Tag Archives: sadness

December 7, 2011 · 8:22 am

My first time was not my first time

For as long as I can recall I’ve never been a virgin. I remember in my teen years, when my peers were proud of their virginity and spoke about it often. At the time I was fortunate not to be asked blatantly whether I was still a virgin, I’m not sure if I would have been honest. Even more importantly, I remember being grateful that it was not part of my culture to be tested for virginity. I would have disgraced my family, and would have had to explain myself. So I hid my virginity status, mostly helped by assumptions that I must be a virgin since I’m such an introvert.

The question came up with my boyfriend years later though and I couldn’t run away from it, this time it was blatantly asked and required an answer. He did everything right this one evening, got me to the point where my mind was begging him to enter me. Unlike the other times, I let him go all the way, as they say. Suddenly he was huge on top of me, heavy; I disconnected. I opened my eyes and looked at him intensely, no longer feeling the pleasure of the thrust, gentle as he was, but terror of being pressed down. Moans and groans of pleasure turned into winces of pain and panic.

There was something painfully familiar with picture. Me vulnerable. Him powerful. Me the victim, he the perpetrator. He was my unknowing rapist. He was enjoying a moment that brought me pain and displeasure and fear and vulnerability and hatred…I willed him to stop, my mind screamed, but my mouth did not cooperate. Here I was again, helpless, pressed down, small. The object of this man’s pleasure.

He must have felt the disconnection, rather delayed but felt it nonetheless. I would be grateful later for his recognition of my displeasure, for his attentiveness to my responses. At the moment though, he was that perpetrator and I hated him. He stopped, pulled away slightly, I took a deep quivering breath. He looked at me, “are you okay?” he asked and hugged me tightly.  I cried in his arms, realising our special moment had been haunted. Something good came out of this experience though: I am unshaken in the belief that not all men are the same.

He asked much later in our lives, ‘when we made love for the first time, was it your first time?” I responded, “voluntarily, yes.” My first time- and second, and third and fourth were in fact at the age of five, with a sixteen-year-old uncle.

I’m not fond of sharing stories about my first time; it was anything but special and loving. Every day is yet another struggle to lock it away  into the deepest part of my unconscious mind.

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November 29, 2011 · 9:26 am

The first time I realised I wasn’t as strong as I thought I was

I have always been seen as the strong one. The woman who doesn’t put up with the usual rubbish, who stands up for herself. I have always proudly called myself a feminist and condemned men who couldn’t respect that as idiots. I have always known my rights and been lucky enough to be raised in an environment where my rights were just as important as any man’s. I believed these things. I thought I knew how to react when push came to shove.

But for the first 25 years of my life, push never really came to shove. Sure, I encountered assholes, chauvinism and general horrible people. But I was lucky enough never to be forced to do something I didn’t want to do, or to be touched inappropriately or to be made to feel awful or uncomfortable in a situation. And even if I were, I believed I knew what to do. I had an unfailing confidence in myself. I never ever questioned that someone like me, someone strong, feminist and educated, might not be able to do this.

And then one day, it happened. And I failed myself. Typing those words still makes me feel sick.

It all started when I flight I took was delayed. I sat in the departure lounge watching the end of the Egyptian revolution on TV when the man next to me started making small talk. He was well dressed and much older. He spoke to me in a fatherly way. I chatted back and he offered me one of his chocolates, which I accepted. We walked to the plane together and were seated apart. To be honest, I was a little relieved. I like travelling alone, and I don’t like making awkward small talk for 9 hours, so it suited me just fine. Besides, some of the stories he’d told me had been a little off colour. I had a row to myself on the plan and drifted happily off to sleep.

I woke up four hours later to find him sitting at the end of my row watching me. As soon as I woke up he moved into the seat next to me and started chatting again. I was uncomfortable. He was in my space and I was trapped between him and the window. But I didn’t do anything.

As he talked, his stories got creepier. He started telling me strange things about prostitutes and massages he’d gotten in China. I started to squirm inside. When would he leave me alone? But I still didn’t say anything. The polite girl I’d been raised to be overtook the strong woman I thought I was inside. I figured he didn’t realise how he was making me feel. I rubbed my neck trying to get some of the tension out of it.

He noticed and offered to rub it for me. By this point I felt frozen inside. I didn’t want him to touch me. Every fibre of my being wanted to scream out loudly and have him removed. But somehow, I just couldn’t do it. I begged myself to kick into action but nothing happened. He started massaging my neck, before starting to move his hands downwards. I stared out of the window and tried to ignore him. I wanted to evaporate more than anything in the world. I couldn’t move, I felt like my voice had been stolen from me. I wanted to use it but I just couldn’t do it. I moved away. He kept pushing. Suddenly, he grabbed my face, turned it towards him and started kissing me, moving his disgusting tongue all over my mouth and caressing my back.

I finally kicked into action. I pushed him away and said no. But I didn’t shout or scream or attract attention as I should have. I was so mortally embarrassed and humiliated that I wanted to sink into the ground. The plane began to descend and he began apologizing. He thought I was interested, he thought we had a connection. I ignored him. He rested his hand on my knee and before I could shake it off, he grabbed me and kissed me again as the plane touched ground. Again, I pushed him away, this time more strongly and said no a little more loudly. He looked around to make sure no one had heard and then told me I shouldn’t have been so friendly. He apologized again, but somehow made it sound like it was my fault. I pushed myself as far away from his as possible, closed my eyes and prayed for it all to be over. I felt like I would never be clean again.

After what felt like forever, the cabin lights came on and passengers stood up to get their bags. He moved off quickly and I stood. Tears of anger, frustration and humiliation burned my eyes. It was over, but inside, I felt like the worst person alive. I was so upset about what had happened and so angry that he had taken advantage of the situation like that but more than that I was furious at myself. How could I have let myself down like that? Why didn’t I do something? Why did I freeze? As I felt my inside slowly unclenching, the reality of what had happened hit me and I started to feel the worst thing of all: guilt. I started to think it was my fault. If I was such a strong woman then what the hell had I just allowed to happen? Not only had I let myself down but I’d let the next woman he tried to do that to down. I’d let all the other women fighting against this crap down.

It’s been a few months since that flight now. I still feel my heart sink every time I think of that incident. I still feel the burn of shame and humiliation. I still feel the intense disappointment in myself for letting it happen. But I’ve also started to realise that no matter what happened, it wasn’t my fault. That lecherous old man was disgusting no matter what. And no matter what I did, he took advantage of the situation. His actions are the revolting ones, not mine. But even though I know this in my head though, it doesn’t change how I feel in my heart sometimes. I still sometimes feel like the biggest traitor to womankind in the world.

I wish I could end this story more positively but it’s an ongoing battle. I wish that man knew how much he’d changed my life and how much he’d shaken my core. He’s probably totally forgotten it ever happened. So, for now, there’s just one thing I hope and pray: that if something like this ever happens again, I’ll react. I’ll scream, I’ll shout, I’ll kick, I’ll punch. I may have let myself down once but I’m hoping this means I’ll never do it again. I just wish I could guarantee that I’ll actually be able to do it…

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August 2, 2011 · 12:37 pm

The first time I experienced sexual harassment

The year was 1985. I had just turned 17, at university and living away from the first time. I was raised by overprotective parents and hadn’t ever been anywhere or done anything without a family member being present. So, moving away from Phokeng in what is now the North West Province to Fort Hare University in the Eastern Cape was a big step for me.

The second challenge was that I was not assimilating very well into university life. The culture seemed too different to what I was used to and the academic demands seemed to onerous. Then there were the regular student strikes, which resulted in strong police presence that made me feel even less secure in my environment.

I was also getting increasingly worried that these challenges would result in my failing, which would have been disastrous because my parents were paying for my studies and I had a younger brother who was three years younger and needed me to graduate from university on schedule so my parents could focus on educating him. There was no way my parents could afford to pay full university fees for both of us at the same time, so I had to work my way through university on schedule or fall by the wayside.

It was therefore very relieved when one of my lecturers offered to tutor me privately. We agreed to meet at his office and I arrived there at the appointed time.

The first five minutes were fine, as we talked about why I was having problems with his subject and how he could help me. Then he stood up and walked around his desk to stand near me and pulled me on my feet.  To say I was stunned is to put it mildly.

Did I also mention that many 12 year olds I interact with today know more about the opposite sex and how to rebuff unwanted attention than I did at 17? My mind completely shut down when he pulled me into his arms and all I could think about was getting away. So I struggled and shouted and pushed at him until he let me go.

The man was not amused and he said some rude words to me, some of them in Xhosa, which I did not understand, though I understood the tone. As I grabbed my books and turned to the door, I realised that the door was open and then people were passing by. Sometimes I wonder how that incident would have ended if he had the foresight to invite me to a private place and the door was closed. Would he have let me go when I struggled?

I’d love to say that my lecturer was embarrassed by the event and treated me with respect due to a student from then onwards. But that would not be true.  The incident became a starting point for a campaign to undermine me at every turn and the best way to do that was to attack my school work, where it hurt the most.

He did not give me the opportunity to ask questions in class, even when I raised my hand to attract his attention. Sometimes he spoke in Xhosa during lessons, which means I missed big chunks of information which I didn’t know whether it was useful or not. And he made no effort to indicate that the issue was in the past, so I could relax and focus on my studies. So being the excitable teen I was, I remained afraid of him, which hindered my studies.

For my part, I was the one who suffered silently in shame. I didn’t tell my classmates who were my friends about the incident or explain why I was suddenly persona non grata to that particular lecturer. I did not report the incident to authorities either, though thinking back, there was a lecturer who would have helped me if he knew.

What I did do was study harder, work more closely with my classmate friends so they could ask the questions in class I couldn’t ask. With relief, I passed the subject at the end of the year.

I also got an opportunity to transfer to another university. At the time, it was a less known/respected university, but I was thrilled because I could continue studying this subject in a less hostile environment.

I later learnt that this lecturer regularly had affairs with female students.  Most of the people condemned the students’ actions and said nothing about the lecturer’s actions. But as an adult, I now realise that those female students felt they had little choice in the matter. And if people wanted to sugar-coat their harassment and abuse and call it an affair, what could they do?

I also learnt that this lecturer had daughters and I sometimes wonder how he would have reacted if he learnt that people that he trusted to teach his own children were acting as reprehensibly as he was. Would he have seen a wrong in his actions, if it hit close to home?

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