I was just thinking about how much like my body has been sexualized by other people without my say so ever since I was about twelve or thirteen and like, I think that might have fucked me up a little
like I ‘developed’ or whatever pretty young and in middle school I had big boobs and I remember like, vividly the humiliation of having teachers and aides yelling at me to cover up, barking at me angrily like it was my fault. I would wear high undershirts under all my shirts so my cleavage didn’t show and I still got chastised for showing too much skin. it’s like... it’s a unique sort of weird, gross shame you know, like I remember exactly how it felt. I didn’t want to be sexual, I was too young, and I definitely didn’t want these teachers looking at me that way. it made me feel... disgusting.
my mom would do it to, she would look at me and worry about the sort of attention i would attract, say that wearing white undershirts was too sexual, say that not wearing an undershirt was too sexual, etc. I remember crying about it after a conversation with her, because it felt so... weird and so bad and so shameful. it made my skin crawl. I know she was only worried about me but... it kind of fucked with my head.
and this went on. my mom always made sure I adhered to the dress code, and so I did, but in highschool I got dresscoded several times by one teacher in particular (he was kind of an ass). i wasn’t wearing anything against the dress code; my straps were two fingers in width, and my shoulders were covered. it was usually because I was wearing a tank top. one time I got called to the office in the middle of class because (I found out later) the teacher called them to chastize me for my clothing. I didn’t know what was going on; I thought maybe something bad had happened to someone, and I was so stressed about it I broke down crying when the office lady started yelling at me about being indecent.
‘cover up,’ she said, and gave me a paperclip (a paperclip!) to pin my cardigan over my indecently exposed boobs
i was so angry, but so ashamed too. what could i do?
that like... that fucks you up. knowing that teachers look at you like that. feeling that... shame. that shame feels all tied up with my sexuality now because it feels like my body is... disgusting, gross, bad. i can’t exactly put it in words, it’s beyond that. it’s the way other people have interacted with me and my body my whole life, the way sexuality has either been about people being disgusted by or attracted to my body without ever bringing my wishes or my feeling into that equation, and it really started with middle school
it’s just... i have a hard time connecting with my own relationship with sex because so much of it is tied up into that unwanted sexual attention i got when i was young. so much of it feels... just that specific kind of shameful, the sort that makes me feel helpless and wrong.
