Shame, blame and forgiveness
Feb 27, 2007 Adoption, Feminism/Politics, The Story of My Life
I’ve been thinking about my sexual history because I’m thinking about my infertility book (that keeps morphing into this and that and something altogether different and then back again). I always feel like infertility memoirs I’ve read so far don’t talk much about the non-procreational kind of sex unless they’re high-lighting the great irony of using birth control in the past and using birth encouragements in the infertile present. This seems so incomplete.
For me, my infertility experiences brought back a lot of my teen-age shame about being a sexually active 15-year old who was trying to be responsible and getting lectured every time she put her heels in stirrups. That is a bigger irony in my mind — chastising the teenage girl for keeping her pap smear appointment and paying for her own birth control. No wonder most of my friends didn’t bother.
Anyway, I read Jenna’s and Angela’s recent entries in this mindset of my angry teenage self and it got me thinking.
There’s this part of my history that I have never, ever, ever written on blog and I rarely talk about it because it’s probably the thing that I feel most ashamed about and it’s complicated and not something I’ve ever really figured out. But reading these entries made me feel like I knew what I wanted to say about it although I’m not sure how much I’m going to share. (I’ll know when I’ve written it.)
When I was sixteen I hooked up with a guy who was twelve years older and had sex with him although I didn’t want to. It wasn’t date rape because I said yes but it left me feeling violated.
Part of the reason I allowed this to happen is that (as many of you have experienced for yourself), if you’re a teenager and having sex then you’re already a ruined kind of person and it seems unreasonable to say no to this guy since you have already said yes to that one. This is something huge I want to get across to my kids: You can say no even if you’ve said yes before. But in the teen world of the 80s (and one assumes in most other decades), once you’re deflowered you kind of give up your right to play virgin. The best example of this I can think of is a male friend of mine who was a virgin and who said to me, “Why won’t you have sex with me? What’s the big deal when you’ve already done it?” And I thought, “Is he right? Should I just do it?” And this is really what happened with this guy who was 12 years older only his arguments were more complex and more flattering.
Afterwards, I felt like crap and I felt used and I was angry that I’d betrayed myself with this guy (and betrayed my friend who was dating that guy, which was a huge part of it all for me and profoundly changed my self-perception). But I also felt responsible and so I tried to pretend like it was ok and tried to pretend that maybe I even liked him and this was a further betrayal of myself. And it really wasn’t until I met Brett and confessed all to him that I felt absolved because Brett helped me see that I was 16 and I was up against someone smarter and not very principled whether or not he realized how manipulative and underhanded his behavior was. I’m sure if I told this guy (if I could remember his last name because I’ve truly blocked it out) that I felt he took advantage of me that he would be totally surprised and that his version of events were that he met this randy little 16-year old and we enjoyed a fun evening together way back in the fall of ‘86.
Part of me really wanted to go with what was surely this guy’s version and for a long, long time I tried to see it that way because the other option (to call myself a victim) seemed like a lie and also who wants to be a victim? But what I didn’t see until my confession to Brett was that it was possible to find a middle-ground, which would acknowledge the complications of sexuality and personality and that this middle-ground also understood the limits of culpability.
There are many versions of truth. It’s true that this man was much older than I was and that this gave him the upper-hand. It’s also true that I pulled my tights off myself. It’s true that I was responsible for my choices. It’s also true that I was in over my head. (I’m trying to write this while Madison slurps mushy raisin bran and slams a metal car on the table next to me so I keep losing my train of thought.) These things are all true. I had to figure out how to reconcile truths that ran into each other and made a lot of confusion. How could I be responsible yet still feel so victimized? How could he be the bad guy when I walked willingly into that apartment with him? It seemed lose/lose. I couldn’t figure out how to recognize his coercion unless I lied to myself. (He didn’t hold me down or steal my clothes or force me to do anything.) But thinking about it made me want to throw up so surely something bad did happen?
That’s how I managed to slip into shame and blame. It was my fault. I was a bad person. A bad slutty person, actually, so I may as well start wearing my skirts shorter and laugh it off, right? Only I wasn’t laughing.
Jenny Garp fictionally wrote, “I wanted a job and I wanted to live alone. That made me a sexual suspect.” She may as well had written, “I had a vagina. That made me a sexual suspect.” The older I get the more I realize how complicated sexual roles are and how easily we fall into things and then twist ourselves up to make it all fit. I couldn’t maintain the personal contortions it took to make sense of what had happened. When I told Brett (who somehow managed to see me inside the situation, unlike other boyfriends who couldn’t see past the stereotypes anymore than I could) he helped me see that lots of things could be true; that I didn’t have to succumb to any paradoxes.
I think of this when I think about first moms who don’t know they have the right to grieve regardless of how complicit they were in their adoption decisions. Sometimes it seems like if we tell ourselves it’s all right to cry, we have to give some of our power up first. But if we give that up in order to have the grieving privileges of being a “victim,” we deny the truth of our experiences and then we can’t find comfort.
I remember a friend of mine who had been raped when she was 13. The first time she told me about it, her story was that she’d been gang-raped and beat up. But as we became closer it turned out that what happened is that she was raped by her crush and that at first she was a willing participant. Why did she change her story? Because when she told people that she went with him, that she wanted him to kiss her, that she liked what was happening at first, who would care about what happened afterwards? The lie was her protection but it also betrayed her. It made her a liar and it made her a sneak and it made her feel guilty all of the time and it made her, ironically, feel more responsible and more complicit in the rape but what choice did she have? The world is not nice to women; she was already a sexual suspect just by showing up.
It’s easy to get in so deep that we don’t feel like we can turn around and go back. We have to learn how to forgive ourselves for making choices that lead us someplace we didn’t want to go. Sometimes we say “yes” because we don’t know how to say “maybe.” And sometimes when we say “maybe” the world hears “yes” anyway. Sometimes we have no idea what we’re getting ourselves into.
We don’t have to accept the narrative that’s thrust upon us because people assume a predictable trajectory. Saying yes to a man, saying yes to an agency, saying yes at the hospital or in a dark apartment doesn’t mean we don’t have a right to our regrets. We don’t have to apologize to anyone (except perhaps — lovingly — to ourselves) for being too naive or too young or too ill-informed or too willing because we were doing the best we could.
Maybe that guy didn’t victimize me but that doesn’t mean that I knew what I was doing. He doesn’t have to be a bad guy but I also don’t have to be a slut. The truth is more complicated and ultimately it doesn’t matter how the world sees it as long as I make sense of how I have to see it. I was in over my head. That’s all there is to it. I wish it never happened but it did. No good things came out of it — no great wisdom or great compassion or the kinds of things that make a trial worth it. Still, it happened. It’s part of my story and I forgive myself for it. I acknowledge my responsibility but it doesn’t take away from my acknowledgment that I was also an injured party. It’s the big challenge, isn’t it? To live with those paradoxes.
February 27th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Dawn. This just had me in tears. For so many reasons. The 90’s as a teen weren’t any different. They just weren’t. And especially not when you got to college. I didn’t want to be who I was, sexually, but everyone kept saying, “Oh, it’s not like you’re a virgin. It’s fine. It’s fine.”
Damn it, it wasn’t fine.
I hope my children will be able to learn some things from my mistakes. I hope to be open enough to let them know that one mistake doesn’t have to dictate the rest of your life.
You’ve got my mind in places I don’t want to be today, Dawn. But I probably NEED to be there. So, as always, thank you for being brutally honest and thought provoking. (We need to get together soon. Since the ice has melted and we’re free to drive again.)
February 27th, 2007 at 6:17 pm
Man. Jeeze oh man. What a post.
I’ve been pounding my head against the wall of my writing for the wife blog and just keep coming up against this very paradox, over and over and over again, so I don’t write it all out, don’t post.
Reading this makes me want to go down a layer or ten and do it.
Thank you.
February 27th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
…. I started writing a comment, but it tangented so much I followed it for a bit and am posting it to my own journal…
You never cease to amaze me… not just in the places you go with your writing, but where you can take me… Thank you.
February 27th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
So much of what you just said is what I’m struggling to do. To live within the paradoxes. Thank you for giving me so much to think about.
February 27th, 2007 at 7:59 pm
Dawn -
Wow - this is powerful and tender and important. Thank you for sharing it.
February 27th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
Thank you so much for writing about this. The screwed-up ways that women are taught to think about their sexuality can only be challenged by openness. I admire you for your bravery.
“The Sexual Healing Journey” by Wendy Maltz talks about abusive relationships and sexual encounters, and about how something doesn’t need to be objectively abusive or morally wrong for it to *feel* abusive or violating to the person experiencing it. Thinking about my experiences that way really helped me to come to terms with my own sexual history, and to acknowledge not just the times I felt violated, but also the times when I might have made someone else feel that way.
February 27th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
Actually, sounds like great wisdom and compassion did come out of it. Our experiences shape who we are and I think you are great.
February 27th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
“We have to learn how to forgive ourselves for making choices that lead us someplace we didn’t want to go.”
Thank you for that. And for all of this post. Phew.
February 27th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
What a brave and eloquent post… thanks for sharing!
February 27th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
I just have to thank you guys because I was nervous about writing this (especially because usually with my blog, I’m never really sure what I’m going to say ’til I say it — it’s more of a free-write than anything else) and your comments have been a blessing. No kidding. Thanks.
February 27th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Wow, this was a tough post, for you to write, and for anyone to read. My history is not like yours at all. I have never said yes and regretted it, and I was the sanctimonious feminist who sat in my dorm couch lecturing everyone about how “no means no.” I try to teach my daughter this now (she’s 6), and so the no means no is my attempt to tell her that she doesn’t have to hold someone’s hand if she doesn’t want to (you know, outside of safety when crossing the street).
But, what I don’t understand is why you think there’s shame in seeing yourself as the victim. This is why I believe in statutory rape laws. You were a child.
I think the more complicated question here is when a child can say yes, and mean it. I’m afraid that I would council my daughter that she’s simply not old enough to say yes at 16, and I would want her to wait longer. But, that decision is going to have to wait for the daughter I have at 16, and not the theoretical one I imagine. You clearly think that a 16 year old can say yes, and mean it, and say no and mean it, but also that they can be manipulated into saying yes when they don’t want to. It’s the third that’s the problem, and the place where we worry about protecting the child (by making decisions for them). When is the manipulation something that an adult has to step in and stop?
At 16, sex would have been unthinkable for me. The choice was different at 18. I’m not naive enough to believe those numbers make the difference (i.e. my 18 might have been your 16 or someone else’s 30). But these are tough issues to face in thinikng about our children.
I am in a different situation than yours in that I didn’t make the really tough mistakes, at least the kind that children make and regret making. So, in some ways, it makes advising my children easier. But, on the other hand, it means I don’t understand what they might face, either.
bj
February 27th, 2007 at 9:54 pm
Damn but this is a good one.
Damn.
February 27th, 2007 at 10:24 pm
BJ wrote, “But, what I don’t understand is why you think there’s shame in seeing yourself as the victim.”
I don’t. But I also don’t think “victim” adequately describes my experience. For what it’s worth, he didn’t break any laws (age of consent in Ohio is 16 — my mom looked into it). But claiming victimhood (I tried it on for awhile when I was working to make sense of it) didn’t give me any peace either. I had to reconcile the experience in a way that didn’t slot me (or him) in too limited ways. I didn’t get anything out of my self-examination until I recognized both my responsibility and his coercion.
February 28th, 2007 at 12:43 am
This is a great post. Makes me feel better, actually, about my own past. Thanks for digging it out and making it coherent for us. I’m positive I wouldn’t have been able to do the same thing.
February 28th, 2007 at 1:11 am
Whoa whoa whoa.
I was quite shocked reading your post, mainly because, I lived a similar situation and really struggled with it for a good, long time. I still have moments (though they are few and far between) where I’m back there, at 16.
I’m glad you wrote about this and shared it with us.
February 28th, 2007 at 2:05 am
Wow, Dawn.
February 28th, 2007 at 2:22 am
Wonderful, wonderful, thought-provoking post.
February 28th, 2007 at 2:45 am
What everyone else said - thanks for writing (and sharing) this Dawn. This idea that being complicit in a decision (to have sex, place a baby, or whatever) doesn’t negate one’s right to grieve is so important I think.
February 28th, 2007 at 2:55 am
Once again I’m overwhelmed by your ability to give voice to something so complex.
So much to think about.
February 28th, 2007 at 3:46 am
Dawn this was just so well put.
I grieve and regret things that were in my control and things out of my control. For me the important thing is what I do and what I learn.
I have always identified very heavily with first moms. And I think it’s because of the very things you are speaking of- I easily could have been one. I have been in so many situations that could have taken a twist here or a turn there.
I also had a situation similar to yours. I was 19, he was early 30’s and slick. It wasn’t date rape- I said yes, but mostly because it was easier than saying no. And like you said, I wasn’t a virgin so I had this line of “let’s get it over with” in my head. I have talked to a lot of women (and gay men) who shared similar circumstances.
February 28th, 2007 at 4:11 am
wow. i am not sure i can type as I am crying. you hit alot in me with this post dawn. so much. so much i dont share. dont write. wish i could but just not there yet.
We have to learn how to forgive ourselves for making choices that lead us someplace we didn’t want to go.â€Â
This pretty much sums up the surrender of my daughter and the 20 years following the loss of her. I am still trying to forgive myself for being a somewhat willing participant in the perpetration of a crime on my soul and that of my own daughter.
February 28th, 2007 at 5:40 am
Wow. Just…wow.
February 28th, 2007 at 7:54 am
“This is something huge I want to get across to my kids: You can say no even if you’ve said yes before.”
As someone who doesn’t ‘relate’ to this story in the sense of having had any type of similar experiences - thank you anyway. Because I was never even tempted to be sexually active as a teen, this mindset would never have occurred to me. And it makes so much sense (hell, it makes sense at 30 let alone 16), and now I can add it to the list of things I know I want to tell my (hypothetical) kids.
February 28th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
Thank you so much for linking to Angela’s blog, I hadn’t discovered her yet.
I couldn’t read the link to Jenna’s it just comes up with a page that says “I Don’t Think So” …..don’t know what that’s all about but hey not everyone is going to be charmed by the delightful Kim.Kim.
If you get the chance please come and see all the glamorous photos of first mothers linked to my post about how first mothers are glamorous.
I love this post, not much seems to have changed for women, I think the fact that you write about these difficult issues helps more than you realize.
Namaste, dearest Dawn.
February 28th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
Dawn,
You write so beautifully of something I call “sexual martyring.” I started an article about this many years ago and got stuck. Maybe we could finish it together.
Let me just say that I applaud your strength in writing this. Even open Liana made her post about her sexual past password protected because I didn’t want people I didn’t know judging me. It is also hard when people comment and say “I can’t relate to what you went through, but…” It makes one feel so isolated.
But I can say with utter sincerity that I understand your feelings. When we make decisions that were ultimately found to be bad ones, we have to learn to forgive ourselves for our folly and to not live in shame. However with the puritanical way people look at sex in this country, it is easy to get stuck in the dichotomy of clean/dirty that I wrote about in my blog entry called “On Being Clean.”
Sex is a complicated beastie. No one can fault us for not understanding all the rules when we began to play.
Peace.
March 1st, 2007 at 3:49 am
Quote: “BJ wrote, “But, what I don’t understand is why you think there’s shame in seeing yourself as the victim.â€Â
I don’t. But I also don’t think “victim†adequately describes my experience. For what it’s worth, he didn’t break any laws (age of consent in Ohio is 16  my mom looked into it). But claiming victimhood (I tried it on for awhile when I was working to make sense of it) didn’t give me any peace either. I had to reconcile the experience in a way that didn’t slot me (or him) in too limited ways. I didn’t get anything out of my self-examination until I recognized both my responsibility and his coercion. ”
EXACTLY.
Actually it bemuses me when people say that I am “just playing the victim,” because I’m at the point now where I try pretty hard not to do that. I don’t think the birth mother counselor who counseled me was evil–I think she was young and naive and truly trying to help, but was woefully misguided. I don’t think the Christian churches I was brought up in were promoting adoption as a win/win solution just to get more babies for the market–I think, again, they were naive and misguided.
Sometimes there just isn’t any black and white. Sometimes there is just light gray and dark gray. Sometimes there aren’t villians and protagonists–sometimes there’s just two (or several) flawed people coming together and bumping heads.
I wish more people could understand this. I don’t know why so many people have to stereotype everyone and everything they come into contact with.
Anyway, thank you for this post. It meant a lot. You clearly “get it.” And it was brave and very kind of you to take a risk posting about your own experience, just to show us first moms that you understand. Thank you.
March 5th, 2007 at 7:46 pm
Thank you so much for this post, Dawn. It was beautiful and very timely for me.