Precious Things

When I was in my sophomore year of college, I went to my first dance club. It was an all ages club and I was looking forward to this rite of passage. I got dolled up, got picked up by a couple of girlfriends and headed out.

Since we were underage, we of course shared a fifth of whiskey in the parking lot before going in. Simultaneously overwhelmed and overjoyed by all of the flashing lights, people and heavy bass, we walked into the club feeling and acting like we owned the place.

We danced in a small cluster, knowing almost instinctually that we needed to protect each other. Men would come through the circle and dance with us but would typically move out of our circle in the pleasurable and organic flow of dance. This energy was short-lived. As we were dancing, a couple of men joined our group and began to dance with us. Suddenly, I felt my skirt being pulled up and a man's hand attempting to work its way into my panties. I turned around and away from him, looking at him with shock and disgust. He gave me a look of pleasure and entitlement and walked away. Needless to say, I felt violated.

As someone who had been violated sexually before I could even understand what that meant, this was an especially cruel experience. It also shot me back to another loss not so many years prior.

I was couch surfing after I left home and was staying with my friend Emilia. Her parents were immigrants from Mexico and owned a small residential and commercial cleaning business in Anchorage. Many of their jobs were after hours so most evenings at Emilia's were without adult supervision, which was ideal for a homeless underage runaway. She had an older sister who was somewhere around the age of twenty-one. One of the nights that I crashed there, her sister was having a party.

Even though Emilia and I were only thirteen, we were allowed to join the party. I had a couple of beers, a welcome addition to my sad circumstances. Since I was so young, the beer hit me pretty hard and soon after, I left the party to go lie down in the bedroom that Emilia shared with her sister. I shut the lights out and drowned out the party noise, slipping quickly into an alcohol-induced sleep.

I was awakened by a man over me, biting my neck and grinding my breast into my ribs with one of his hands. He was using the other hand to pull my pants down. I was half asleep and still feeling the effects of the alcohol, so it was difficult for me to register what was happening or do anything about it. I started to struggle but he was much older and bigger than I was. I could hear other voices in the background but the lights were still out so I couldn't see anything. In the parallel universe that is rape, I consider that its own bizarre blessing. As this man violated me, I could hear the other men laughing and saying "come on man, bone the bitch so we can get out of here."

I was an errand to be completed, a party favor, and all I did to get here was have a beer and go to bed. I was thirteen years old and had had one positive sexual experience. I shouldn't have had any sexual experiences at that age. What is happening? Why?

Unsurprisingly, my adult years have been fraught with struggles around sexual intimacy. I spent a good portion of my adult years violating my own body through my actions and struggling with distrust and anger towards men. I have been informally diagnosed as borderline in the past and struggle with the shame of that diagnosis and the shame around how I've gotten to a point where someone could feel that they know enough about me to relegate me to a label as simple and derogatory as that. I struggle with anger that people can violate others to the point of sickness, then arrogantly slap a detached and academic label to it and express frustration that the violated can't "get it together."

When a precious gem is tarnished, it is cared for. It is not re-labeled and tasked with polishing itself. Instead, the gem's caretaker knows that there is beauty under the dust and understands that it takes time and patience to unearth it. Why is that same honor not extended to women, one of the most precious things on earth?