The Year I Lost Ownership of My Body

Suddenly, I had no control over what happened to me — and no one seemed to care

I had a woman’s body by the time I turned 12. I was 5'7", 125 pounds, and was only months away from a C cup. Not only had I gone through this physical change almost overnight, but that summer, we moved from Los Angeles to Albuquerque — a huge change.

At my new school — a public middle school with more than 300 students, which was a far cry from my Christian private school in L.A. with 68 students — I suddenly found myself surrounded by boys nonstop. They literally followed me around in packs, pausing when I paused, watching me as I got books out of my locker…

The boys on the bus were the worst. There was a group of them that lived on my street and the two most popular, Tyler and Adam, started taunting me at the bus stop. First, it was about my looks, then they moved on to what a slut I must have been because I was so beautiful. (That’s logical, right?) They’d yell to me even after we’d boarded the bus, only ceasing at the last stop before school, when Scott boarded.

Scott was a short but adorable guy in one of my classes. He asked me if I wanted to go steady one day, and I said yes. Actually, I said, “What does that mean?” and when he replied that it just meant we would hold hands between classes and go to school dances together, then I said yes.

So that’s what we did. But at our first dance, at Halloween, he wanted to slow dance with me. I couldn’t do it. One of the boys who rode our bus kept teasing that Scott’s face was going to be directly between my breasts because of how short he was (which was accurate) and I was so mortified by that, I refused to dance with him.

A week later, we went to a friend’s birthday party and he asked me to dance again, Finally, I consented and discovered it wasn’t as embarrassing as I thought it would be, especially without some jerk taunting me about having my boyfriend’s face between my breasts.

Later that night, he whispered, “Can I kiss you?”

I blushed. I had never kissed anyone before, and honestly, I wasn’t that interested in kissing. I told him I wasn’t ready. He leaned in and kissed my cheek, apologized for being so bold, and said he would wait to kiss me on the lips until I was ready.

The next Monday, a friend delivered a note to me from Scott, in which he broke up with me. He said he needed to be with someone who wanted to kiss and wasn’t willing to wait for me, after all.

I was a little sad but honestly, I was mostly relieved. I just wasn’t ready to be as serious as he seemed to want to be.

When I stepped onto the bus that afternoon, I froze when everyone started chanting, “Prude! Prude! Prude! Prude!” I didn’t know what that word meant, but I knew it wasn’t good and knew it probably had something to do with Scott. I looked for him, but when I saw him, he turned his eyes away from me. And no, the bus driver did nothing to stop the chanting, which went on until I took my seat.

I asked my mom what “prude” meant that afternoon and she explained it to me, the puzzle pieces all coming together in my head.

The next day, all hell broke loose. I’ll never know if it happened because people saw me as fair game once I was no longer Scott’s girlfriend, or if it was simply amusing to everyone to “fuck with the prude.” All I know is that I suddenly had a target on my back.

One day, a boy from my art class named Francisco came up behind me on our way down the hall and snapped my bra. I was incensed. He laughed and ran away.

Each day, he did it again and again, harder each time, once pulling it back so far, I thought the tabs were going to break. I chased him to class, so angry I wanted to hit him, but my teacher caught me and reprimanded me. I told her what had happened, but she said I was overreacting and demanded that I take my seat. Francisco smiled at me smugly from across the room.

Then Bobby, the short Italian kid whose locker was beneath mine, began grabbing my clothes, and then my body, making crude, sexual remarks about me. I loved to wear skirts at the time, and he constantly remarked how much he loved trying to get a look at my “sweet pussy” while he was kneeling below me, getting books out of his locker.

I started trying to time my locker visits so that I’d be able to avoid him — I’d run as fast as I could to beat him there. He knew what I was doing, though, and changed his routine to sync up with mine.

One day, as I breathlessly arrived at my locker, I saw him just down the hall, sprinting toward me. He literally threw himself onto the floor and slid across the hallway on his knees, then grabbed me by the thighs and wrestled himself between my legs, sticking his head up underneath my skirt. I could feel his hair against my inner thighs, the pressure of his head against my labia. I screamed and cried, kicking at him and he finally crawled out, laughing hysterically.

Soon after, Tyler, Adam, and their group of thugs escalated from harassment to assault. They often pinned me against the walls in the hallway, stripping my sweater or jacket off and would throw it on the floor, laughing, and walk away. They’d grab me and press themselves up against me, their fingers digging into my wrists, their hips jutting into mine. On the bus, they would reach across the aisle, grab one of my feet and pull my shoe off, then toss it to another student at the back of the bus, who would toss it to someone else, and so on.

Again and again and again this went on. Scott turned a blind eye to it, even though he had been less than ten feet away from me when anything occurred on the bus. The bus driver never intervened. My teachers constantly dismissed me and told me I was overreacting.

One day, while crying and dusting off the sweater Tyler and Adam had once again thrown on the floor and then walked on, I asked Lindsay, whose locker was next to mine, what I should do.

“Don’t be such a baby,” she scolded. “Do you realize how lucky you are to get so much attention from boys? It means they think you’re hot.”

I heard that again and again from my female classmates. I understood that I was supposed to be grateful for the attention, but instead, I was terrified every single day about what I’d have to endure.

I finally told my parents what was happening that January. They were shocked and immediately booked a meeting with the principal.

After I told him my story and my parents stared expectantly at him, he leaned across his desk and said, “I think you’re making too big a deal of this. You need to understand that this is the way of the world. Boys will be boys.”

I never forgot those words: Boys will be boys.

To this day, that year is one of the darkest memories of my life. It makes me sick to think of what I endured at that age — when I was still basically a child and my only worry should have been whether or not my crush liked me back.

I shouldn’t have been afraid to go to school every day. I shouldn’t have been terrified of how far those boys were going to take things. A 12-year-old girl should never have to fear that a dick might be shoved in her mouth one day.

That year changed my life. I developed severe social anxiety and depression. I began a dive into eating disorders that would last almost twenty years. I no longer believed I had any authority over what happened to my body when clearly certain people could do whatever they wanted to it.

And worst of all, I lost myself. I couldn’t look in the mirror anymore without blaming my body for what had happened. I hated it for that and was never again able to see what I actually looked like. I only saw something ugly and monstrous — and somehow, I found that comforting. Because who would want me if I was ugly? Ugly was so much safer.

It breaks my heart to revisit those memories, to picture that young woman dodging threats left and right. As someone who became a teacher, I’m disgusted by the educators and school district employees who did nothing to protect me. And I’m so grateful that my parents advocated so hard for me.

Unfortunately, that was just the beginning of the sexual harassment, bullying, and assault that I experienced throughout my school years…

© Yael Wolfe 2019