My senior year of high school, my guidance counselor convinced my mom I needed to take a math class despite the fact I had all the necessary math credits to graduate and the math class was not at all impressive (and, had I lived in any other school district, I would not have been able to take since it was a lower level math course). Her reasoning was that it looked better on college apps. Because of this, almost every third period, I sat in a primarily male section (there were only 2 other girls in that part of the room and they were rarely there), where they decided to talk “locker room talk” before the term even made the news or I knew what it was. It started out as guys talking about their experiences masturbating and making explicit gestures, then one started constantly asking me when and how often I “flicked the bean” (in reference to my own masturbation habits). I was at first confused then angry. I told him to stop, getting angrier and less polite as he refused to stop (all the while, not one of the guys ever told him to knock it off). Finally, I decided to ignore him because 1) what could any authority figure do to stop him? 2) I didn’t want to spend the social capital on a lost cause. Eventually, he and the others moved on, but I still had to listen to their stories and desires about having sex with older married women (particularly, their bosses’ wives) and what they would do to them. Looking back, I feel disgusted by what was said and what little power I had. I don’t tell anyone about this because I don’t want them to see me as a victim, but the whole experience does seem like a violation to me. I’m still angry, and I think I’ll be angry until I get closure, which I’m sure never to get.
