I am going to attempt to put words to feelings that I don't quite understand. There's a lot of social grooming for lack of a better term that surrounds the sexual rights of women, the essence of our being as women is inundated with confusing messages from a very young age. I don't believe this to be unique to me. I believe I've had some unique experiences as we all have, but the general conditioning that comes from Western society is broad and all women experience it to some degree if they grow up in American culture.
One of my children says it's part of the whole, "the reason he picks on you is because he likes you" nonsense that we tell our young girls when boys are intimidating, physical, or bullies to young girls. I have a hard time swallowing that because 1) I have perpetuated that myth, and 2) I can see some truth in it from the stand point of young humans with big emotions that they have no way of processing and it comes out sideways. I know this to be a truth. But I also see how this is harmful. Teaching girls that boys (and I say boys because I am deeply heterosexual, I see things from a boy/girl standpoint. But I know/believe that this is true in any gender or love interest interaction) must like them when they pull hair, punch them, push them, call them names or chase them on the playground is wrong and teaches the receiver of this attention that violence is a normal part of love and to tolerate it. It confuses us. I can only speak to my side of this, the receiving side, but I thoroughly believe that it confuses both sides. Okay, now that I'm actually reflecting on my childhood, I know that I did my fair share of chasing. I was love-struck at a young age. Those poor boys.... I chased them all around the playground. But I don't remember entertaining the other bullying tactics that we dismiss in our society. I didn't use demeaning names or violence. I don't think I did. But I also imagine that my mushy love names that I spouted at boys could have had the same effect and probably left them feeling uneasy at the least. Because it's confusing behavior. In no way is it a show of respect. But I got off track. I was going to say that the chasing, it empowered me. It gave me a sense of being in control. And I was suddenly a part of the other person's world whether they wanted me to be or not. Power and control.
I have been trying to figure out this rage that is welling up inside of me lately. It is ever-increasing and I have been really angry at.... well, at me, because I think that I shouldn't feel this way. My thinker is well-schooled at shaming my feeler. I'm a feeler to the core. I am an empath times ten. Therefore, I am feeling confusion to my very core. and shame. I feel ashamed of my feelings. But aren't feelings just feelings, not right or wrong? Then why do I feel so guilty and so intolerant of myself because I feel something I don't immediately understand. Even knowing I feel this way and expressing it and on some level believing it is right, I think it's wrong. I say... "I don't know...." "I'm sorry...." "It's me, not you...." "if I knew, I'd tell you..." Are these little lies or big ones? They are starting to loom large no matter what size they really are, or what size they started out to be. Because the lying is to me. To my being, who I AM.
I often wonder if I was sexually assaulted as a child or budding young adult. There's so much time that is just gone. I don't remember a lot of childhood unless there's a photo to prompt my memory. I detest feeling pressured into sexual behavior of any kind, even on a benign level, like flirting. It fuels that rage. The seething, simmering rage. Rage that is currently bubbling dangerously near the surface and is likely to boil over and burn my life in all areas. Not just sexual areas.
A lot of victim guilt and self-shame comes from the fact that our bodies react to certain things.... touches, actions, behaviors. It felt good in a way, so I must have liked it. It must have been my fault. I have been giving myself this message frequently lately and I have also receiving this.
The thing that makes me want to vomit faster than any other thing lately is the whole idea that I secretly like things that I say no to. And that no doesn't actually mean no. This is an old school way of thinking and it victim blames. I believe in America it is generational. And I was not as exposed to this train of thought as some one as much or as little as ten years my senior. A decade. How society changed. But then again, did it really? Experience-wise I'd have to say "not-so-much,"
In high school I was inappropriately touched by a boy in a stairwell. When I confronted him, he said, "You didn't scream, you must have liked it." This significantly squelched me. I wouldn't have told my teacher anyway because he frequently spouted sexist remarks from his position of teacher. And he was good friends with the other male-chauvinist teacher in our school who often spouted inappropriate remarks and engaged in taunting the at-risk kids in the hallways. Me. I was the at-risk kid in the hallway he taunted and belittled and damn sure didn't TEACH. Well, I take that back, he taught me a lot, but it wasn't academic in nature. He taught me about positions of authority and exploiting of those who don't have the control, he taught me that as the minority (and in this case I mean minority to mean the lesser of) I had no power and those who did have the power were not accountable for their actions. I was taught that I did not count and that I did not have a say. He taught me that if I was to have power it would have to be through cunning and street smarts and covert actions. Overt actions were for the favored ones, the strong, the bullies. He and other similar authority figures taught me to go ahead and smoke a little pot and drink a little drink because I had no future anyway.
So I'm sitting here more than a little overwhelmed at all the feelings I'm walking through right now. And wondering... does that mean that I'm blaming others for my actions? Because we're always taught that we should not do that. That is wrong. Weak. Those who blame others. But I'm also overwhelmed with a sense of "a-ha! This makes so much sense to me!" Which is sort of freeing. I always want to know why I am the way I am.
I feel like this is much deeper, bigger subject than one tiny rant in my blog. It's true. There's so much more. More to the idea of sexism and sexual shaming and the rage and guilt and self-loathing that goes with it. More to the exploration of events that happened to me that I had no control over that shaped the way I interact with men to this day and the age of perpetuation of ideas that are just flat out wrong. The victim blaming/shaming. There's more. But I've bitten off some big emotion this morning and I'm coming down from the adrenaline rush that came with writing this and I'm emotionally drained. Exhausted. So I guess this is a end of this little tirade today. More to come as the universe is constantly revealing more to me.
