. I wasn't a real person to him, even though I had been a play mate for 7 or 8 years. As he developed into a sexual being, the sexual signs that society was showing him relied on women as objects, in that the signs of interest and arousal in women is not a part of modern day sex in film or literature. And, a lot of women feel, and I did too, that I wasn't a real person enough to flat out say to him "Leave me alone." Words just ... don't work when you're in a situation like that. And twelve years old.
I get really cranky and frustrated with terminology when it comes to the first time I had sex. I gave my virginity. I lost my maiden head. I lost my cherry. Fuck that! I decided, consciously, soberly, and with great anticipation that I was going to sleep with this person. I lost nothing. I gained experience. I can't adequately describe the experience without having to twist language to try and fit the uplifting and exciting experience it had been. Because sex is about power distribution, and viginity is about the powerless being taken by thepowerful. And it wasn't like that. And there was no violence, no coercion, likethere is implicit in the language used to describe the initial act.
I wonderif I should have been angry for longer. I just realised I didn't blame him. Why didn't I? I guess, because it was my place to be pushed and fearful. I dealt with things one at a time. The anger I seem tohave subsumed rather than removed, and the fear has been under control for a long time. I'm not scared any more. But I think I have more physical prescence now. I walk like I'm proud of myself, like I feel I can handle any situation that arises. That's because I feel that I can. A huge part of this is John's complete and unconditional love. The more I read and learn, the more I am completely astounded at just how wonderful John is. He is far more ofthe new wave than I am. I'm stillgetting there. He embodies everything I hope to be. If I have two boys, I won't be sorry. (I wouldn't be sorry anyway, but we're talking politics here *grin*) because then I would be contributing two new wave men to the world, who I fear are going to have to do what John has done for a couple of women - give and love endlessly until theyunravel all the damage society has done to them.
I'm using new wave as aterminology for the next wave of feminism. Except I don't know if feminism is going to be the terminology any more.
*sadness*
I have been lying in post coital glory *grin* and, as per usual this week, was unable to just drop off to sleep. So I've been thinking. Thinking thinking thinking. Supatra warned me that birthing pains hurt. They're still hurting, and I'm still learning, and I'm just hoping that one day I will be allowed some rest. Ihad a realisation that I want to talk about, while I remember, but which is going to be difficult to write. It was easy to think about, since it all happened to me. I just didn't realise it would be difficult to write.
Reading the Beauty Myth has been a constant source of revelation. I am ... astounded... no, amazed... no... weirded out by the fact it was published sixteen years ago. And has so much relevance for me today.
When I was growing up, there was the three boys next door and my brother and I. Youngest to eldest, was K, T and C. T is my own age, and we originally met when K and I were about 3. So. We grew up together.
When I was 12, C was 15. And he started to develop earlier than the rest of us. And he started to find me attractive. (You have no idea how long it took to write that sentence.) It was a very frightening time. I was never interested in him. I was too young to even develop that sort of interest. I did, however, love T in a way that I expected to marry and be a part of his life for ever. But not C. So C would try and make me kiss him when T asked me to get something off C for him. Or once he grabbed me in the laundry from behind and tried to forceme to kiss him. I think our parents kind of knew he was interested. But no one ever really mentioned it. I remember, with bitter clarity, that my dad once made a joke about something about it. He knew he'd said something wrong as soon as it had come out I think. I don't think my parents realised how uncomfortable I was feeling.
Anyway. I was in thehabit of leaving my bike at their house, as they were half way to highschool and it was easier than taking the bike all the way to school. Whatever. Their mum was a stay athome mum, so it never occured to me that one day she wouldn't be there. So I get there, and it has to have been summer because I was desperately thirsty after the walk, so went in to grab a drink. C was there, and so I asked where his mum was. Not impolite or anything, just casual youknow. She was out. Ok. I have never drunk water so fast. I went to get my bike and get out. The thing is, the bike was in the shed down the side of junk, wood, stuff, you know. So I remember going into the narrow alley space to pull my bike out, and he followed me, cornered me in there and tried to go further. I remember pushing and screaming "NO WHEELER NO" (wheeler being his last name)and cycling home, crying the whole way and being shattered. Mum was so shattered too, and rang him up immediately and abused him, also threatening him that if he ever did anything like this again, she would tell him mum. And after that he never looked at me or looked me in the eye or spoke to me or acknowledged I existed in anyway shape or form.
Now, I say remembered a lot in that because in something so traumatic, you're certainly a lot more ... well, I expect I don't need to explain that to most of you. Nothing more happened; I was not touched beyond the attempts. So this isn't a rape story. But it may as well have been.
He gave me the fear. Every woman I know knows this fear. At 12, he gave me the fear of any person witha penis. I was terrified of any one with a penis. I was terrified of my own father. I was scared enough for my heartrate to shoot up every time I was left alone with my own father, who has never done anything untoward to me. I crossed streets because I could see a male.
And the insanity. A year or so or whatever afterwards, I started to develop, and hormones started moving, and then I once even tried to get his attention. To make him notice me. It is shameful to me. Insane.
I remember, clearer than anything else, probably, the moment I realised I had forgiven him. I was 15, in year ten. I realised I had no malice for him, I seemed to have forgiven him. I stillhad the fear. Inf act, when I was in year12 i dated a guy for a whole 2 hours and 12 minutes, 12 minutes because that's how log it took for him to get home for me to ring him and say I couldn;t handle it. I started to gain more control of it after that though. No major stress outs like that i n uni. Or maybe Ijust got used to it?
Now, still reading the beauty myth (and infact half way through, so this might allchange again when I've finished it) I realise many things, and I wonder many thngs. The point about how in literature and film, you never see the loving sex, you only get the graphic rape and violent sex, seems to have struck true.
For while I was terrified of men, I was also masturbating an average of twice a night, every night, since I was at least 12. And I never, in no way, connected what C was doing with what I was doing. I also did not fantastize back then. Back then, the sheer amazingness of my own cunt was so fulfilling and so ... everything... that I never imagined scenes, others, anything... And now that I do imagine things during sex or when randy, I imagine violence. Is this because my first introduction to sex with another person was a violence? He caught me in thelaundry, wrapped his strong and long arms around me, and tried to force me to kiss him. I didn't know what to do, so I didnt struggle, just kept trying to walk against him arms, away from him, and turn my head away. And then you see movies. And that sexual violence has always been there. I never saw any one making love. I saw people having casual meaningless sex. I saw people being raped. I grew a fascination with power and domination. In my fantasties, I'm not theperson being the victim. (Well, not often. Sometimes I am.) Usually I'm the one perpetrating violence on another.
And the beauty myth was published in 1990, 16 years ago. A couple of years after all of this, but still, I feel like she wrote my story in some ways.
Supatra said I needed to do some inner child work, and I think I've just found her. I've managed to research my way to her? I wonder what it would have been like, if I'd had someone teach me that my cunt was amazing and wondrous and initiated me much later at a better time and better place. What if I'd never had that fear. What if I'd never been hindered and blinkered so early. Who would I be?
And I guess I now have an answer to "Why did a 15 year old boy think the things he was doing were OK? Acceptable behavious even?" I don't think he did anything with malice. I am 100% certain of that. But how come he never once got told or learned "don't try and force people to kiss you." or "Don't try and corner women for yourown interests." And corollary to that,he seemed to pick up the message - "Your penis is uncontrollable. You do not need to control yourself." The answer is all around us. I wasn't a real person to him, even though I had been a play mate for 7 or 8 years. As he developed into a sexual being, the sexual signs that society was showing him relied on women as objects, in that the signs of interest and arousal in women is not a part of modern day sex in film or literature. And, a lot of women feel, and I did too, that I wasn't a real person enough to flat out say to him "Leave me alone." Words just ... don't work when you're in a situation like that. And twelve years old.
I get really cranky and frustrated with terminology when it comes to the first time I had sex. I gave my virginity. I lost my maiden head. I lost my cherry. Fuck that! I decided, consciously, soberly, and with great anticipation that I was going to sleep with this person. I lost nothing. I gained experience. I can't adequately describe the experience without having to twist language to try and fit the uplifting and exciting experience it had been. Because sex is about power distribution, and viginity is about the powerless being taken by thepowerful. And it wasn't like that. And there was no violence, no coercion, likethere is implicit in the language used to describe the initial act.
I wonderif I should have been angry for longer. I just realised I didn't blame him. Why didn't I? I guess, because it was my place to be pushed and fearful. I dealt with things one at a time. The anger I seem tohave subsumed rather than removed, and the fear has been under control for a long time. I'm not scared any more. But I think I have more physical prescence now. I walk like I'm proud of myself, like I feel I can handle any situation that arises. That's because I feel that I can. A huge part of this is John's complete and unconditional love. The more I read and learn, the more I am completely astounded at just how wonderful John is. He is far more ofthe new wave than I am. I'm stillgetting there. He embodies everything I hope to be. If I have two boys, I won't be sorry. (I wouldn't be sorry anyway, but we're talking politics here *grin*) because then I would be contributing two new wave men to the world, who I fear are going to have to do what John has done for a couple of women - give and love endlessly until theyunravel all the damage society has done to them.
I'm using new wave as aterminology for the next wave of feminism. Except I don't know if feminism is going to be the terminology any more.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-03-21 09:54 pm (UTC)From:Except,I think I'll be having a quiet discussion with my two boys this weekend about core values and expectations.
In my mind I have two ages where I lost my virginity. The second was when I was fifteen and gave it over willingly.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-21 11:29 pm (UTC)From:I read the Beauty Myth when I was about fourteen or fifteen, and decided I needed to change the way I thought about a lot of things - that I needed to start thinking, for a start!
Is feminism dead? No, it can't be. Not when so many of the core writers have the power to transform, to inform, and to reveal our lives to ourselves.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-22 01:34 am (UTC)From: (Anonymous)We can only guess at what he was thinking at the time of this. However i do remember from my teens that the first flush of sexual thoughts and the awakening of the knowledge that as a teen your body is developing past the weakness of the child was very intoxicating.
All to often when words fail to try and explain your thoughts actions are easier.
Why did you think of these things when you were masturbating. Well as a well rounded "claytons" psych ( ie i have no real idea but lets just guess ). If you felt guilty or had the usual thoughts of "is it normal to do this twice a night etc " you could have been placing yourself in the role of the victim as a way of getting past any guilt. It could have been an internal counter balance.
Still i remember reading the beauty myth and was very impressed with it. Maybe it is time to read it again.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-22 01:53 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2006-03-22 05:39 am (UTC)From:I don;t think I quite understand.
Midn you, I never felt guilty about doing it. I just wonder at where my fantasies come from these days.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-22 05:53 am (UTC)From:Yes i did get confused a bit on the timeline of your fantasies, should read posts a few times before commenting.
Fantasies are exactly that. Most of our fantasies come from pretty deep down and deal with some pretty intense things like being forced to do something sexual etc. I don't think it is wrong to have them or even to act them out in a "play" environment.
This post is making me think a lot. Taking a step back and looking at yourself in a diff light is always quite revealing.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-22 05:45 am (UTC)From:I also think it would be great if 'the beauty myth' was on the high school curriculum. imagine if we empowered our teenagers with that knowledge, it would be a different world I think. I didn't get to read it until my early 20s, but once I did it changed me for life.
this isn't a rape story
I find the word 'rape' to be loaded with judgment and peoples values, so much so that I choose to avoid it and use the term 'sexual assault' I think it more correctly describes the act - an assault on someone where sex has been used as a weapon. what you described is definitely sexual assault and would be legally classed as so.
I get really cranky and frustrated with terminology when it comes to the first time I had sex. I gave my virginity. I lost my maiden head. I lost my cherry. Fuck that!
yes, it reinforces the idea that sex is something that men want and women don't and that virginity is something women must have stolen from them against their will or better judgment.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-22 12:48 pm (UTC)From:This post was posted to me by Michael and I had to respond :) Good on you for being strong enough, and for moving on enough in life to be able to talk about it!
I think it's hard for anyone who has felt any type of sexual violence whether it be harassment, abuse, or assault to sometimes describe how much fear such an act can put into someone. And more, how much it sometimes takes to be able to talk about it rationally years after the event. It seems so much easier to sweep it under the carpet and pretend it didn't happen, though you know it did, for fear can still strike you at any point of time.
I find, even now, many years after, and even though I am happily married and (supposedly) well adjusted, there are still moments when an action or something I read about sends me spiraling back to my childhood, and I'm firmly gripped in the palm of fear again - for a second, for a minute, for however long it takes me to rationalise with myself that I am safe now, I'm not the same child who wasn't heard by the people I tried to tell, and I'm a much more vocal person about myself these days.
My personal fantasies nowadays are so tame and airy fairy that you would think that I live in a fantasy world! And I know for me, it's because visualising sex the way it is portrayed nowadays is just too violent, and for the most part of it, I can't handle the violence!It does not turn me on in any kind of way, and I'm all too willing to beat a hasty retreat.
The news is all too ready to jump on stories of paedophiles and other assorted sex offenders. Home burglaries are populated with sexual assaults because it's a means of power, that leaves the victim broken and defenceless, whilst giving the attacker a huge rush for no apparent reason.
The sad part being that whilst I feared my abuser, I craved the attention he gave me, which made things, in my childhood mind, much worse.
I remember a whispering I heard back when I was about 11, of a family friend's eldest daughter being impregnated at 15 and of how she had to have an abortion. I remember the rumour that said they aborted her at home with a coathanger, and I remember the anger I felt at hearing this story, because the person who impregnated her, was him. I hated him so much, and I was so bitter about it all. I was angry for so long.
But then I started going out with some of the guys from high school and discovering how much fun sex could be when you were a willing participant, and my anger at him dissipated immensely. I didn't hate him as much, and I didn't fear as much because I had two long term (for high school) relationships that came along and were the world to me back then.
Nowadays, I have someone else that means the world to me, who knows me inside and out,and won't push me when I tell him to stop. That does make a huge difference to the way a person sees themself.
The other therapeutic thing for me was actually getting a job in the Sexual Assault Referral Centre at King Edward. Being confronted with it every day was in a perverse sort of way strangely comforting and more beneficial for me than me actually seeing a therapist. Go figure. Having worked with all my counsellors for over a year now, I know I probably would have benefited from counselling when I was younger, but as a child who knows there are these types of resources available? I'm glad we're making more of a presence for ourselves, by going out to the schools and doing community presentations, and whatever else we do. It's nice to think that if we can provide enough people with enough information, then the rate of sexual assault / abuse may eventually one day go down from their current huge numbers. But the reality of it is that these figures will probably get higher before they get lower.
So thank you Callistra, for sharing such a difficult part of your life with us. And please know now, how very much you are loved by all of us! :)
no subject
Date: 2006-03-22 12:51 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2006-03-22 12:53 pm (UTC)From:I'm still reading and thinking.
Again, wow to both of you.
I'm tearing up still.
:-)
no subject
Date: 2006-03-22 02:48 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2006-03-23 10:33 am (UTC)From:*hugs*
Bec