The Betrayal
As a little girl, I was as tough as you. I ran and played outside like you—with many of you. We played cops and robbers. I arm-wrestled you and beat you. I had bigger muscles than you. We had mud fights. We were friends—so I thought.
There were prejudices against me even then. And they stung. Some of you sexualized me, even when we were so, so little. Curse the adults who taught you those things.
I went fishing with some of you, and I always caught more fish than you. We had fun. I did more chin-ups in P.E than all of you in my class and flex-hanged for longer than you too. And you didn’t seem to care all that much. You were just impressed. It was just fun competing like that.
We painted pictures together. Watched Cinderella together. Played house together. Played with Barbies together. And you liked it. You had special stuffed animals that you slept with. I never understood that emotional connection that you had with your toys.
And then we hit the age where our bodies started to change. You grew taller and more muscular, and I grew some fat for the first time in my life. I thought it was humiliating that I got fatter when you got stronger. Mostly because it hurt that you wanted absolutely anything but to be considered like me—a girl—the most humiliating thing for you to be. You believed that would be humiliating for you, but thought I should be okay with it. Even when I lifted as much as you, the fact was denied and ignored. Suddenly, any strength in me was a threat.
We hit puberty, and the attitude that females should be and should want to be consumed and dominated over only grew. This mindset toward me that I felt when I was a little girl was suddenly forced upon me so strongly, and I knew I was stuck. I had no way out of these attitudes. They were all around me.
I who was your equal, you now began to see me as definitely lesser. And the big difference now was that the adults began to treat us differently too. And they taught me to hide.
I did. In a lot of ways.
I begged God not to let my breasts grow any larger despite how small they already were. I became angry if someone told me I was turning into a young woman. I thought I was despised. To be ashamed of. Gross. Lacking any respect or dignity.
And never was most of this stated out-loud overtly. It wasn’t even consciously acknowledged, perhaps. It was implied through everything, in everything. In the porn you watched. In the remarks you made. And in the way you treated me. Suddenly, you expected me to be manipulative. To manipulate you. Suddenly, you wanted me to manipulate you. As if it implied something. As if this was my role as a female to not be straight-forward any longer.
And I wanted none of it. And you teased me for not wanting any of it.
And what I don’t understand is how you forgot I was human. You forgot we both had hearts, and minds, and wills, and power. You forgot.
My humanity betrayed.
(The above is not directed at any individual person. It is using a mixture of my own hard experiences to represent a larger dichotomy.)
