65 things I want to say but never have

When I was 15, I was in the French Alps on a skiing trip as part of my private school's French exchange program during spring vacation. We were staying in a hostel coincidentally at the same time as a group of young French agricultural students who were college-aged and gregarious. There was one of them whom, peering at several times when I thought he wasn't looking, I had identified to be quite cute.

I was an awkward 15 as so many girls are - suddenly filled with hormones that swelled my body from its straight athleticism to a curved femininity that I worked to hide by wearing my older brother's hand-me-down jeans and large flannel shirts. While so many of the girls in my class, or so it seemed, knew exactly what to do with their hair and clothes, with their gestures and speech, I constantly felt lost and so I shied away from social interaction beyond my small reliable group of friends. My friends were that rare breed of high schoolers who could interact with peers from all of the other class cliques and not be 'marked down' for it in the eyes of the most popular kids. So when my friends were invited to the popular kids' weekend parties, I too would sometimes go, though I mostly stood with them or by myself, and looked for opportunities to pick up beer cans and clean up at the end of the night so I would have something to do.

Of course I wanted to be desired. I wanted to be seen as pretty. I wanted to laugh and talk and be at ease like the most popular girls who, by doing so, seemed even more alluring. I wanted to be chosen by one of the boys in our class, but after some awkward school dances where I gently tested out whether a crush I had was mutual, I came to the conclusion that I was not any of these things and slunk further into the social shadows.

Being in another country divides self from self. I was very nervous about the quality of my French, but I also felt freed from the person I was back in high school and the way I assumed I was perceived by my peers. So when the hostel hosted a dance party one night and the French farmers decided to join, I let loose dancing to Kiss' "Rock and Roll All Nite" as I never would have back home. The cute farmer I'd noticed earlier smiled and danced closer to me and I felt on top of the world.

The next day I found out that the agricultural students were going to be staying in the hostel all day and I somehow informed my teachers that I would not be going skiing that day. I can't recall if I said I was sick or injured or what, but I remember the lie because I was not the type of girl, the type of student, the type of daughter to do so.

I sat in my room reading and listening on my walkman to the Led Zeppelin mix tape I had brought. I even skipped meals to make sure I was there and didn't miss any visitors. At some point there was a knock on my door and when I opened it, the cute farmer stood in the doorway. It was like magic. And in my naive teenage brain, it felt like magic was possible here, away from all I knew and all that knew me, in the snow-filled, sun-glinting spiked Alps where French women sat at lunch halfway up the ski slope with their Bogner ski overalls zipped down to their waists, bikini tops bared, reveling in the spring sun that bounced off the ice and sky melting snow and clothing and conversation. Yes, magic seemed like it could happen...even to me.

And so I let him sit on my bottom bunk and close the door. And so I tried to speak with him in halting French and then halting English. And so I let him start to kiss me and then push me down on the bed and then force his hand down my pants and then inside of me. I don't remember if I tried to say no. I don't know if I was too scared or too surprised or too seemingly ungrateful. But, to this day, I remember how wrong it felt, how wrong it was, only recognizing this fact many decades later as an adult after other violations and abuse.

I was naive. I also wanted to be so many things at once - the proper upright daughter, the soft-spoken acquiescent girl, and also the girl who a boy just might choose. I was so naive that, after returning home to the U.S., I called the French farmer. God, I was terrified. I did not call boys, certainly not boys thousands of miles away who hardly spoke the same language...but I thought that what had happened meant that he cared for me deeply in some way, that perhaps he even loved me and we might have a future together. The ridiculousness of this thought is hard for me to comprehend now, but I believed his violation of me could not be wrong. I believed that I was too inexperienced and too afraid and finally, most painfully for me to think about now, that a young man would never touch a girl that way unless there were deeper, more meaningful feelings that lay beneath.

No, there were not. Our one-time crackling phone line conversation, where I first had to work my way past his mother, felt like a first-year French lesson. "Quel temps faut-il?" "Frais." "Comment ça-va?" "Bien bien..." Pause, pause, pause. "Tu te manques." "Le même."

I hung up with an emptiness. I told him to call me, but he never called back. Neither did I.

This week, with the Kavanaugh hearings, with the broadcast of the once-silenced voice of Dr. Blasey Ford, I have felt beaten, broken, and dismissed. I have questioned what it means to be a woman and what it means to be a woman in this country. I have peered into the murk of my own past and found, despite my strength, my bravery, my independence, there is much that I have never said. This is not about the narcissism of me me me or an argument that every thought I've ever had is momentous and worthy enough of speaking to the world. This is about the things I have not said because I have been silenced, because - so many times - I have silenced myself, so well-inculcated I was to the expectations of what it meant to grow up as a girl and then a woman of my era - to be restrained, controlled, deferring, yielding, accepting. This is about speaking what I should have said but never have.

1. You are wrong, Dad, I am not reaching for a snack because I am upset I didn't make the Varsity soccer team, I am eating because I have not eaten all day and I have the right to basic sustenance.

2. Dr. Vinton, yes I weight too little but it is not going to help to see a nutritionist and make a food journal. I know what to eat, I know what is healthy. I am not eating because I want to melt away, I want to avoid having to be heard, I am afraid of having a voice and making a stir.

3. Mom, lots of the girls in our high school are having sex and I don't know if that is okay and I don't know what to think about that really. I don't know if I am supposed to want that too, or if it is too soon, or how I should feel since no one seems to want to do it with me anyway.

4. I would like to make a comment in this class, but the interrupting and raised voices of the boys makes it nearly impossible.

5. It is not okay for you to grab my arm when I get up to leave the table, Dad; I am allowed to choose to leave because I don't want to listen anymore to you rage with your frankly racist disapproval at my Haitian boyfriend. And who are you to say he is not 'good enough' for me?

6. In de Kooning, Mr. Pollans, I do see violence towards women. It scares me and whether that is because it is truly there or because of the position I am in in the world, I do not know. But I know that it still matters.

7. Yes, Grandma, I am too thin. Don't you see it? It is still frightening to be a girl in the world. Maybe if I turn sideways, no one will notice me.

8. I am uncomfortable at this college because the social life centers on fraternities and binge drinking and the hope of a guy 'hooking up' with you and I am afraid of that.

9. I am going away, not because I do not love my family, nor because I am not serious about a life path, but because I am having so much trouble finding my voice. I do not know what I want, what I think, or how I feel. I need to understand these things in order to move forward in my life with any meaning.

10. I am 27 years old and I have never had sex, but I have been violated before.

11. You are an undocumented immigrant and my family does not approve of me seeing you, but I am choosing you to have sex with because you are gentle and loving towards me and I know the experience will be one of tenderness and shared understanding.

12. Thank you for showing me sex can be sweet and soft and not always full of domination and submission.

13. You do not need to apologize, you do not need to feel ashamed for not being able to keep an erection. Giving me great sex is not the most important thing to me in our relationship.

14. You have not earned the right to anal sex with me just because you paid for dinner and drove me home.

15. Just because we are dating, you do not have the right to ask me about how many sexual partners I have had and judge whether or not I am a 'whore' based on the answer.

16. I do not want to be called 'your little whore' in bed.

17. Stop forcing my head onto your penis.

18. I do not like being choked. It does not turn me on. It scares me because I can't breathe.

19. You do not 'own' me just because we had sex more than once.

20. I told you no, you pushed me forward and forced yourself into me anyway. You raped me. That is rape.

21. It makes me feel dirty and demeaned when you rub cum on my face.

22. When I come to visit your apartment, and first thing in the door, you force me onto my knees and make me give you head, I do not like it.

23. Thank you for not having sex with me that one night we spent together. I think you may have thought about trying, but you didn't and I cherish your respect for me.

24. I called the police when we got back to the hotel, but I should have come right up to you on that dark night as you appeared to be yelling and pinned down by a man. I should tried to intervene or to help you somehow in the moment, at least to see if you were okay.

25. I am going for a run and it is not okay for you to yell 'fucking hot' from your car as you anonymously drive by. It may be funny to you, but it's frightening and I lose my breath and I cannot start to run again for a time. And then when I do start to run, it is a full-out sprint until I can get home and lock my door.

26. It is just as much a violation of me when you break into my email and social media accounts as when you force yourself into my body against my will.

27. There is a reason my face looks so bitchy when I work out in the gym or when I travel the subway  alone at night. It is protection, not irritation or annoyance.

28. You do not have the right to grab me and kiss me just because we are alone in the book room and you are attracted to me.

29. Thank you for saying that what you meant to do in our relationship was show me how a man can treat a woman, but what you showed me is that a man can use a woman for sex for an extended period of time and still have no interest in cultivating anything deeper with her.

30. No, yours is not the biggest dick I have ever had and frankly it doesn't matter so lose the insecurity.

31. I will never forget that the only thing that made you want our child is that he turned out to be a boy.

32. No

33. No

34. No

35. No

36. No

37. No

38. No

39. No

40. No no no no no no no no no no NO NO NO NO NO!

41. There is no police report, Judge, because I was newly pregnant and scared and alone. I was scared of escalating his violent behavior. And I didn't want to cause trouble. And I just wanted him to go away. And no one taught me that going to the police would be the right choice of action in this scenario.

42. Mom, I am alone in New York and pregnant and I do not want this baby. I am going to have an abortion and I hope you will be able to support me in this choice.

43. I had an abortion and I know it was the right choice, but I still feel the trauma of loss.

44. Planned parenthood on Bleecker Street, I felt like a cog in your machine of abortion. Impersonal, no explanations, a room packed with women, not knowing what is coming next, being treated like a name on a listed that needs to be checked off. I think the process of the abortion traumatized me more than my decision to have one. And you let me go home alone.

45. To the courts of the world, to the men of the world, emotional and psychological abuse are just as destructive as physical abuse.

46. My whole life I have worked to assert control over my own body - in high school through starving myself, in my adult life through achieving a toned muscular physique in the gym...but I have not yet achieved the feeling that it is mine and mine alone to assert rights over.

47. My voice is connected to my body.

48. Don't yell at me with irritation and frustration in your voice, doctor, and tell me just to get the baby out of me. Even though this is my body, I have no idea how to do this, it is frightening, and I cannot feel the lower half of my body because of the epidural. And you are making it more stressful rather than less.

49. Just because you saw it in porn does not mean I want it or that I like it. And it doesn't make you 'better' at sex just because you replicate it.

50. Even though I am in my thirties now and even though I have had sex many times at this point, you still need to ask me if it's okay to touch me. You still need my consent.

51. You having an affair and lying about it to Mom and lying about trying to work on your marriage to us, your kids, does reinforce negative stereotypes about men, Dad. It does and you lost my respect. You had choices.

52. I am lying to you when I say that I am okay with this abortion. I am lying to you that it is because of our financial situation. You are not really counseling me in this situation nor are you really looking for anything more than my acquiescence to a lie so you can write down on a piece of paper that I received appropriate counseling. Can't you see that I am lying? I want this baby but I am scared of the man who got me pregnant and I am being forced into having this abortion by him.

53. I heard your sigh, doctor, when you confirmed that I want this abortion. I felt your judgment as I am older and educated. I felt you wondering why I am making this choice. I am not, but I am already lying on a table in hospital dressing and there doesn't seem to be any way back from here.

54. You do not get to say you have the 'right' to a second date just because you want one and I am saying no.

55. I just had a baby less than 24 hours ago. I do not want to give you fellatio. I cannot even believe you are asking. I cannot believe I am agreeing.

56. You think our sex was good, but mostly I was just scared and trying to please you.

57. I have written poems about men I have loved and about men that disgusted me. I never wrote you a love poem - you never inspired me.

58. I am a single mother by choice. There is no father.

59. I am a also a single mother not by choice. Stop saying things to my son like 'you can ask Daddy when he gets home' or 'your Dad will know' and listen to him as he so bravely and without shame explains, 'my Daddy does not live with me.'

60. I would like to be invited even though I am not part of a couple. I can still have intellectual, interesting conversations and I would like to be included. Maybe we could even become friends.

61. I felt so much shame going to WIC and needing that kind of help that I was never able to use the coupons that I so badly needed.

62. On our first date, we ended up in my bed with most of our clothes off and you on top of me. At that moment, I said, "I don't think we should have sex," which meant 'no' but was the politest way I could think of to say no. You said, "I am practically already inside of you, there's no turning back now" and proceeded to insert yourself in me. I remember after you were done, I told you you needed to leave, that I had to get up early. What I wanted to say was fuck you, I didn't want to have sex with you and I tried to tell you that. Later in our relationship, you would refer to me having sex with you on a first date, insinuating that I was a whore underneath all my 'proper' exterior. I should have recognized that as abusive.

63. Stop abusing me. Stop trying to assert control over me. I am not yours, we are not family, and the hurt you brought upon me has turned into anger has turned into action and will continue to be something I use for empowerment rather than victimization.

64. I did not know I was traumatized by the men in my life. I did not want to believe that could happen to me. I did not want to think I have been afraid to say things, but I have been. I am working on it.

65. I am just one small voice. But my voice is important and powerful and when I speak, I want to be believed. Remember, I hate drawing attention to myself.

66. I have a son. I do not want him to be 'one of those men.' I intend to speak to him now and in the future about sexual ethics, consent, emotional intimacy. I intend to tell him he never has the 'right' to have sex with another person. I intend to tell him about healthy relationships and gender dynamics and I hope I can guide him to be a man of integrity and genuine respect for women and men.

67. I intend to continue speaking truth to the world, truth to power, truth to all. I intend to lift up my voice, to make it loud when necessary, to be heard even if there are those who still will not believe me. I have more than 65 things I want to say but never have...and they keep coming and I will keep speaking...whether or not I am heard, whether or not I am believed or even listened to. Martin Luther King Jr. once said to be silent is to be an accomplice. I want to be better than that. And even though I say this and I do intend to do so, it is still scary. I still feel scared.