When I Was In High School

THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE AND MAINSTREAM MEDIA are unlike anything I have ever seen, ever thought I would see and certainly nothing I ever wanted to experience in my lifetime. 

Currently, a doctor is testifying about sexual assault she experienced in high school by the Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh. It is everywhere and with the access to social media every person you have ever encountered's opinion is at the tip of your fingers. 

I read an article today written by the Huffington Post and Washington Post, quoting a FoxNews Anchor stating the Kavanaugh case has prompted his own daughters to tell him stories from when they were in high school. You can read more about that here. That alone stirred in me so much emotion, so many thoughts and feelings I have pushed aside for decades. The simple phrase " When I was in high school" as related to sexual misconduct wrecks me and today, I will tell you why. 

To be fair, this post is going to have graphic, mature, and sexual content: Consider yourself warned. 

BACK WHEN I WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL. I transferred from a smaller arts school to a large suburban high school the middle of second semester my junior year. I told my friends and anyone who asks why (even to this day) that is was because my mother remarried and we moved about 30 minutes from my old school. She didn't want me driving across town every day at 16. Seems like a logical enough reason. 

The truth was, she had found out my boyfriend and I were sexually active, and even though I asked to be put on birth control and would have loved to have some open communication about teenage sex, she refused. She took me to a gynecologist as a scare tactic, to humiliate me with a pelvic exam, and STD testing. She called his mother who was the head of our local Planned Parenthood to tell her I would not be allowed around him any more and she yanked me out of the school, away from my friends that I had, had since kindergarten. 

I was raised in the church, and in her mind abstinence was the only option. It was embarrassing for her to know I was no longer a virgin and it was her new mission to "keep me safe." She was doing what she thought was best. In hindsight, I imagine she would handle the situation entirely different. This experience shaped me, how I raise my own daughter, and gave me a whole hell of a lot to rebel against moving forward through my senior year. 

That is just the back story... It is important to know, so you can see how we got here. 

Eventually, my first love broke my heart. He got sick of lying and sneaking around, never being able to see me, and he moved on. He started seeing someone else and that was it. I truly did love the boy that I lost my virginity to, he was the first boy that ever made me feel beautiful. He had seen more of the world than me, was respected by his parents and had more freedom. He was a little bit bad boy, wicked smart, tall and I thought he was absolutely amazing. I don't regret my decision one bit, to this day. 

But with him gone, and my new found sexual experience, I began to date. I viewed sex as something you eventually did with a boyfriend. The timeline depended mostly on the boys experience level, and when he tried to take it there. I dated some really wonderful guys that barely kissed me, let alone tried to sleep with me, and I spent time with some guys who's only goal was to see how fast I would give it up. This story is about the later. 

BACK WHEN I WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL, at a new school with just a few people I knew from church and that were friends with my step-brother. I was searching for my place. There was this guy and I had known him through our youth group before I ever went to school with him. I had a little crush on him as a middle schooler at church. We were the same grade, both seniors, he was only at school half the day. He was popular. He through parties, his parents had money and traveled a lot. He was a bad boy. He drank, smoked, partied, hooked up with hot girls, and did what he wanted without much regard for authority. 

As luck (or lack thereof) would have it, one day, he set his sites on me. The first time we hung out, he was sweet and flirty. Cuddled up with me and watched a movie. He kissed me, but didn't try anything more. We talked on the phone a lot, he asked about making Valentine's Day plans. Told me he liked me, and so on...

The next time he asked me to come over it was late, I was already in for the night but he was insistent that I come see him. His parents were out of town, he had a few friends over and wanted to see me. So, I snuck out of my house and went over to his. Of course, sneaking out and going to a boy's is never a good idea but what happened next was something I never even imagined. 

When I got to his house, he took me up to his room. I didn't see anyone else but I could hear a TV on in what was a game room upstairs. He said his buddies were in there watching a movie but he just wanted to see me. He turned all the lights on and had me lay with him on the bed, we started kissing, and he was really wanting things to move further. 

I remember asking him to turn the lights off, and he said no, he wanted them on - he wanted to see me. So I went along with it. I wasn't one to push back too much, this hot popular guy was really into me, we had been talking a lot and in my mind we were starting to date. He kept pushing forward, taking off my clothes, but as luck would have it I was on my period (Man! I am so thankful for that now). 

I will never forget the disappointment in his face when I told him we couldn't do anything other than kiss and I was on my period. But he was crafty, he had a plan... 

Now, I pause here to say in my mind I truly believed most of my peers were having sex. I also thought there were two types of girls, those who have sex and those who do everything else. Personally, I had very limited experience in the oral arena. It wasn't something I was comfortable with happening to me, and it wasn't something I wanted to do for a guy. It was not in my comfort zone of quickie missionary style teenage sex. 

But my period was a problem for this boy, because he had already talked a big game to his buddies, and he had something to prove. So my period turned into "we can do other things". He decided he would be ok with a blow job, but I was not in on that. I remember telling him I didn't really do that, and there was no way he could "finish" without warning me, because frankly semen grossed me out. So with bright lights on, he climbed on top of me, told me to push my breasts together he would titty f- me instead. 

Writing this now, I remember the nausea I felt, I wasn't into this at all but I didn't know how to stop it without him completely hating me. So I went along with it. He got low on my chest and as I was laying there he ran his penis between my breasts and the tip would touch my lips. He did this over and over, satisfying himself pushing the tip of his penis further into my mouth. I had made it very clear I did not want him to finish in my mouth. But this went on for several minutes until I felt his semen hit my face. I tried to push him back but he held me down, as he finished all over my face and chest. 

I got up disgusted, actually gagging, and he was laughing so hard. He thought it was so funny. I asked for a towel, he said no. I asked to take a shower, he said no. But he turned on the bathtub in his adjoining bathroom and cleaned himself up while laughing. When he finished, I walked over washed semen off my chest and face bent over his bathtub, and put my bra and top back on. 

He was so satisfied with what he had done. He basically asked me to leave, because it was late, told me since he had ejaculated in my mouth he didn't want to kiss me but would call me later. 

I was mortified. 

I drove home at god only knows what time in the morning, 3 or 4am. Went upstairs and took a shower, and went to bed. 

Sadly, this story gets worse... It was February 2001 and although cell phones were commonplace, camera phones were not yet invented. A week or so, goes by and I don't hear from him or even give it much of a thought, I was pretty relieved. I didn't want to hear from him. But one day in math class a friend of mine with the same first name asked me if I was dating him. 

Confused, since they didn't run in any of the same circles, I said we had talked a little but no we weren't dating, why? He said well strangely enough someone asked me about you and I today and a video of us having sex. I told them it wasn't me, and that i didn't think you were dating the other "Brian" but they were really upset and insisted there was a video of you having sex.  

Cue major teenage holy shit embarrassment. I assure this "Brian" from math class that I am not dating the other one, and that I never had sex with him. BECAUSE I DIDN'T! Thank God, but all of a sudden my mind is racing. 

A video, Oh. My. God. He insisted the lights were on!!! Did he actually set up a camera and video us? He was messing with something on his tall nightstand at one point. He might have. He has a video of me. I am dead. 

I ask nice "Brian" if he knows how many people have heard about this, and at that point it was hard for him not to tell me that it was all over school. The school of several thousand was buzzing with how this boy made a sex tape of me. 

I call him, I confront him. He denies it, says he doesn't know what I am talking about. I later hear from my almost equally as embarrassed step brother, that one of the guys that was there told him he did something wrong and put the tape in backwards so it didn't record. But Yes, he was trying to video me, so they could all watch it later. 

This version of trying and failing to record me, made my story- that it NEVER EVER HAPPENED a little more believable. I was denying that I even remotely new the guy at this point. Trying to paint this as a big, ugly, unsubstantiated rumor. Making it sound so absurd it couldn't possibly have happened or almost happen. I mean right, who is dumb enough to not see a camera and who can't put a simple tape into a video camera.  But as we all know, there is a little bit of truth behind every rumor and I was one stupid teenage boy away from this "rumor" being mostly true.  

My heartbreaks for my 17 year old self wanting so desperately to fit in, be wanted, have a boyfriend, soaking up new attention, at a new school. The tears on my checks now are the same as when I first dealt with the shame and embarrassment of everyone knowing I was intimately involved with someone who tried to videotape it. I was slut shamed, and he got some high fives from his buddies and some threats from a few good men who knew he was in the wrong. 

I'd like to tell you how I am a survivor, but really I blamed myself for putting myself in that situation just as I thought my mother would if she had ever found out. It was after all, my fault for sneaking out, I let him take off my shirt, I didn't say no when I was uncomfortable. I had no idea a camera was rolling, the lights were on for visibility, the laughter from the other room was them watching me and not a movie, and that his ejaculation on my face after I explicitly asked him not to, was for show. But the truth is, it changed me.

It shaped me, it stripped me of trust, it weaponized sex for me. I learned how to guard myself from that heartbreak ever happening again. To say that changed me, is an understatement. It stole intimacy from me. It gave me scars that I still have to this day. That moment in time is something I will never forget. 

Sadly, it wasn't the only experience I had with sexual deviance, assault, and flat out rape in high school and my early 20s. But it was the first.