I know I have been writing about my own experiences a lot recently, but I figure this is my fucking blog, so I will do what I want, right?

Last semester, for Feminist Philosophy we read a piece called “Her Rites of Passage.” I can’t for the life of me remember the author, and lo and behold, it was taken off our library course reserves since the new semester began. Anyway, it’s a short piece detailing a woman’s different experiences growing up and the unwanted sexual harassment/assault/advances she went through at different ages. And I wanted to write my own.

**Trigger Warning**

Age 9

I am visiting my dad’s house for the weekend and playing with a slightly older boy who lives across the street. He invites me to go fishing in a pond nearby. We are using nets in the muddy pond that’s set in a small clearing in the woods. He asks me to kiss him. I refuse. He lunges for me and tries to grab me. I run home. His dad is dating my father’s roommate, Karen, so he follows me in the house. I tell my dad to make him leave. He says he can’t because he’s practically Karen’s step son. The boy stands in my bedroom’s doorway and leers at me.

Age 11

My stepfather makes references to my budding chest on a regular basis, calling them “nubs” and asking me when I am going to actually sprout real breasts. Calls me “nubs” for the next few years.

Age 14

I am a freshman in high school. I sit alone at lunch most of the time because I don’t know anyone in my lunch period. A senior boy and his friend start sitting with me. They seem pretty cool to my young mind, and I invite the company. A few weeks into the semester, they start asking me if I’d like to have sex with them; they will give me money, they say. I just shake my head and ignore them. For the rest of the semester, they call me their prostitute, their whore, their slut. I try to move tables and avoid them, but they follow me. I ask them to stop, but they just laugh. I finally go to an administrator to report their harassment. I am actually taken seriously and the two boys are suspended. All of my friends and classmates, however, snarl at me. “Why can’t you take a joke?” they ask me. “You’re such a bitch!”

Age 15

Have my first “real” boyfriend. He is a junior and we have an Algebra class together. His name was John, and I thought he was amazing. He liked really cool punk music, made me mix CDs, and got along ok with my friends. What more could a girl want? One night we are watching a movie with his family. We are laying on the ground under a blanket. We have never gone farther than kissing. He plunges his hand down my jeans and fumbles for my vagina. I try to pull away and I hiss for him to stop. He doesn’t listen and keeps digging in between my legs. I elbow him in the balls to make him finally stop.

Age 16

I work at Chick-fil-a. It is getting about closing time when an older man walks into our empty store. I am working the front counter and he comes straight to my register. He places an order, and then asks me what school I go to. I oblige him the answer with a smile, as we are instructed. He tells me he has a daughter there named Brenda. Do I know her. Unfortunately, I do and I tell him so. He explains that his daughter and her mother are both “little bitches” and he can’t stand them. Then he leans in and asks me if I have ever been with an older man. I’ve never been with anyone, so I just laugh a little in response, unsure what to say. He then says he will wait outside for me to get off work and we can go somewhere and he can “show me a good time.” He leaves the store with his food and sits right by the door for the next hour. I cower in the store with one of my supervisors until he finally leaves.

Age 17

I have done something pretty stupid, but just how stupid I don’t know yet. I have struck up an internet relationship with a boy my age that I met through blogging about my favorite band, the Red Hot Chili Peppers. We have a lot in common, and even though he is in Boston, and I’m in Atlanta, and we have never met, we strike up a flimsy long-distance relationship. His name is Tyler. We talk on the phone a lot. We instant message even more. We venture into phone-sex, and plan meeting in the near future. Then I meet Dan. Dan is still in high school, even though I am a freshmen in college, and we hit it off. We have an undeniable attraction. I break things off with Tyler, and start dating Dan full-time. One weekend, when I am visiting Dan, I get a call from Tyler. He tells me he is at UGA, waiting for me outside my dorm. I am in utter disbelief. I don’t know who to tell. My parents would freak out and I would probably be in trouble. So I just go back to my dorm, and there he is, all 6 feet, 4 inches and 230lbs of him. I am a foot shorter and about 100 lbs lighter than him at this point in my life. I feel sorry for him. He tells me he slept in a port-a-potty, a park bench, and on a stranger’s floor for the past few days. He hasn’t eaten anything in a long time. He is just so in love with me, he had to see me just once. Or so he says. I tell him he can stay on my futon in my dorm room. His flight leaves the next morning, so it’s just one night. We are sitting on said futon, later than night, having a talk. I feel like maybe we could be friends. My roommate is asleep in her loft above us. Next thing I remember, he is holding me down and touching me between my legs. He fingers me for a long time, holding me down even as I shake my head and try to pull away. I cry silently. He tries to climb on top of me, but I beg him to stop. Crying, I squirm away from him and crawl into my own loft. I hear him crying in the futon, sobbing like a child. “You just cheated on Dan,” he tells me. And then he continues weeping. I tell him to “shut the fuck up” and I roll over and go to sleep. A few days later, after Tyler is gone and things feels normal, I have a panic attack/fugue and try to kill myself by laying down in the middle of the road. I am plagued by panic attacks, depression, fear, and vomiting for the next few months. I start seeing a therapist that summer and have been ever since.

Age 19

It is late one night and I am staying over Dan’s house. We have been having sex for a few months at this point. We are, to my knowledge, very much in love. We fall asleep on the floor while watching TV. I wake up and realize he is having sex with me. While I had been asleep. I ask him to stop. He ignores me and keeps going. I keep saying, over and over, “no, no, please stop Dan, I don’t want to have sex, no.” He finishes and rolls off of me and asks how it was. He sees I am crying and asks what’s wrong. I tell him “I asked you to stop. I said I didn’t want to have sex.” He shrugs and says “I thought you were just playing hard to get.” I get up and start gathering my stuff. “You just raped me,” I conclude, glaring at him. “Oh. Sorry.” And yet I still love him for the rest of our relationship–another 6 months.

Is this normal? Is it normal for girls growing up to go through this sort of shit? Is it okay? These are just the instances I remember, that stick out in my mind because they were so scary at that point in my life. Of course, I am not mentioning all the instances when boys talked about my boobs, or grinded up on me uninvited on the dance floor, or felt me up in the pit at a concert, or called me too ugly, too hot, too fat, too easy, or too tight. Since puberty, I have been repeatedly defined by my sexuality and it hurts. It hurts something awful. I hope my future daughters, nay–any girls, never have to go through this.