What’d You Learn in High School?
In my freshman year of high school, I sat at a table in math class with another boy who found that it was fun to spread rumors about me, in front of me. They were vile. “Natalie likes dick,” he’d sneer, turning to make sure he’d get a rise out of the two sophomores in the back who were taking the class a second time. “She gave Tyler a blow job this weekend. He told me.” This was before I’d even attended my first high school party and I’d only recently had my first kiss. I’d asked him to stop, but our clueless teacher was old and hard of hearing. Oblivious. No one else stuck up for me, just ducked their heads and chuckled or bit their lip in silence.
In my sophomore year of high school, my chemistry teacher was the guy known for “giving the hot girls A’s.” He made comments about girls’ outfits and stared at my friend’s ass when she walked across the front of the classroom. I was assigned to sit next to Ben*, who I felt bad for because he really struggled with that class. I’d stay a few minutes after to help him on assignments, but then my teacher approached us one day. “Ben, take Natalie on a date, will you?” He teased us incessantly after, calling us “lovebirds.” I stopped staying to help. On Valentine’s Day, he sat on the edge of his desk and held up an envelope, smirking. “So I found this love letter on someone’s desk yesterday. Thought I’d read it out loud to teach y’all a lesson. Of course, I won’t use the real names.” He replaced the names with mine and Ben’s while the class giggled. I sank deep into my chair. I later learned that the letter was fake — it was a stunt he pulled every year. Just two weeks later, he was placed on leave for sexual harassment and I was called into an office to speak with the district’s attorney. He was not fired.
In my junior year of high school, as I navigated the rampant hookup culture at my school, I learned that sex was seen as a conquest more than anything else. It was a box to be checked, a bucket list item that extended into specific people you wanted to get with. Your drunken Saturday hookup was Monday morning’s topic. My friends were sexually assaulted, regularly, but they didn’t call it that. “I just get too drunk and then regret it later,” they said. There was a list of boys to avoid at parties. That’s the way it goes, they said. When Stanford student athlete Brock Allen Turner raped Chanel Miller, my dad sat my sister and I down on the last day of school before we were supposed to go out with our friends. He choked on his words and broke down. I did, too.
In my senior year of high school, boys of a specific social status in my grade joined a group that was exclusively for seniors, a torch passed down from the previous graduating class. It was a pre-fraternity get-up that was difficult to take seriously. It was all in good fun, they said. They made jerseys outfitted with nicknames on the backs, most of which referred to their sexual conquests or failures, or their ability or inability to drink in massive amounts. They sported these shirts every Friday, a reminder of the things they’d accomplish that weekend. The girls they’d accomplish.
When I graduated high school, I still struggled to understand what healthy sexuality looked like. It wasn’t a conversation within my school, my friend group, or my family even. I didn’t understand how to stick up for myself in situations of blatant harassment, or that in hookups, consent is ongoing. That you aren’t bound to “finish what you started.” While I called myself a feminist and faithfully attended the school’s production of the Vagina Monologues each year and outwardly condemned the ingrained rape culture on our campus, I couldn’t articulate what I wanted out of a relationship without feeling needy, bossy or straight-up annoying. And I definitely didn’t see sex as an intimate exploration between two people, a moment of tenderness and vulnerability.
When I started at the University of Southern California that fall, where 1 in 3 female undergrads are sexually assaulted, Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey broke the Harvey Weinstein story and the #MeToo movement kicked into full swing. I remember reading the story and its responses in awe. Understanding — in clarity — what was wrong. Why I’d felt so lost all those years. The silence had been deafening.
I don’t know if I will have kids one day. But I will worry for them. A son who may grow up racing to lose his virginity or a daughter who may succumb to things that she’s uncomfortable with. A child who is a bystander. Or who has been humiliated in the classroom or workplace. Or a victim of assault. I get twinges of a parent’s worry when I think about it. And I am 21 years old.
