I am looking for a venue to publish my “me too” story. Given the current explosion of allegations of sexual harassment and assault the time is undeniably now to put my highly personal experience “out there”.
An ex-food service professional and not (yet) a professional writer, I've never submitted nor published any of my writing aside from the pitiful handful of entries on this, my ever neglected blog. I am not familiar with submission formalities and confess I'll be winging it with any inquiry.The story is titled “The First Time”. It’s approximately 2,900 words, is disturbingly graphic and is accompanied with this photo.
One day, as public discourse regarding “date rape” began circulating during the 80’s, it hit me like an bolt of lightening that what I had been merely referring to as “the first time I had sex” was in reality a sexual assault. I was 15, and I was raped. I blamed myself, figuring I was high, I had “led him on” then “let him do it”. I shook it off, buried the trauma, and moved on. I never told a soul. Shame, self loathing and self preservation defined me.
It turns out, one cannot simply “move on”. Burying such a trauma is akin to slapping a bandage on a wound that festers and sickens. The only antidote is to grit one’s teeth, rip the bandage off even if painfully pulling skin and hairs along with it, to exam the wound in the light of day, to air it out, and tend to it with love, acceptance and forgiveness. Otherwise, like one of those stealthy parasites it infects ones brain, making it do its bidding, leading to ones ultimate destruction and demise.
Although to this day I can still feel exactly what happened that evening, details eluded, paralyzed and prevented me from writing a word. I gave myself permission to fictionalize descriptive details and fill in the blanks. My goal was, and always is, to create compelling reading, to capture the essence, unearth, explore, and “air out” the buried, the deep, the painful. Was there really a lava lamp dimly illuminating the corner? Probably not. What there was was a shattered, wounded, violated girl, numb and alone.
I wrote the story using a variation of my middle name, and the real name of the person who assaulted me. But then, just a few days ago, I changed his name. Why? Because the story is not about him, it’s not even really about me. It’s about ALL of us. After the millennia of violence, abuse and suppression of (mostly) women by men, it’s time to begin ripping off our bandages and allow ourselves to heal.
