“All those outfits you wear, you must be really popular with the guys, huh?”

This project is so inspiring, and very important.  Thank you!! I’d like to contribute by sharing my story. I’ve also had to deal with slut shaming culture for a very long time now. Like so many other shared stories I’ve read, it started in the 6th grade. I was going through a lot then… my grandfather, who was a father figure to me, had been diagnosed with terminal cancer.  I was struggling with my sexual identity. Kids relentlessly and sometimes violently bullied me for being the “weird kid” because I was a poor, non-Christian of an ambiguous racial background whose clothes were home-made or hand-me-downs, and who was interested in unpopular things like books, art and history. Unsurprisingly, I became severely depressed.
Within the school culture I had to endure, girls’ entire self-worth came from how popular they were, how nice their clothing was, how pretty they were, and whether or not they had a boyfriend.  That’s all anyone talked or cared about.  No one thought I was pretty (at least, most kids told me I was ugly or bullied me about my looks). I was not popular. My clothes as I’ve mentioned were home-made monstrosities, and despite pretending to be boy-crazy, dating secretly terrified me.  My self esteem was so low I briefly started dating a boy though I found him completely revolting, and even kissed him (my first kiss!  Oh the horror!) because I thought I could never do better and that I was lucky to have a boy be interested in me at all.  Ironically once word had spread that I actually kissed him, instead of becoming more popular I became the slutty freak who actually made out with [the boy]!
The next year my grandfather died. I was the pariah of the 7th grade… very few except a handful of other social outcasts like me ever acknowledged my existence, unless it was to insult me.  But with his death came perspective.  Suddenly none if them mattered.  I started to rebel against the stifling and impossible expectations of my peers.  Thanks to the internet, I found goth, punk, and metal, which were all grouped together in my mind as being anti-conformist avenues of personal expression that gave me a sense of belonging and support through very dark times.  Finding alternative subculture quite literally saved my life, but as I got into high school it sometimes became a weapon aimed at my own dignity.
My family and I moved after my grandfather’s death, and I transferred to a new school system.  High school was a bit kinder to me than middle school had been, at least on the surface. I had started dressing goth, which often includes very provocative pieces like corsets, fishnet, and vampy dresses (mostly home-made or re-vamped with my improved tailoring skills, thank you very much!), so I went from being the “weird girl” to the “hot weird girl” who everyone was afraid would put a spell on them. I was no longer shoved around and kids no longer chanted horrible names.  By that time I was no longer desperate to give the impression I liked boys, but that didn’t stop boys from trying to befriend me in hopes of getting lucky.
At the time I smoked pot, and I had a “friend”, we’ll call him M.J., who would come over and we’d smoke, have a laugh, but nothing more.  He started telling other guys he had slept with me.  When I found out, I was livid.  Not everyone believed my refutes, and rumors about what a “freak” i was in bed as well as in garb started to circulate.
I remember distinctly a school clique in which the girls were very rude to me, and the guys very friendly at first.  But one day one of the guys actually flashed me.  I was horrified. I found out through the grapevine that the guys, who said extremely disrespectful things about me behind my back, had tried being friendly because they thought “goth girls are freaks in bed”.  Apparently, they also thought flashing their genitals at me was a great way of “being friendly” and would send me running in their direction.  Or maybe flashing their little bits was actually man-speak for “gosh, I think you’re swell”, I don’t know.  Of course their girlfriends were both resentful of and disgusted by their boyfriends. But instead of directing their disapproval at the guys for being pigs, I was their target!
I wasn’t even safe from the bullsh*t at home.  I lived with my grandmother, aunt, her boyfriend, and their two children.  My aunt’s boyfriend came on to me one night. His pick up line revolved around the way I dressed, and started with, “All those outfits you wear, you must be really popular with the guys, huh?”  After I gave him a resounding “F*ck no”, I asked him, “What makes you think it’s ok to even ask?!” and he responded: “Well I just thought, with…” which came with a palm-up, up-and-down hand gesture aimed at me before he stopped himself and asked, with a sigh of frustration, “You’re not going to tell [my aunt] about this, are you?”
The irony in all this is that I’m a lesbian.  Not a lesbian as in kinky-lesbian-vampire that is the object of guys erotic fantasies, but lesbian as in super-queer, hell-no-you-cannot-watch, L-word-reruns-on-Saturday-night-with-my-partner-and-our-cat type of dyke. My clothes were the bandages that healed the wounds of my grandfather’s death, and the armor that shielded me from the pain of social rejection. They certainly were not invitations for sex with men, and even if I was dressing to get the attention of men, the complete disrespect I was subjected to by both genders is inexcusable.
When I was beaten up and bullied, I never said anything.  When I was flashed and sexually harassed, I never said anything.  I also never said anything to my aunt about her creep boyfriend’s advances for fear of hurting her and causing trouble at home (he ended up assaulting her, and she kicked him out.  Real piece of work, that guy).  My greatest regret in life is my silence through all of this. I should have spoken out, but I was just a terrified girl who had gone through hell and back.  But I’m not going to be silent any more.  I hope sharing this story will contribute to fighting this disease of slut shaming and sexual violence/harassment that is most young girls’ realities.