By Miriam Walker
This article discusses sexual assault.
I’m twelve when my friend says she’d be flattered to be catcalled. She says it would mean she was hot enough to be noticed. I laugh and agree, because no one had ever shared an interest in me. I’m twelve, with developing breasts and thick thighs. Part of my brain tells me I’m not supposed to agree with her; part of me is scared of being called a slut for agreeing, but I ignore it in favor of seeming cool.
I’m thirteen when my boyfriend tells me he wants me to suck his dick. We’re in his room as he tries to convince me. I tell him I don’t know if I want to, and he tells me his ex-girlfriend used to. A nineteen year old tells me, a thirteen year old, that I should be intimidated by his twenty-one year old ex. I agree to perform oral, thankful for his siblings interrupting us multiple times and the fact my teeth are a bit too sharp to perform well. I’m too dangerous to be a good whore, he says. I took a pregnancy test when my period didn’t show for two months, knowing oral didn’t result in this, but not willing to be a freak exception. I wish I never tasted cum. I wish I never offered to lick up what didn’t enter my mouth. I wish I stayed thirteen.
I’m fourteen when I look up porn on my phone. It’s a stupid video that’s loud and cliche. I don’t watch all of it. I don’t get the whole ordeal. I don’t think that’s what sex is supposed to be, but it’s so similar to when I was thirteen, so I wonder if I was doing it wrong or if I was always going to be disappointed in the lack of care.
I’m fifteen when I tell my friends what I did at thirteen. I’m so scared of being called a slut by them too. Of being called a whore. I tell them in a shaky breath, praying they won’t abandon me for learning how to give head at such a young age. They hug me tight and tell me I’m allowed to cry. I don’t even notice the tears forming in my eyes. They say what happened wasn’t my fault; somewhere deep down, I know I don’t hate what I did, and that’s why I know it was my fault.
I’m sixteen when I’m walking through Center City. I hear someone behind me tell me to try and run, bitch. I glance behind me and see a man staring at my ass. I begin to walk at my normal pace, listening to what will happen when I run. How he’ll catch me and drag me into an alley. How I’ll learn to like it, because I’m like every other whore. No one steps in. No one acknowledges the man. I lose him at a red light and begin to go around every corner I can. I’m lost in the city, and I can’t go back. He knows I ran, and I don’t want to be made into his whore.
I’m seventeen when it happens again. Another man, another part of the city, another promise of how I’ll turn into his whore. This time I lose him quick. I burst into tears immediately, and a woman comes up to me. I tell her what happened; how I can’t go to my bus stop because he’ll see me, and no one in the city will help. She gives me a look, one that shows she’s been in my place before, and walks me to the nearest stop. She gives me a token, telling me to take the 125 until I get to a stop where my bus goes. I thank her and never see her again.
I’m eighteen when I accidentally see my director’s nudes. He’s showing me his Halloween set up, and I scroll a bit too far in his camera roll. He yanks the phone from my hands before I can see anything besides his face and chest; a small flash of his dick appears for a split second, but nothing more. He tells me I can tell my parents, my teachers, the producer of the play. He says I can tell any and all adults, just not my cast mates. I don’t tell anyone for years. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.
I’m nineteen when my college friend tells me about her experience being catcalled. How scared she felt when he commented on her tits. I give a small smile and nod my head. I know. I know. I walk her back to her dorm, and I clutch my pepper spray when I make my way to my own.
I’m twenty when I wear a revealing outfit out for the first time. Something that shows my stomach and thighs. I’m walking to campus like this, and I’m terrified. I walk cautiously, glancing every way as I go. It’s cold as shit, so I fear the comments more, but no one says a word. When I get to my destination, I whisper to myself that I can be a whore on my own terms. That I decide when people could call me that. That I like being called a slut by myself and my friends. One of us has to be a slut, I say as I hook up with people I will never date. I think about how every year before, I was scared of being what others perceived as a tramp, but maybe I could be one without guilt. Maybe I don’t have to be his whore. I don’t have to enjoy it because he’ll turn me. Maybe I can enjoy it based off what I give myself.
I’m twenty-one when I wonder if I will ever forget the first blowjob I gave. If I’ll forget being followed down the streets of the city no matter how concealing my clothing was. I wonder if I’ll stop regretting telling my friend I wanted to be catcalled.
I fear I never had a childhood. I was too concerned with fulfilling desires and running from creeps. I fear that each time I feel joy from a children’s movie, it’s because I was never able to feel like a kid. That the plan to bite a chunk of flesh off my next attacker isn’t a normal thought to have. Maybe I matured too early, but I was twelve when I first thought of being catcalled. I know I never had a say in when I matured. I never had a say in my first sexual experience. I never had a say in what would happen in the city.
I have a say in me. I have a say in whose I’ll be, and I’d rather be my whore than his.
