Welcome to RMB’s Naked Pictures of Faceless People, a series of guest posts from diverse anonymous bloggers. (Read more about NPFP’s origins.) These are the posts that are jumping to get out of us, but for whatever reason — safety, embarrassment, conflict of interest, protection of loved ones’ reputations or feelings, or so on — we don’t or won’t or can’t post at our own blogs. Anyone is welcome to submit or discuss a potential post by emailing me at arwyn at raisingmyboychick dot com.

TRIGGER WARNING There is a trigger warning on this post for descriptions of child sexual abuse. Please do not read if doing so would put your own health or sanity in jeopardy.

I didn’t have the words

I am so passionate about speaking to children openly about sexuality. On my watch, my child will never be slut-shamed or otherwise silenced. We must offer our kids our listening skills and trustworthiness, and we must speak a language they are comfortable with. I wish all kids were taught at a young age about their anatomy and the proper terms and most of all about consent.

This is why.

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When I was nine years old my father asked me if I had a boyfriend. I was mortified: at my school, to ‘have a boyfriend’ simply meant to have a crush on a specific boy. We weren’t up to juvenile dating yet – it was all schoolyard giggles. Of course, my father wasn’t to know this: his interpretation of boyfriend was much more adult.

It was too mortifying to admit that there was a boy I had a crush on, so I told my father that no, I didn’t have a boyfriend. He pressed me once or twice more for a different answer, he told me I had to wait until sixteen before I was allowed to have a boyfriend, and then he let it go.

I have played that conversation over in my head thousands of times in the last couple of decades. I know now, as an adult, that this was my father asking me if I was sexually active. This was my father asking me about abuse. This was a parent’s woefully inadequate response to his daughter’s suffering.

At school I was being groomed by an older boy (not the one I had a crush on). He was no more than 11 years old but he was already a bully and a predator. He would contrive to give our teacher a reason for us both to be kept in at lunchtime. At first I thought it was because he liked me. It was a tiny school with composite classes, a huge yard, and inadequate supervision. If we had detention we were alone. This boy (I’ll call him S) would say things like ‘you can have my Garfield sticker’, sweet-talk to an innocent nine year old. And then he would touch me. At first, it was ‘tickling’, over my clothing – first my feet or armpits, and then sometimes my crotch. It was not an unpleasant sensation, I’d giggle and squirm. It felt illicit and wrong and I’d protest but eventually allow it. And then afterwards, he’d tell me if I ‘tattled’ something bad would happen: my parents would find out and they would punish me, he would tell the other boys I picked my nose and ate it, that type of thing. S was big for his age and he had an older brother who was popular and powerful. I, on the other hand, was the school’s punching bag and perpetual nerd. Even the five-year-olds felt safe teasing me. It goes without saying that when S made a threat I had reason to fear him.

I’m fairly sure that a teacher caught S touching me one day by looking through the window into the classroom. He came right in and sent us outside. On my way out, the teacher told me I was a ‘disgusting girl.’ I don’t recall if he said anything to S.

In hindsight, I realize that this roughly coincided with the boyfriend talk my father had with me. The story had gone home, and my parents obviously promised to talk to me about it. But when my father asked me those questions, I had no idea he meant S. I had no idea that a boy who frightened me and manipulated me (and yes, in some ways perhaps flattered and thrilled me) could be a ‘boyfriend.’ I had no thought that what was happening to me was in any way my fault or my choice but clearly it was in the eyes of my teachers and parents. And because of their own awkwardness or prejudices, they failed to protect me.

Inevitably, it escalated.

S and his older brother would regale us with descriptions of pornography on the school bus: I think their parents often passed out drunk in front of the TV and the kids would simply sneak into the lounge then and watch the rest of whatever porn movie they’d had on. Ours was a quiet and isolated school: their descriptions were disgusting and bizarre, titillating and terrifying. I have a dim memory of one involving what seems now, to my adult mind, to be a gang rape of a ‘secretary’ character by men wielding staplers and letter openers.

Our schoolyard offered plenty of opportunities for seclusion. Once S abandoned the grooming phase he moved on to physical coercion. I think there were only a few incidents, but since I never wrote or spoke about them and actively disassociated myself, I can’t really be sure of the details. It was a horrible time. I was desperately ashamed and almost welcomed the bullying I got from other kids because I hated myself so much for allowing this to happen to me. He kneed me in the chest. He said unspeakable things to me. He hurt me. He wasn’t quite bold or strong or something enough to rape me other than digitally or orally and for that I am thankful. I can’t believe I just typed that. Thankful.

This was a boy who, at 11 years old, was doing these things. This was a boy who at 11 years old was already telling me about the abuse I should inflict on my own siblings so that I could tell him about it. (I never did such a thing, I hasten to add. But imagine if I had? It’s not something I can think about for too long.) And already, at that age, he was skilled at making me believe that I had ‘asked for it’ and that everyone around me would blame me for being a slut.

Blessedly, his family moved out of the area and I never saw any of them again. By the time I went to highschool, I never heard his name any more. I haven’t spoken it aloud for two decades.

Sometimes, I feel guilty for never telling anyone. I feel as though I should have been stronger than the shame, and should be now. I wonder if there are other women or children he has hurt. I wonder what was being done to him that made him that way. I wonder if speaking up could have helped other women and girls. Or him. Or me.

S’s father and uncle were truck drivers, and he and his brother often talked of how they wanted to carry on the family business. One day I was sitting in my car and I looked over to see the side of a big truck, with [S’s surname] Brothers Transport emblazoned on the side.

I didn’t see the driver’s face. It could have been him.

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