Alexis Bauer

A Molestation of Innocence

Being a woman in the U.S. in this day and age will be one of the hardest things I will

have to face in my lifetime. I have been sexualized and objectified more times than I can count. I

have learned to fear the world I live in and to be uncomfortable in my own skin. I have learned

that gender really does affect the decisions we make in life and changes the way the people

around us determine our worth.

My male friends say that they love the idea of being catcalled. They think that being

objectified is an empowering experience. Guys sometimes tell me that being whistled at or being

called hot in passing would make them feel good about themselves. But they have never been

catcalled. They do not understand how disgusting it makes women feel. It rots people away from

the inside out, and leaves nothing but the tight hold in the pit of your stomach. The first time I

had ever experienced this gut rot was when I was in high school. I was a runner and every day

when I would go running after school in my shorts and t-shirt, guys driving past would

deliberately roll down their windows and stare or make comments. I was all sweaty and looked

horrible, but guys still wanted to sexualize me because my legs were showing. This instilled in

me, from a young age, that dressing modestly would not keep me safe from the lewd comments

that seemed to follow every girl in school.

When I was just a child, I first started being sexualized for what I was wearing. I had just

gotten my first bra, and the boys made sure everyone knew about it. They would snap the straps

or make stupid comments. Parents, teachers, family friends, would all sit around and watch as

this happened. They made comments about how I was “too young to be wearing shorts that

short” or that my tank tops were “too revealing”. I was only ten years old and my biggest
concern was whether I would get a swing at recess, and adults were already busy sexualizing me.

I learned at a young age that people were often going to look at me differently than they would

my male counterparts.

When I was fourteen, I had my first boyfriend. The pressures of dating and always having

a boy’s attention were intensifying as I got older, and I caved to social influences. I dated a boy I

did not even have feelings for because society told me I needed a man in my life. He told me he

loved me after only a month, although I did not feel it, I said it back because I figured that is

what I was supposed to do. I was only a kid; I did not even know what love was. I had never

thought that five years later, I still would not know what true love really was.

When I was fifteen, a boy told me that I was only good for sex. He made me feel as

though I was not good enough for a real relationship, and every guy only wanted me for my

body. He pressured me for things that I had never even thought about. Every day he would watch

the people that talked to me, and would later tell me about how they were just trying to get in my

pants. He told me he could keep me safe, protect me from the hormonal males trying to break my

innocence. He only asked for a small price in return… my innocence. At such a young age I was

being mentally and emotionally abused.

At sixteen,that same boy tried to pressure me into having sex, even after I had repeatedly

told him no. A few weeks later, I was the victim of an attempted sexual assault. That boy decided

that his life was more important than mine, and tried to rape me in the back seat of his car. I

became severely anorexic and closed myself off as a way of coping with what my life had

become. I fell into a statistic and became one of the 75% of teenage girls who hated themselves

and the way they looked. A boy had told me I wasn’t good enough, that his life was more

valuable than mine, and society had let him. The world had cultivated a space that had allowed a
teenage boy to place such a great value on his wants that nothing, not even rape, should stop him

from receiving them.

At seventeen I could not have a functional relationship because I was so scarred by what

had happened to me. I broke a good man merely because I did not know how to be loved. I could

not love myself, so how could I expect anyone else to love me? My innocence had been

shattered, and the person I was had been cast away. I was left to fight on my own and put

together all the broken pieces of my self.

I once read a book about sexual assault on college campuses. The author said that

research has proved that rape victims are fifty percent more likely to suffer from post-traumatic

stress disorder than are veterans of war. Sexual assault is prevalent on college campuses. I have

read tons of articles of assaults that have been reported and then just thrown away as if nothing

has ever happened. Survivors are thrown to the wolves while rapists roam free. I was terrified to

move away to college because I knew that the hell I had lived through could all too easily

become my reality once again.

At eighteen I started college, and experienced a new world of sexualization. Older men

would watch me at work on campus, trying to take me to parties or go home with them. I knew

how this would end. I had heard about what happens to girls at parties, I had lived through what

happens to girls at parties. My trust in the male population was at an all-time low, and

sometimes, I still struggle believing there are good people in the world. Being hurt, broken

almost to the point of no return, changes you in ways you would never expect.

The pain never really goes away. The feeling of being unlovable always lingers beneath

the surface. No, it does not get easier, the mind just get stronger. Women, survivors, are left to

fend for themselves. They are told that they made it all up, or that they were asking for it. The
time has come to end victim blaming. We need to believe survivors and allow them to grow up

in a society where females are comfortable talking about their experience.