relating to

A friend recently reached out to me after discovering my blog. She said my words resonated with her, that they described feelings she could not necessarily verbalize herself. I write for this reason, to articulate and communicate the experience that so many have, yet cannot name, cannot convey. I recounted my experience to her, my episodes and my diagnosis, and she found solace in knowing that she was not alone.

Sometimes I worry I share too much, whether it be here, other outlets on the internet, or in conversations with people I know not so well or even strangers I have just met. Yet that is the point, that is my mission. Why should we hide from, be ashamed of, or lie about the way we are feeling, what we have been through, what we are told not to speak about. The less we speak about them, the more the idea is reinforced that they are bad, taboo, off limits. But these are human experiences, things that happen to us, whether inflicted by others or inflicted by our minds that we cannot control. They may not be universal, but more people share them with us than we know.

I am reading (or at least trying to read) a book called “Girlhood” by Melissa Febos. It was recommended to me by a classmate who found common themes between her writing and mine. While only about 100 pages into the 300 page collection of essays, I feel comforted in the way Febos presents growing up as a young girl.

She writes a lot about the way we perceive ourselves, and the way others’ perceptions of ourselves form our own identity. Most of what I have read has had to do with her sexualization by both boys and girls. Boys and men desire and take advantage of her, while girls ostracize and bully her, simply because of her more developed body and the attention these boys and men give her.

I have always perceived myself as an object of sexual attention. This comes not just from an inflated ego due to a body that fits conventional beauty standards, but also the way I have constantly and repeatedly been treated by men. (I hate to call them men, because they act like immature, silly little boys).

I cry to friends about the way they treat me, fucking me and leaving behind. A few say this is not just their behavior, but a reflection of the way I view myself and my self worth. While I value myself and know that I am smart, emotionally intelligent, funny, even though it is often when I am not trying to be funny that I make people laugh, caring and kind, I often see myself as nothing but a quick fuck, an object of desire, a toy meant to be played with.

Febos talks a lot about the word “slut,” a word that I have long wished to reclaim. Why do we shame women for enjoying sex, for allowing themselves the pleasure men so easily obtain. A want for pleasure is natural, if it wasn’t, why are women able to reach orgasm? And without them, men would not be able to find the pleasure they so ravenously desire.

I know, I know, the idea that women should be able to have sex as freely, frequently, and casually as men is not novel. Yet women, especially young girls, are again and again given the title slut in the most disparaging and derogatory sense. In Girlhood, Febos explains that slut originated to describe a woman who was dirty or untidy. This idea of “dirty” has transformed to describe a women who is soiled by the touch of men. Often times in girlhood, girls are labeled sluts through rumors, through the way men perceive them and act upon them.

I remember the first time I was labeled a slut. In seventh grade, a boy and I sent nudes back and forth. I arrived at school the next day to hear whispers, even from my closest friends, about how I was “dirty,” what I had done was wrong, wI had behaved in a way that was not lady like. Yet no one said anything about him, no one shamed him for sharing pictures of himself. I wanted to be desired by a man, because no man had desired me before.

I became sexually active much later than my friends, yet I was the one who was deemed a slut. They had sex with their boyfriends, I had sex with boys who would never look at me again, yet tell their friends as if I was a conquest, another girl under their belt. I found myself longing for the male gaze, longing for the attention and closeness that I never found through romance, but easily found through sex.

I knew it at the time, but have come to recognize the feeling of being used and then tossed aside by men. It is not a good one. A moment of intimacy and connection fills me with satisfaction for a minute, only to leave a void, a feeling and understanding that I was just another hole for them to pleasure themselves with. I am always told I choose the wrong men, implying that it is my fault, not theirs, even though they are the ones treating me like this.

Febos reassures me that I am not alone in this feeling, that the onus is not on me, but on them. She writes to illuminate the feelings that many girls are burdened by, the same thing I wish to accomplish by sharing my thoughts and experiences. Maybe you are reading this and do not relate, but maybe you are, you do, you find comfort in knowing that many of us feel the same, experience the same, desire the same thing we are being denied.