IN THE OLDEN DAZE
Coming of age in the days of self-unawareness.
I grew up before “girl power” was a thing. We learned about sex by reading 17 Magazine, or novels about girls who got pregnant, or by playing Truth or Dare at slumber parties. Most of us probably had our first kisses and gropes in the woods behind our houses. When we talked about sex, we talked about bases which all were described as what was being done to the girl. There were no bases for acts to be done on boys, not officially. I wonder why not. Wouldn’t the boys want us to be trying to get to 3rd base on them? Instead they’d be shoving our hands down their pants and we’d be wondering “What are we supposed to do with THAT?”
We didn’t talk about genders beyond “girl” and “boy”. Or “female” and “male”. We didn’t know we had options.
When I was 16, I went to a huge field party, where hundreds of teens gathered to drink beer and smoke dope. I remember wandering around in the dark and saw two guys start kissing each other. I thought that I was so high that I must be hallucinating.
When I was in 8th Grade, we had Spirit Week. Each day was different. School Colors Day, Pajama Day etc. One of the days was “Slave Day” when 9th graders could “buy” a 7th or 8th grader to be their slave for the day. I remember that a 9th grade boy bought me to be his slave. Was this a school fundraiser? I don’t remember what my official duties were supposed to be on that day during school, —probably stuff like carry his books — but I do remember that after school, we went up on The Hill behind our school and I let him go to third base with me. Probably as a repayment for choosing me to be his slave.
We didn’t have the vocabulary that today’s young women have for describing what was happening to us. Stereotyping. Harassment. Controlling. Slut-shaming. Young women in the 70s and 80s received a lot of mixed messages about how we could and should be sexual. We were encouraged to be free, but not too free. To be wild, but not too wild. To be sexy, but not slutty. I remember feeling mad because I felt misjudged and misunderstood for it. But I don’t remember analyzing it. We accepted it or we rebelled against it and sometimes we did both. But we didn’t write essays about it, except in our journals. It was something we were expected to deal with. Being harassed was part of walking through the world as a young woman. We had two choices: ignore it or have a snappy comeback ready. We learned to not take it personally. It happened to most of us. It meant men were noticing us. We built up our armor from a young age. It wasn’t right, but that’s what most of us did.