14

Atticus
“growing up, I was the spitting image of Scout, the daughter of Mr. Atticus Finch, with my pixie haircut, skinny legs and fighting spirit trapped inside little girl innocence.” …come sit on the front porch swing with me…and let’s talk….

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I was 14 years old and riding my bike in my neighborhood in Houston when a car slowly drove up beside me, from the rear. A man inside, at the driver’s wheel, apparently was asking me for directions and when I looked down to try and hear what he was saying, I saw that he had no clothes on. I shivered inside and rode off quickly to home, shaken for several hours after the incident. I didn’t tell a soul for days, and then only to my best friend. I never told my mom. I felt fear…and shame.

Fear, the experts say, is for the unknown. When a flasher strikes, the victim is taken completely off guard. The surprise attack leaves the victim wondering, “when will he strike next?” It is the not knowing that leaves the victim in a state of perpetual fear. Fear seems understandable.

Shame, however, is a mystery to me. I have been wondering why I felt shame. I was minding my own business, riding my bike. I did not choose to slow down; I did so reflexively in response to someone appearing to need help. Although this man did not touch me physically, he made me feel very uncomfortable, and it felt like a physical invasion.

All this time I thought that a woman’s shame must come from the outside—the world telling her “it’s your fault.” But, growing up, I never made an outcry of abuse and so I never experienced this outside blame. Perhaps I heard the subtle message at other times and do not recall. But I think my shame came from the inside---- from deep within my 14 year-old heart and mind.

First of all, at this age--14 -- I was becoming vaguely aware of my sexuality. I knew there was something that made men act differently around me. Unfortunately, these early sexual feelings had a tainted twist to them since my growing up was influenced by a rough band of boys that hung out with my brother. I was exposed to Playboy images and exploitative and deviant sex talk at a very young age. I was beginning to entertain intricate conversational fantasies that had strong sexual undertones…all of them overshadowed with guilt and shame. I was still always looked at as the innocent kid sister.

Perhaps, I interpreted this obscene drive-by as a consequence of my own deviant thoughts, or I believed that this man knew my thoughts. I may have blamed myself for giving the wrong message to this man. I’m sure my thoughts on the matter were not conscious, but may have gone something like this, “I was biking alone. My legs were exposed. I was straddling a seat. Perhaps I emitted pheromones.” The logic is long gone. Feelings are often without logic, and, at that time, I felt that this may have been my fault.

So, some of us carry shame brought to us from our past. But others --who have the most innocent of upbringings--- do these women carry shame for all the females of the universe? Is there shame in just being the sexual creatures we were created to be? We do have this power to arouse men…to create, in the ultimate sense, new life and, with it, ecstasy and wonder and joy. Even if we do nothing to cause that arousal, we know the power is there.

I was very much into that power in my thought world. As for my real world, I was uncomfortable with that power. I never dressed promiscuously. I abhorred flirtation. If I ever felt an attraction to the opposite sex, I either left the scene physically…or emotionally. I am still this way. I have always felt a deep responsibility to restrain the power of sexual attraction. Either that or I was simply afraid of it. That fear may have come out of the perverted introduction to sex that I had as a child. My fantasies may have been an escape from the sexual tension I felt with men. I could deal with this in my mind, but not in the real world.

It is hard to try to analyze a childhood that was generally blissful…and innocent. I would prefer to forget those negative influences. After all, I survived the early exposure to pornography and sexually graphic language of my brother’s friends. And I survived the drive-by freak. However, it was these childhood events that shaped my thinking and influenced the distance between myself and my husband at the time when I sought marriage counseling for the first time, almost 6 years ago. This trusted “pastoral” counselor worked his way into these wounded areas of my twisted past and used my old fear and shame to satisfy his own narcissistic desires. From the very first session, I revealed a vulnerable, child-like me that was hurting and crying out for help. By the second session I was reading the poems I had written at the age of …..

14.