TW: This article includes discussions of sexual violence, r*pe, and suicide.
“I love you.” “Why don’t you love me?” “Why don’t you talk?” Every five minutes Alex continued as I tried to focus on the biology lesson. It was seventh grade, and I was accustomed to constant teasing from the boys in my classes. I was a quiet, unpopular kid in middle school, and that apparently made me fodder for their entertainment. And Alex especially loved to harass me, out of boredom or who knows what.
After a few weeks of this nonsense, I asked my teacher if I could sit next to someone else. I was told that it was school policy to talk to the vice principal after a second seat switching request; I had asked to move away from a different bully in sixth grade. I didn’t want to talk to the vice principal, but now that I had told my teacher, apparently it was mandatory.
As soon as I walked into the vice principal’s office, I felt like I was on trial. He started by telling me how seriously the school took sexual harassment and assault. I was extremely confused. I wasn’t sexually harassed, I insisted. I just wanted to change seats so I could listen to my teacher in peace! He sighed and looked me up and down in annoyance. “We told Alex your accusations and he denied them.” He smirked, as though this was the result he’d expected. Alex thought I had reported him for sexual harassment when I all wanted was to move seats from an irritating bully. This was a nightmare.
“What exactly did he say to you?” the vice principal continued. I stumbled over my words as I attempted to convey the obnoxious comments I’d put up with over the past few weeks. The vice principal didn’t even seem to be listening anymore. He’d already made up his mind about what happened. I was crying wolf, just a silly little girl who wanted attention. For the next few minutes, I got a lecture about “being too sensitive” and not reporting things that didn’t happen. No matter how hard I emphasized that I never wanted to report anything and just wanted a different seating arrangement, he didn’t listen. I promised myself I’d never end up in this position again.
I don’t remember if I was allowed to change seats. It was all a blur. Alex stopped bullying me after that, but the other boys didn’t. And as I sure as hell wasn’t going to say anything this time.
When I moved to San Carlos in third grade, I was suddenly an anomaly. I wasn’t tall and skinny and blonde like the other girls. My clothes were out of style and no one wanted to hear my opinions. I got in trouble in class for doing abstract art for an assignment instead of still-life. I was forced to go to parent-teacher conferences for kids who had issues because my math skills weren’t up to par and I didn’t participate enough in class. I wasn’t the perfect, well-rounded zombie child that my town wanted me to be, and I needed to be fixed. By the time I reached eighth grade, the bullying had ramped up, along with my body dysmorphia and feelings of inadequacy.
My history teacher in eighth grade was barely present. He’d give us an assignment and disappear into his computer, leaving the class to do whatever they wanted. It started with the “why don’t you talk” comments again, leading into sexual innuendos and leering looks. I’d started growing breasts, and I hated them, but apparently the boys didn’t. I was called a lesbian on a daily basis while simultaneously being told that I’d had a sexy sleepover with some boy every weekend. I kept my head down and ignored it. Then came the poking on my arms, legs, stomach, breasts. “Why don’t you talk?” “ Why don’t you talk?” “Want to go out with me?” I kept my head down.
At one point one of the boys literally sat on my head. I tried to remove him as the whole class burst out laughing. Another time, one of the boys put a pair of mini volleyballs under his shirt and, when I got up to sharpen my pencil, started humping my body and asking me if I liked his boobs. Again, the whole class burst out laughing. My history teacher continued to scroll on his computer. I kept my head down.
I never fully realized that what happened to me was assault until years later. I thought it was a joke. Everyone else was laughing. And it took a long time for me to connect it to the seventh grade bullying, when I was told that I was crying wolf for wanting to avoid annoying comments.
Shortly after the incident with the vice principal in seventh grade, I had a nightmare that I found myself in a bed with Alex. He had drugged and raped me while I was sleeping. So I murdered him, stabbing him several times until blood stained the white sheets crimson. I woke up covered in sweat and guilt and shame.
I was extremely suicidal in high school. I didn’t want to be on this earth, not when there were men that wanted to brutalize my body, a body that I didn’t even want. Night after night I woke up to graphic dreams of being kidnapped, raped, assaulted. I had a phobia of men over forty; I believed that they wanted to violate my body, and I would get panic attacks around them. Sometimes I wondered if I had been raped and just blocked it out. To my knowledge, I never was.
It still bothers me that a few vexing comments could turn into assault and a fear of reporting. I was a good kid. I was happy. And then, a few years later, I was unable to leave my bed for a month without bursting into tears. I didn’t actively engage in anything sexual until I was nineteen because I was so terrified of being abused. And I haven’t been able to avoid being abused since then.
I wish I could give you a happy ending. Tell you that I’ve moved on from my childhood trauma and experienced loving, consensual relationships. At the beginning of the pandemic, I left an emotionally abusive relationship and moved right back to where it all started—San Carlos. I was living in the same town where I learned that I was worthless and listening to the same palpable silence of my parents’ loveless, tumultuous marriage. So even though I’d left my ex, the repeated mantras of not being good enough that I received from him continue to be heard in my current environment, from the looks and comments I get for being proud in my queer, non-binary indentity in a small town to memories of being touched in places I never wanted to be touched.
My grandfather hung himself to death before I was born. For a long time, I thought that would probably be my fate. So I try to remember the kid I used to be before I moved to San Carlos. Carefree, loving, artistic. I also have to remember the progress I have made in a tumultuous time. Leaving a two year relationship and moving states during a global pandemic. Taking classes to become a sex educator in order to help people experience different situations than I did as a pre-teen and teen. I’m slowly taking steps to become myself, even if the town I’m living in is holding me back.
Ilana Slavit
Hi, I’m Ilana, a 2020 Film and Media Studies graduate of the University of Oregon. I’ve always been passionate about representation of sex and gender in the media through a social justice focused lens. As a survivor, I am grateful to be a member of the Education Team in order to spread awareness of consent and pleasure. I am in the process of becoming an ASSECT certified Sex Educator through the Institute of Sexuality Education and Enlightenment. In my free time, I like to write, make short films, go to (now virtual)
