Kurt and Rant about Vincent

I started having a memory that came up more than once. When I was 12, I dated a boy, Kurt. We held hands and kissed. Eventually, he put his hands down my pants to finger me and he broke my cherry. Then, we broke up. I wasn't too upset with it because I was upset that he had tried to get me to do more and that he had touched me in the first place. One of the things I've learned is that victims of sexual abuse feel that they don't have the right to say no. I felt like it was what everyone else was doing and I might as well do it. I hated the way he kissed and touched me. It felt like I sort of wanted him to touch me but I would have enjoyed myself better if we just talked.

I got mad at him, I told friends that he had touched me and eventually felt that it was necessary to tell the school administrators what happened. It was months of them interviewing our friends and even our family about what happened. I was too scared to even mention the fingering thing until it went to the school board.
What I remember most was the principal. She said some very messed up things. She seemed mad at me for one reason or another. What hurt the most was that she asked me how he was supposed to know that he wasn't supposed to touch me if I held his hand. When I look at it now, I think, "Are you f*cking kidding me?" She made this imaginary link between holding hands and groping. I can't imagine that being OK in anyone's mind. It is beyond reason.

I look at this now and think, "No wonder I blamed myself for Kirk raping me." I had this story in my head-- well, I did go outside with him, I did talk to him. How was he supposed to know that it wasn't OK to have sex with me? In reality, I told him no. I was reluctant to go anywhere with him and if he wasn't looking so much to get laid and wasn't a f*cking scum bag, he would have seen that. Instead, he took advantage of a young girl who didn't know what to say to get this piece of shit to stop bothering her for sex.

In my mind, I still think of the way Kirk acted and the way Rafael acted. Rafael much younger and I'll say horny, knew that something wasn't right and chose to leave the situation. Kirk was on his way to becoming a man and felt that he had to get this out of the way before it was "really" illegal, even though it was illegal then too. A few more months or years doesn't make a person more able to make an adult and responsible decision, as we can see with Rafael.

I think of other points too, where it seemed that by some societal or media influence, I got the message that it's OK to just go along, even when it's not in my best interest to go forward. I think about the times I felt that if I had sex before, I might as well have sex with the guy who I'm dating or that he'll expect it so I might as well do it. There wasn't anyone there or any voice in my head asking, "Do you really like him? Do you see this lasting a long time? Does he have any particular qualities that you really dislike or that you find attractive and unique? If you get pregnant, have you both decided what's best for the situation? In any case, do you really want to do this?"

A lot of time my sexual experiences were about disconnecting for my body. I wouldn't be in the moment. I would get headaches with fighting with my conscious that I didn't really want to do anything with anyone. I wanted to be alone and to feel safe with a friend or a lover. I remember writing about how during sex, I'd think of roads I went down or houses that I saw that I liked. I would now identify that as dissociation. I wasn't present during sex; I had simply given into hormones instead of rational or emotional thoughts/reasoning.

--Warning: Rant--
When my older and immature boyfriend at the time, Vincent, read this passage in my journal while I was on vacation and had hidden that journal, he had said it was OK. He had also made it clear that if I didn't want him reading it, I would have hidden it better. OMG, A-hole!
Vincent was a special (read: traumatic brain injury "retarded") person. His thoughts were more like a 10 or 15 year old boy instead of a 23 year old man. He'd make up these crazy stories. We broke up because I was tired of dating him. Our dates included us sitting on the couch for hours, watching TV, barely talking. I got bored. I could do that by myself and have more fun. He didn't want to do anything else because everything else required money and he didn't have job. I asked for an engraved bracelet back. He didn't want to give it back and instead said that I must have taken it back. In his mind, the only reason I'd ask for it back was to make him feel guilty (because in his world, I already had it). Eventually, he gave me back the bracelet and a bag that I had made. But as a last bitch move, he put "Vincent and Venus" in paint marker inside of it. I gave it to a friend who said she really liked it because I was still trying to use it despite being pissed at him. After all that, he had an older friend call me to see if I would date the older friend. Then, he started mooching off some 17 year old in the next town over, while still leaving me voice mails (on my pager, back in the day) saying I was the only one for him, he didn't know how he'd find someone else, reminding me when our anniversary would have been, and asking me if I had driven by because he saw someone with a similar van and kind of looked like me. He created screen names with his new girlfriend's name in it, something like "VincentLuvsLindsey123" on my parents' AOL account (because my screen name had been something like "VenusLuvsVW123" for my VW van). He sent an email to my mom asking her out, making it seem like he was just sending out to see if any single women wanted to date him. He sent me various voice mails over the course of two years, wherein I didn't call back to talk to him once. He was so dumb, he asked me to hang out but not if I had a boyfriend. He also drove passed my house several times. He made me scared for my safety. I was worried that once I moved to San Diego, he would still find me and stalk me. These thoughts stopped after moving again. They have also disappeared now that I'm on a different coast from where I grew up.
This girl, Lindsey, left a voicemail one day before I cancelled my account. I talked to her briefly. She said that he had lived at her dad's place, she was paying for this cell phone, they had broken up and she was calling numbers on the bill. Some of the places, she reported, were really weird. She asked if we met up or I cheated with him. I said the truth; I hadn't talked to him and didn't want to talk to him. We talked a bit about him and what had happened between them and what had happened between us. I made sure not to mention where I was moving for school, but that I was moving. Again, I was worried about his odd behaviors.
---- End Rant----

I'm glad that I can get this all out. I really needed to just sit and reflect. It's interesting to me when I have these memories that are persistent. I often wonder what's in my life now that is triggering these memories to come up. Sometimes there's a connection. Sometimes it takes me a while to see what I was trying to tell myself through these memories. I think, though, it might be time to make some art while having these memories in mind.

Thanks,
Venus