I was 16 when I was raped, but I had been pulled out of school because of what would take 2 years to be determined to be panic disorder. It was disorienting, as I was naive, a virgin, and in that stereotypical guilt because I’d had a crush on my rapist. Before he was a rapist, he was my brothers fraternity brother. I saw myself as a child, and him, at 24, safe to worship.
The night I was raised my brother had a party to introduce his frat brothers to his high school friends (feel free to gag). My parents blinded by this golden boy thought this a great idea, and left for the night. Kegs, liquor, what could go wrong? I hid in my room, listening to The Replacements - Don’t Tell a Soul on repeat. I didn’t like the rowdy drunk crowd, and I wasn’t in a good place. Hours passed until my now sister-in-law banged on my locked door til I opened it, dragging me downstairs. Have some juice. Have some juice and you can go back to your room.
I had the juice. It was a Kamikaze shot. I panicked. I went outside to clear my head, practicing my new smoking habit I’d taken up to numb myself. Suddenly, I wasn’t alone. He was there. He wanted to walk. He didn’t want me to smoke. Smoking is disgusting (likely why I’d keep the habit 30 more years until I got lung cancer). My mind wasn’t clear from the shot and I thought he was trying to help me. He took me behind my dad’s little red barn. He told me how much I wanted this. Then kissed me, and pushed me down into the mud, until mud filled my mouth. I had no idea what was happening. Not even the mechanics. I was still too afraid to try tampons. But I focused on being able to breathe, because his forearm was on my head pushing it in wet fall mud. And the whole time he told me how much I wanted this. Wanted him. And I died inside, believing I had inadvertently done this to myself.
When over, he stumbled away. I went into panic mode. I addressed the scene - he’d left his shoes. I picked up my torn clothes, and waited to make a break for getting back to my room without being seen.
Later, my brother would come to my room as I hid evidence under my blankets. He knew we had both been missing. I saw his disappointment, confusion, as he reached and took a muddy leaf from my hair.
The next morning I got up to tell what had happened. There were hungover people everywhere, my dad was feeding them pancakes. I went back to my room.
I had a friend take me to planned parenthood. There was a lot of damage. We called it sex too. Lost my virginity.
A month later I wrote my brother a letter. He read it. Never said a word.
Bulletpoints:
The frat said they were going to punish him, kick him out, it was a lie. His punishment was he had to tell his girlfriend - now wife - he had cheated on her. My brother would tell me he didn’t believe forced was involved. This has kept us estranged for 36 years. His proof? He asked the man if he raped me-and he said “I can’t remember. I was too drunk.”
So, I was a liar. I went to a lawyer, he said I was a liar. Even with my medical report. Even though it was statutory rape. He refused to take the case to save my family the embarrassment.
This was what it was like in 1989. I’m just lucky had Sassy. Because it was the only thing telling me I wasn’t a liar. But teen years are confusing as fuck, and adults that take advantage of those teens should be punished.
Instead, I spent decades being called a slut by that frat and the girlfriends (his and my sister-in-law’s) sorority. Because I had hurt their “sister” by sleeping with her boyfriend.
The world is a terrifying place at present, and I’m most grateful I’m not a teen… but everywhere I see these people. The JE’s… but also those that support them.
The beauty about PTSD, is I’ve absolutely no idea what I wrote, only that for a few minutes I was back in 1989. I wrote my entire memoir that way. And I put a likely more coherent version of this story in, and I sent it to his wife. Which sounds mean, but I understand she knows. I understand she went on to marry him, have 3 daughters with him, play the victim at 25 to a 16 year old girl. I don’t fear them, any of them anymore.
But they sure as fuck fear me. Because what you know — what I learned — is the ability to write. To talk. To tell your story in a way that rips you open, but exposes someone else in the process.
This is honestly why I’m always talking about Sassy. It was there, in my room. Every issue. Teaching me what others failed to.
Teaching me how powerful my voice is.
And that’s why how I’ve turned my trauma into power. That IS possible. Because the bad guys don’t scare me anymore. They taught me how to scare them.
I wrote you a lengthy response that somehow got deleted. So here's another version of it:
Your first comment here is the best example I've ever seen of what I say about how reader comments in my publications are stories unto themselves and in this case a moving and beautiful and important one. Thank you.
I know we've talked about other stories I want you to write for AJPT and this is another and you basically did it already.
I think my last point that I wanted to make in that lost note back to you was that if the only thing Sassy ever did was to help you in that way at that time, that would be plenty.
I imagine it helped a lot of girl’s in a way other magazines didn’t. And still don’t. The magazine came out when *I* was 15, if we want to make this a full circle age 15 moment. And it taught me it was ok to not be perfect, or maybe it was better to not be perfect.
But mostly that it was best to be myself (picture Jane Pratt coming in her italics here to root for 15 year old me).
That full circle moment just made me tear up. And yes, let's hop in a Time Machine back to 1988 and here is a little italicized note in brackets saying [Go Gina! You ARE SO Sassy!! -Jane]
Thank you, Gina. This is beautifully written and really illustrates the alchemical power of art to deal with trauma that we never asked for. I'm sorry this happened to you. ❤️
I appreciate that, I do. I’ve learned it’s best not to ask whether I’d waste a wish asking for something to have never happened, because realistically I appreciate who I am today, and it would be disingenuous to hold fault with what created me.. and what keeps me from turning someone who just cannot be bothered to care about others. And honestly, I giggle a bit because it’s been a year since I put out a memoir about my year in end stage cancer, and more than a few of the reviews hint that I have a ‘bad attitude’, one person going so far as to imply I received medical abuse BECAUSE I had a poor attitude. And I think: I was 60 pounds, mute, I’d lost my entire life within 4 months and all day every day people are telling me I’m going to die — and yet my problem is I’m not smiling? Not people pleasing?
My life has made me able to look at things, at people, and call them out for what they are. This makes people uncomfortable. We are supposed to swallow our grievances— myself, especially. I’m a small, poor, mentally disabled (or whatever the term of the day for anxiety with panic disorder and PTSD is) girl who refuses to stay in her place.
It’s safe to say had I not faced the adversity and hypocrisy so young I might crave a tan and bland existence with my head in the sand that I see so many others do. So I can’t be sorry for myself… which seems strange.
But I don’t like waste. And I can’t see that spending a few decades pitying myself would help (although I’ll cop to some days or weekends of it). Early on it seemed the only thing I could do, was try to stop it from happening to the next person. Which ultimately means people either like me, or detest me 😉
Yeah, good ol' radical surrender is, ultimately, the only way to cope with the many vicissitudes of life. Which you have just similarly stated a lot more eloquently than I in your above comment. Have a good day darling. ❤️❤️ I appreciate this interaction.
Gina! I am so angry on behalf of teenage you over what happened to you.
You deserved so much better!!! You deserved protection, kindness, being seen and valued for exactly the young person you were. You deserved to be let stay in your room with the Replacements and given a Coke or a glass of water if you joined the party, not a kamikaze. You deserved to be cherished and minded.
That &^%$£ can go to h€ll!!!!!!!!
Absolutely disgusting. I want to give your teenage self a mama hug (my boy is 10) and tell her that she did *nothing* wrong, in case she is in any doubt.
I really hope you're doing great now. I'm glad you found your power and your voice!
I sincerely appreciate that! I really try to examine everything, looking for sense. My brother and I still are estranged, this standoff between my stubborn and narcissistic refusal to let go of saying I was raped for 36 years versus his adamant belief that there was no force and this is all just for attention. I have 3 nephews and a niece I do not know, in our few meetings they were supervised, like I was a child molester because he feared I would use them to hurt him. It’s all quite interesting, but they believe their proof of my flawed character is that I am not a Christian.
See how it gets confusing?
My brother converted when he got married, my family was never religious. I married a man whose background is in Scientology-which he left when he brought me to the church in 2005 to help with my anxiety and they said I wasn’t Scientology material. Which, is what the Catholic Church told me in the 90’s when I tried to get baptized. So, I’ve learned to think for myself, and in doing so that has not made me very popular. An intelligent woman who doesn’t seek approval nor follow societal rules is I guess seen as bad. All I know is that is exactly how I was able to survive my terminal cancer, and become the sickest terminal cancer patient to ever make a complete and full recovery. This gives me a lot of insight to human behavior.. perhaps too much. But I have been in hospice, I have had all my loved ones come to say their farewells, and I’m pretty sure I’m not the broken one 😂
God, I love your attitude about all of this. It's inspiring. And I had a revelation reading about your ability to cure yourself of cancer. Because of experiences I had early where my body was taken advantage of, I also have (not claiming to have had cancer or anything of the sort!) been able to reverse diagnoses that doctors and research told me were lifelong. The amount of control we have over our bodies after being in a position of not having control over them can be almost supernatural, I think.
Oh absolutely. There was very much a sense that this (body) is MINE, and I will take care of it no matter what you say or think. Immunotherapy cured my cancer. It was simple, clean, easy. But men in white coats watched me rot. Starved me to 60 pounds. Made me so sick by doing nothing it was so easy to walk away, to give up, to blame cancer. But it wasn’t cancer. It was never the cancer. It was them.
All I had to do, was find a female doctor who would help me do what they wouldn’t. Made harder by the fact my husband was carrying me, cradling a 60 pound body too weak to hold on to him anymore.
That was what 2 million dollars of the best American healthcare got me.
Together, my husband and I would watch my body come back to life from all that. In roughly 8 weeks. 15 days to melt a 17cm tumor. 5 weeks until I could stand. 6 weeks to my first steps in 5 months. And I walked, never looking back. Then I ran. Because I knew I could have been given that same immunotherapy on day 1, and never spent a day sick. Much less the abuse that would happen. 2026 is a year since my book has been out, and my husband and I are coming out swinging. I might not win against the bad guys, but that doesn’t mean I quit.
Because I have the insult of my cancer case not being used to give people hope. Because my doctors fucked up. Because I wrote my own treatment plan.
I’ve been fighting, seemingly, the same man since I was a kid. That’s why I became brave enough to say something on threads when you wrote about the hit job on Sassy. For 6 years, grown-ass doctors have been trying to discredit me.. not by saying I’m lying, but by saying there was reasons for the abuse (starvation, bullying, name-calling, oxygen deprivation) and that reason was my bad attitude. I was a 60 pound mute girl that couldn’t even sit up from weakness.
It’s such a misogynistic defense for ‘patient left the hospital at 60 pounds, why did her chart say she was 98 pounds?’
‘Patient was fed 4x’s in 25 days because you claimed she had Refeeding Syndrome, which included labs show she always tested negative for and the cure is not … not feeding the patient.’
Nurses ‘we put the patient in full restraints because she became agitated when we would point out she might as well enjoy the day because it might be her last.’
I fight. It’s all I know how to do. And honestly, to see the misogyny come back with this administration was the closest to my heart snapping in half I’ve ever gotten. Because the implication that I did not deserve my life - because I was scared? Terrified? Have intense medical panic and now couldn’t walk or talk?
I survived because of all the men who came before those doctors that taught me HOW to survive them. And in that, I wouldn’t change anything. Now, I try to save others. Because there are so very many others.
That last paragraph is so powerful and I'm thrilled too put myself in your company as someone else who used what was done to me to help save others. And I couldn't agree more with your reaction to the misogyny of this administration.
If Sassy was still around, I can imagine the back in style article for all the vile things they’ve brought back into fashion. And for what? Money?
What a waste of a lifetime, to spend it hating people you think are holding you back. Why do they not understand - it’s themselves? It was ALWAYS themselves holding themselves back. So much duh.
I'm moved by and sending my hugest gratitude to the reader who just paid to subscribe while reading this post even though it was not required in order to finish reading it or to comment. You rule and I will make it worth every penny. The regular writers and I THANK YOU!
I admit, the first thing that popped into my head when I heard what Kelly said was Survivor Type 2: Identifies with Perpetrator.
Not an excuse, but also not surprising given her proximity to power and patriarchy.
Of course I don’t know her life, but how many women do we all know (especially us GenXers) who don’t acknowledge abuse as abuse because we think of ourselves as willing participants in these particular sexual situations — because it’s important to our psychological health that we are NOT VICTIMS.
We were Mature for Our Age so of course we attracted men when we were teens.
Honestly, from what I’ve heard in my work as a coach & healer, I think this is the story of our generation. Thank you for writing it down.
What an incredible comment. Thank you. What you said about women needing to feel that we are NOT VICTIMS is exactly me and I completely agree with your theory on it – including the idea that that is particularly so for Gen Xers. Why do you think that it is specifically strong in our generation?
Also, once when I was in an abusive relationship, I kept saying "I don't want to be a victim" and then my friend's husband rightfully said, "but you are a victim." It really hit me that it was a fact.
I think it's just where feminism was at, at the gen X point.
We hadn't yet started using the word 'survivors'. Which is what younger people say. Younger people also carry themselves with rage and righteousness. Not shame, embarrassment, 'it was partially my fault' etc. I feel like gen X were among the last people to have that shame/stigma attached, not through any of our own doing.
I think you just nailed it and thank you! That makes a ton of sense and I relate to it personally also. There were absolutely no survivors or metoos at that point - and no room for anger at all.
I also forgot to say that, unlike being mature for my age, physically at least, I was a late bloomer (as you can see from these pictures I think) but I rationalized attention from older men as being partially my fault in other ways. We will come up with them!
We do. I had an adult body by 12 1/2, but many of my friends didn’t and they rationalized it too.
Most academic women I know have had at least 1 abusive relationship. Back when I was an academic, I thought it was particular to us, all that rationalization, but now I wonder if it just isn’t so common that most women have had one.
Re Xers, it’s interesting. I think the “she’s asking for it” attitude was amplified by birth control and the sexual revolution and we were not immune to taking that on, even as we lost friends to AIDS. By the time we came of age virginity was something to be discarded quietly (embarrassing if kept too long) or, if in a religiously oppressive environment like many of my cousins experienced, you’re taught submission and keeping your mouth shut so you don’t ruin that nice boy’s future —and your own reputation. We had the right to control our bodies, more freedom than any generation before or after, but with that came the expectation of increased responsibility for our own safety. So if something happened, well, whose fault was it, really? Why were we there? What were we wearing? Why didn’t we use our rape whistle or fight back? I think this cognitive dissonance ran through us. I was a Protestant in a Catholic high school, and I remember so many discussions of what counted as sex, what level of sin was each act. And I especially remember that being “carried away” in the moment was considerably less sinful than any sexual act while on birth control, since that was obviously premeditated sin. I also remember that we were all aware of which priests like boys and which liked girls and we tried to keep away accordingly.
Oh how I love to read your writing, Jane. And in reading, I immediately zoomed back to watching the movie Smooth Talk, starring Laura Dern and Treat Williams. It's loosely based on a short story by Joyce Carol Oates. I saw it in the theater with my mom and one of my mom's BFFs and it destroyed me so badly that I couldn't stop crying long enough to regain muscle control and get out of my seat. My mother was baffled. But really, you are describing in your essay is what it's like to be on the cusp of womanhood but still, in experience, a young girl. Like Dern, I was tall and willowy as a teen and often attracted attention from older men. Even though I looked older than I was, my emotional state was that of an naive teenager. I saw how vulnerable Dern's character was - vulnerable to a handsome and older guy's attention. Treat Williams was perfectly cast. I saw myself in that role and it really frightened me. Reading your piece (your sweet friend with those Hells Angels...so profoundly unthinkable) brought me back to that day in the theater. It's so complicated and thrilling being 15. Please keep writing for us!!!
Wow, now I want to rewatch that movie. It devastated me also, I remember, and I now realize it was for similar reasons to yours. Thanks for that enlightenment. And I love writing for you, so as long as you want me to, I won't stop.
Also, opportunity to say that Laura Dern is such an incredible actor (and person).
Maybe we need an AJPT movie night so we can all watch this movie together (and metaphorically hold each other's hands!) My mother always said that I reminded her of Laura Dern when I was younger so that's probably why I had an extra hard time watching that movie. Your piece also made me think (and rethink) Joey Buttafuoco's grooming of Amy Fisher.
Wow, I haven't thought about Joey buttafuoco and Amy Fisher in a long time. Another great example. Also, I'm actually sincerely loving this idea of an AJPT movie night.
Yesssssss. With a guest appearance by Ms. Laura Dern! (Thank you so much for the compliment. Next time I'm at the salon, I'll have to ask my stylist to take the blonde WAY up!) xoxox
This is so spot on: "Teenage girls also had sexual desires of their own...with way more potential for guilt or shame than if they simply saw themselves as victims of others’ desires". I have never considered this before. I have never read a statement like this before. It is so absolutely true.
Yes, I absolutely did. I was a sexually active teenager by choice at 15 with boyfriends. I wanted to look hot, flirt, get attention, all of it. AND I, like so many women, was also preyed on by older men who I DID NOT SEEK OUT, and did not realize it wasn't normal until a long time later. That is a very complicated thing - to want something, but then to get it in 1) a healthy way and then 2) in a very skewed, perverse, and damaging way. It's a very "watch what you wish for" dilemma that erodes your trust in people. This dichotomy continued from age 15 to age 21 for me with the older men stuff.
And those ads for lawyers are sick and also not surprising. People get away with sexually abusing children and teenagers all the time, and now I see that lawyers advertise supporting predators sans any kind of shame about it. "...an abundance of professionals in the field of child sexual abuse are more skeptical of child and adolescent claims of abuse than available research suggests is required." I DO NOT believe this at all. An abundance? Bullshit. I have worked with teenagers for two decades alongside counselors, social workers, school psychologists, collaborating with pediatricians, etc. and I have never had these professionals say anything like this. Also, it WOULD be in the research because they are people that would WANT this type of this to be published if it was true, so it would surely get funded as a study.
So much to say about this topic, but this is a wonderful and essential read.
I can't thank you enough for this comment. The validation of my arguments from someone with the professional experience you've had means a whole lot. And your experiences as a sexually active 15 year-old who was
preyed upon by older men in just the ways I'm talking about is also validating, as well as moving, and I'm so glad you shared it. Thank you.
Yes, I am so glad you did. I also want to add that I am not necessarily surprised that another publication would not print this. The articles here are truly groundbreaking. The media overall right now is playing things very safe, and it is only through courageous editors that these types of stories are printed. Fabulous fabulous fabulous.
Thank you so much and I'm really glad you addressed that because I was genuinely, hoping (and still am) for other takes on whether you see this as controversial and why you think it would be a problem for other publishers. When I said it was the story of my career, I was being very factual actually. Back at sassy, I truly didn't realize that telling the truth to teenage girls would be so controversial that it would lead to a boycott and the magazine's eventual demise. Again, here I felt unclear about exactly what was controversial about making this point. Though I see how it could be twisted to say that I was in someway minimizing sexual abuse of smaller children?? or maybe that I was somehow suggesting that 15 year-old girls wanted this?? In any case, I have a lot of respect for the editor and I appreciate him being straightforward with me about it so I could just go ahead and publish it here. I'll write something else for them and not all of my ideas are racy, fortunately! Just the majority!
I am thinking of why certain pitches and essays of mine have gotten rejected, in a professional and respectful manner with explanations. One reason I saw - with what ended up as something I am very proud to have developed for Current Affairs on women’s sobriety memoirs - was the angle was too research-y and lacked a narrative thread. Not every publication or editor has space for something that combines narrative threads with research. Also, when pitching that one, some pubs didn’t want to take on something they perceived as a woman attacking other women who are considered groundbreaking.
The other reason with regards to a story that has greatly affected me because someone I love is involved was that it could lead to a lawsuit or an “ethics” dilemma because it involves a crime. But editors put that as: Is this your story to tell? The answer to that question is very complicated, but it is not too too too far away from the themes and personal stories you have touched on.
I do think the feedback I received was fair, but I see trends in some responses and in how editors need to work depending on how the pub is positioned. However, I am no media maven!!! These are just my own experiences with pitching and writing and making a little teeny tiny inroad when I can. I am no consultant!!!
This is true, combining narrative with research is a tough "sell" even if said research would improve a piece. I was pitching a major outlet this past year and was encouraged to do so by several other writers who said some of my stories were perfect for this particular pub. But upon closer inspection I realized that even though they do indeed publish a lot of stories that fit my ideas there is a very narrow and defined formula that they operate on. And if you deviate from that formula you have no chance in placing a piece there. .....
Yes, and sometimes these formulas work well for a quick essay: What X Taught Me About Y, for example. This is so corny, but I feel like every rejection is an opportunity for reflection. Sometimes my pitch wasn’t tight enough or lacked the ol’ razzle-dazzle. It wasn’t clear wanted the story to say. Other times, it was obviously NOT a fit for a particular pub, and I only realized in hindsight. The work, however, the real WORK is sitting with yourself and looking at the words on the page and discovering something. This indeed sounds so cheesy - corn + cheese is like a freakin food truck elote over here. 🌽 🧀 Ok time for more coffee
>>> This is so spot on: "Teenage girls also had sexual desires of their own...with way more potential for guilt or shame than if they simply saw themselves as victims of others’ desires". I have never considered this before. I have never read a statement like this before. It is so absolutely true. <<<
Jane, I have so many thoughts but first is my heart going out to both you and Cindy and Christy and her friends. It's so awful and the layers of damage run deep. As a mom of a toddler, I sometimes just avoid stories like this because it's too horrifying, but I want to be as prepared as possible.
2 things struck me - I'm not really sure that you're agreeing with Megyn Kelly. I think we can acknowledge that 8 and 15 are very different ages, especially in terms of how girls see themselves and their sexuality, while also acknowledging that rape is equally wrong in both instances.
And on a lighter note, I find it totally hilarious that you're encouraging people to comment without reading your own post. I think most people, myself included, would be like, "Read this and tell me exactly what you think."
You're awesome for saying that. I sincerely don't expect everyone to want to read through this, but I love everyone here and want to talk to them regardless.
And you nailed it about Megyn Kelly. That's exactly what I was trying to say, thank you! And that we don't need to prove how young the victims are to show how egregious this predatory behavior is and how much it needs to STOP.
I'm also so glad you pointed that out about your daughter, because I want to keep that in mind as I write also and not upset people (except the people I want to upset). Thank you.
I agree! I will keep my eyes open for that. I would love to publish one. There was that brilliant 14 year-old who made the video shortly after Megyn Kelly's statement came out discussing it from her perspective. I don't remember her name, but she nailed it too.
I'm at Ikea and can't stop thinking about this...growing up in the 80s and early 2000s, the media really did a number on young women to make us feel like we had to be the perfect little genie in a bottle/ DRRRRTY (forgive the Xtina references) so my friends and I pretended to be sexually precocious as a power move, like the women who seemed to be having power on our screens. Ultimately, a bout of molestation from a family member and a bunch of messy barely consensual "hookups" had me sleeping (and ultimately having a God damn baby with) a bunch of older men in an effort to subconsciously "master" the trauma of all this shit as a young girl...I think that's what a lot of us are doing. I see my eleven year old daughter and her friends and often think about the exact thing in this article, Jane. We want to pretend we have autonomy over our burgeoning sensuality as young girls, we are "choosing" to get blackout amd "hook up" with the old men/Hells Angels/ whatever...ugh. Only from this vantage point can I see it isn't a God damn choice at all. 😪
Wow what an incredible comment. The part about pretending to be sexually precocious as a power move was is something I hadn't even thought of, but it's so true. And it was so exactly me also. My friend Cindy, the same one in the story, and I pretended to be bisexual with each other because back then it was less common and we knew it made us look more sexually experimental, and therefore stronger than we were.
Megyn was 15 and in the same class with a few of my friends' little brother and sisters over at Bethlehem Middle School. No senior at my prep school would have been caught dead dating a freshman. On the flip side of that, I was dating college girls at 16 since I was in the hardcore punk scene in the early 80s and was 6 feet tall by 7th grade. It was a weird age, a weirder time...but Megyn is still one of the most hated people from back home, and there's a lot of competition with Anne Coulter, Elise Stefanik, Andy Cuomo, and the NXIVM cult.
Wait what?!? I am beyond thrilled to be hearing from someone with this insider view. And very interesting to know that she is the most hated of all! Thanks for the fascinating addition to our discussion here.
We called it Smallbany back in the 80s, and everyone knew everyone. Her dad taught where my grandma did and I remember he died young. I was only marginally aware that she existed as I was already sneaking down to CBGB or the Anthrax most weekends.
OK, you're awesome. And I fully assume that you caught a performance at CBGB by our Sassy house band Chia Pet. (Just kidding about you actually seeing us there, but we did open there for the Lemonheads and then for Bikini Kill at Wetlands too.)
And isn't it wild how people who are products of the same town come out so differently?
I remember Chia Pet. I knew someone who knew someone at Sassy, through Eugene Lang and Parsons. Was it Letch Patrol who got a "cute band alert" in Sassy?
My band was mentioned in passing in Vogue, which was odd as I doubt we were covered by any music magazine bigger than Maximumrockandroll when we were around.
Fantastic essay, Jane. A real distillation of that very cusp-like age. Where we're almost in womanhood, physically, culturally, in terms of how we're perceived, and in terms of our fledgling desires and thoughts and choices, but we're also BABIES. We are tiny babies. Fifteen is so very young. Thank you. My heart goes out to your friend who you're no longer in touch with.
This part moved me as well. Partly because I wonder how much things have changed since we were 15. To a certain extent, this cycle of desire and shame continues throughout our lives. Women who want and have a lot of sex are sluts and are shamed or pitied, men who do the same are studs and envied.
Whew! This stirred up the feelings. I happened to be 15 when Sassy debuted, so I feel like I was the target audience. 😊 But wow—this reminded me so much of what it was like being 15 and in 1988. Terrible. Like Cathy, I looked older than I was (short, but very curvy) and drew a lot of unwanted male attention. When I think about the girls in the Epstein files, I think about how, when I was 13, I was wooed by a recent high school graduate. He was awkward and I think looking for any girl who would have him. Luckily, I got skeeved out after a few days and broke up with him before anything happened. And I felt guilty for DECADES about that, not even realizing that maybe a 19-20 year-old shouldn’t be wooing a 13-year-old. I was lucky—I had friends who did not escape such conditions unscathed. Horrible, traumatic shit was done to so many of them, and they had almost no support. Especially if they didn’t return to acting like “good girls” afterward.
All of it comes back to one big point: the world is not fond of teen girls. Maybe it’s better now. My enby identified as female until they were 16. Their experience was so much different, mostly because as parents, we protected them. There was an occasion in sixth grade when a neighborhood friend texted me that she saw my kid walking home with an older boy and looking very uncomfortable. Just as the boy went in for an unwanted hug, my friend yelled, and he got outta there. I was so grateful that my friend intervened and told me what happened. That’s the difference between my kid’s childhood and mine—the intervention of adults who gave a fuck. Teen girls need more of them.
Wow yes yes and yes to everything and every important point you just made here.
I'm so happy to know that more adults get involved now when they see this stuff. My growing up sounds exactly like yours. And s
Sassy coming out 10 years after I experienced all of this making it exactly when you were 15 is everything I wanted when I launched it.
What you said about the punishment for not returning to being "good girls" is so correct also. Christy did not return.
And I really really relate to what you said about feeling guilty for decades over that guy. I'm sure that I am still harboring guilt about things that I didn't realize I was the victim in from those teenage years. What a time to be a girl - in terms of both the age and that era. If that doesn't make sense, I'll come back and clarify it because I know what I mean to say, and I'm also so blown away by these comments that I may not be as clear in my responses as I would like!
In 1988, I was 16 trying to extricate myself from a relationship with a 20 year old who used all the tricks to make me feel like a prick tease who toyed with his worship. Dude, I didn’t ask you to switch to the commuter college so you could be close to me. In fact that revealed how much I was getting over this crush as you were falling harder. He also like my curves when I didnt. He wasn’t forcing me to have sex // and we didn’t do “it” but he sure made me feel bad for leading him on and never putting out. I am working on essay, could be an IHTM, about the time I was convinced I was pregnant by him — despite no penetration just lots of messy not-so-dry almost naked humping. I made up a doctor’s appointment midday to go in town for a pregnancy test. As I told the nice lady what we’d done and she was just was so nice and administered the test so matter of factly that I had to laugh at how bizarre it all was. Of course, I’d gone on a diet at this point and lost 1ike 13 pounds — why I missed my period. I’d been gestating an eating disorder since summer and it has blossomed into amenorrhea. The look of anger when I told him about the test confirmed my decision to break up with him.
Wow - what a devastating story, Jane. I'm glad you weren't at that party! I also hope that Christy is okay today, and that karma has thoroughly obliterated the "men" who raped a child. The kids in my high school English classes are truly "kids" in every sense of the word (moreso than we were) and I can't imagine anyone viewing them otherwise. On a lighter note, what lovely photos of you as an adorable young girl! 💖
I love that you put quotes around the word "men". Yes.
And it is interesting to hear from your teacher's perspective how young these teenagers are. Things have definitely changed since the Sassy days it seems, in terms of kids staying kids for longer, which makes the Megyn Kelly argument that preying on them as though they were mature enough (or "barely") sicker than ever.
Brilliant…I can relate in so many ways. The word used for what happened to many of us back then is irrelevant to me. The fact that it was and with some people still is socially acceptable makes my stomach curl.
~ I had a close call with a biker group myself, when I was 15, but was able to talk my way out of it (outwit, if you will). It was in NY. On LI to be more specific. They called themselves The Pagans.
~ My 14yo friend was accompanied by her parents to abort her unwanted pregnancy.
~ Another friend, at 12, yes 12, willingly had sex with a stranger who had picked her up hitchhiking. This was just 1 year after we had celebrated my birthday at a diner, feeling like grownups because my parents agreed to drop us off and pick us up so it could be just us, ordering, eating, laughing. During that outing, Susan came out of the bathroom walking funny but looking concerned: her first period, so she jammed a bunch of brown, scratchy paper towels from the dispenser into her underwear.
In 1 year’s time, she went from innocent kid, to saying what the hell, it’s only sex. Oh, and she was the one who, a few years later, introduced me to her “friends”, the above mentioned Pagans.
Being a teen in the 70s was wild. But the sexual experiences, threats, harassment, all of it, of course changed us. We were fed a bill of goods saying it was liberation. Or worse, “flattery”.
It was neither.
My stories didn’t end when my teens years did, or when I severed ties with Susan who was headed down a road that was most definitely not for me.
Unwanted advancements are all around us, everyday.
Some more persistent than others.
We live our lives checking our surroundings like our life depends on it. Because we know it could.
I relate to everything in here and it's also so beautifully written. I really appreciate this comment. I am always surprised that many of my male friends don't realize that the threat of unwanted advances and even rape are with me every day. It was shocking to me that #metoo was a revelation to anyone. Thank you again for sharing your story here also.
Thanks Jane. I appreciate you opening the door. Your title of this piece was very compelling! I am always curious to hear self described “unpopular opinions”, and this one is truly a must read.
I thank you so much for that. I didn't want the title to be a bait and switch situation because I am not actually agreeing with Megyn Kelly but it did most succinctly say what I wanted to say and I'm glad if it helped get people to read it. Really thanks again.
In the 90s, I was briefly married into a family with a Pagans MC member. His claim to fame was beating up the rock group Kiss at their LI bar/ clubhouse. So, unfortunately I knew some of those folks. None that I knew are alive anymore.
Thank you for this, Jane! It’s so hard to talk about this- teenage girls are not children. But that doesn’t mean it’s ok to sexually exploit or assault them.
I was 16 when I was raped, but I had been pulled out of school because of what would take 2 years to be determined to be panic disorder. It was disorienting, as I was naive, a virgin, and in that stereotypical guilt because I’d had a crush on my rapist. Before he was a rapist, he was my brothers fraternity brother. I saw myself as a child, and him, at 24, safe to worship.
The night I was raised my brother had a party to introduce his frat brothers to his high school friends (feel free to gag). My parents blinded by this golden boy thought this a great idea, and left for the night. Kegs, liquor, what could go wrong? I hid in my room, listening to The Replacements - Don’t Tell a Soul on repeat. I didn’t like the rowdy drunk crowd, and I wasn’t in a good place. Hours passed until my now sister-in-law banged on my locked door til I opened it, dragging me downstairs. Have some juice. Have some juice and you can go back to your room.
I had the juice. It was a Kamikaze shot. I panicked. I went outside to clear my head, practicing my new smoking habit I’d taken up to numb myself. Suddenly, I wasn’t alone. He was there. He wanted to walk. He didn’t want me to smoke. Smoking is disgusting (likely why I’d keep the habit 30 more years until I got lung cancer). My mind wasn’t clear from the shot and I thought he was trying to help me. He took me behind my dad’s little red barn. He told me how much I wanted this. Then kissed me, and pushed me down into the mud, until mud filled my mouth. I had no idea what was happening. Not even the mechanics. I was still too afraid to try tampons. But I focused on being able to breathe, because his forearm was on my head pushing it in wet fall mud. And the whole time he told me how much I wanted this. Wanted him. And I died inside, believing I had inadvertently done this to myself.
When over, he stumbled away. I went into panic mode. I addressed the scene - he’d left his shoes. I picked up my torn clothes, and waited to make a break for getting back to my room without being seen.
Later, my brother would come to my room as I hid evidence under my blankets. He knew we had both been missing. I saw his disappointment, confusion, as he reached and took a muddy leaf from my hair.
The next morning I got up to tell what had happened. There were hungover people everywhere, my dad was feeding them pancakes. I went back to my room.
I had a friend take me to planned parenthood. There was a lot of damage. We called it sex too. Lost my virginity.
A month later I wrote my brother a letter. He read it. Never said a word.
Bulletpoints:
The frat said they were going to punish him, kick him out, it was a lie. His punishment was he had to tell his girlfriend - now wife - he had cheated on her. My brother would tell me he didn’t believe forced was involved. This has kept us estranged for 36 years. His proof? He asked the man if he raped me-and he said “I can’t remember. I was too drunk.”
So, I was a liar. I went to a lawyer, he said I was a liar. Even with my medical report. Even though it was statutory rape. He refused to take the case to save my family the embarrassment.
This was what it was like in 1989. I’m just lucky had Sassy. Because it was the only thing telling me I wasn’t a liar. But teen years are confusing as fuck, and adults that take advantage of those teens should be punished.
Instead, I spent decades being called a slut by that frat and the girlfriends (his and my sister-in-law’s) sorority. Because I had hurt their “sister” by sleeping with her boyfriend.
The world is a terrifying place at present, and I’m most grateful I’m not a teen… but everywhere I see these people. The JE’s… but also those that support them.
They are everywhere.
Sorry for long comment.
I'm coming back shortly to give this comment the response it deserves. Thank you, Gina
The beauty about PTSD, is I’ve absolutely no idea what I wrote, only that for a few minutes I was back in 1989. I wrote my entire memoir that way. And I put a likely more coherent version of this story in, and I sent it to his wife. Which sounds mean, but I understand she knows. I understand she went on to marry him, have 3 daughters with him, play the victim at 25 to a 16 year old girl. I don’t fear them, any of them anymore.
But they sure as fuck fear me. Because what you know — what I learned — is the ability to write. To talk. To tell your story in a way that rips you open, but exposes someone else in the process.
This is honestly why I’m always talking about Sassy. It was there, in my room. Every issue. Teaching me what others failed to.
Teaching me how powerful my voice is.
And that’s why how I’ve turned my trauma into power. That IS possible. Because the bad guys don’t scare me anymore. They taught me how to scare them.
I wrote you a lengthy response that somehow got deleted. So here's another version of it:
Your first comment here is the best example I've ever seen of what I say about how reader comments in my publications are stories unto themselves and in this case a moving and beautiful and important one. Thank you.
I know we've talked about other stories I want you to write for AJPT and this is another and you basically did it already.
I think my last point that I wanted to make in that lost note back to you was that if the only thing Sassy ever did was to help you in that way at that time, that would be plenty.
You are incredible.
I am Sassy!
I imagine it helped a lot of girl’s in a way other magazines didn’t. And still don’t. The magazine came out when *I* was 15, if we want to make this a full circle age 15 moment. And it taught me it was ok to not be perfect, or maybe it was better to not be perfect.
But mostly that it was best to be myself (picture Jane Pratt coming in her italics here to root for 15 year old me).
That full circle moment just made me tear up. And yes, let's hop in a Time Machine back to 1988 and here is a little italicized note in brackets saying [Go Gina! You ARE SO Sassy!! -Jane]
15 year old me, and 53 year old me, both just screamed in joy. Thank you!!
Thank you, Gina. This is beautifully written and really illustrates the alchemical power of art to deal with trauma that we never asked for. I'm sorry this happened to you. ❤️
I appreciate that, I do. I’ve learned it’s best not to ask whether I’d waste a wish asking for something to have never happened, because realistically I appreciate who I am today, and it would be disingenuous to hold fault with what created me.. and what keeps me from turning someone who just cannot be bothered to care about others. And honestly, I giggle a bit because it’s been a year since I put out a memoir about my year in end stage cancer, and more than a few of the reviews hint that I have a ‘bad attitude’, one person going so far as to imply I received medical abuse BECAUSE I had a poor attitude. And I think: I was 60 pounds, mute, I’d lost my entire life within 4 months and all day every day people are telling me I’m going to die — and yet my problem is I’m not smiling? Not people pleasing?
My life has made me able to look at things, at people, and call them out for what they are. This makes people uncomfortable. We are supposed to swallow our grievances— myself, especially. I’m a small, poor, mentally disabled (or whatever the term of the day for anxiety with panic disorder and PTSD is) girl who refuses to stay in her place.
It’s safe to say had I not faced the adversity and hypocrisy so young I might crave a tan and bland existence with my head in the sand that I see so many others do. So I can’t be sorry for myself… which seems strange.
But I don’t like waste. And I can’t see that spending a few decades pitying myself would help (although I’ll cop to some days or weekends of it). Early on it seemed the only thing I could do, was try to stop it from happening to the next person. Which ultimately means people either like me, or detest me 😉
Yeah, good ol' radical surrender is, ultimately, the only way to cope with the many vicissitudes of life. Which you have just similarly stated a lot more eloquently than I in your above comment. Have a good day darling. ❤️❤️ I appreciate this interaction.
Anytime, and likewise!
Gina! I am so angry on behalf of teenage you over what happened to you.
You deserved so much better!!! You deserved protection, kindness, being seen and valued for exactly the young person you were. You deserved to be let stay in your room with the Replacements and given a Coke or a glass of water if you joined the party, not a kamikaze. You deserved to be cherished and minded.
That &^%$£ can go to h€ll!!!!!!!!
Absolutely disgusting. I want to give your teenage self a mama hug (my boy is 10) and tell her that she did *nothing* wrong, in case she is in any doubt.
I really hope you're doing great now. I'm glad you found your power and your voice!
"Let stay in your room with the replacements and given a coke or a glass of water."
Perfect
I sincerely appreciate that! I really try to examine everything, looking for sense. My brother and I still are estranged, this standoff between my stubborn and narcissistic refusal to let go of saying I was raped for 36 years versus his adamant belief that there was no force and this is all just for attention. I have 3 nephews and a niece I do not know, in our few meetings they were supervised, like I was a child molester because he feared I would use them to hurt him. It’s all quite interesting, but they believe their proof of my flawed character is that I am not a Christian.
See how it gets confusing?
My brother converted when he got married, my family was never religious. I married a man whose background is in Scientology-which he left when he brought me to the church in 2005 to help with my anxiety and they said I wasn’t Scientology material. Which, is what the Catholic Church told me in the 90’s when I tried to get baptized. So, I’ve learned to think for myself, and in doing so that has not made me very popular. An intelligent woman who doesn’t seek approval nor follow societal rules is I guess seen as bad. All I know is that is exactly how I was able to survive my terminal cancer, and become the sickest terminal cancer patient to ever make a complete and full recovery. This gives me a lot of insight to human behavior.. perhaps too much. But I have been in hospice, I have had all my loved ones come to say their farewells, and I’m pretty sure I’m not the broken one 😂
God, I love your attitude about all of this. It's inspiring. And I had a revelation reading about your ability to cure yourself of cancer. Because of experiences I had early where my body was taken advantage of, I also have (not claiming to have had cancer or anything of the sort!) been able to reverse diagnoses that doctors and research told me were lifelong. The amount of control we have over our bodies after being in a position of not having control over them can be almost supernatural, I think.
Oh absolutely. There was very much a sense that this (body) is MINE, and I will take care of it no matter what you say or think. Immunotherapy cured my cancer. It was simple, clean, easy. But men in white coats watched me rot. Starved me to 60 pounds. Made me so sick by doing nothing it was so easy to walk away, to give up, to blame cancer. But it wasn’t cancer. It was never the cancer. It was them.
All I had to do, was find a female doctor who would help me do what they wouldn’t. Made harder by the fact my husband was carrying me, cradling a 60 pound body too weak to hold on to him anymore.
That was what 2 million dollars of the best American healthcare got me.
Together, my husband and I would watch my body come back to life from all that. In roughly 8 weeks. 15 days to melt a 17cm tumor. 5 weeks until I could stand. 6 weeks to my first steps in 5 months. And I walked, never looking back. Then I ran. Because I knew I could have been given that same immunotherapy on day 1, and never spent a day sick. Much less the abuse that would happen. 2026 is a year since my book has been out, and my husband and I are coming out swinging. I might not win against the bad guys, but that doesn’t mean I quit.
Because I have the insult of my cancer case not being used to give people hope. Because my doctors fucked up. Because I wrote my own treatment plan.
I’ve been fighting, seemingly, the same man since I was a kid. That’s why I became brave enough to say something on threads when you wrote about the hit job on Sassy. For 6 years, grown-ass doctors have been trying to discredit me.. not by saying I’m lying, but by saying there was reasons for the abuse (starvation, bullying, name-calling, oxygen deprivation) and that reason was my bad attitude. I was a 60 pound mute girl that couldn’t even sit up from weakness.
It’s such a misogynistic defense for ‘patient left the hospital at 60 pounds, why did her chart say she was 98 pounds?’
‘Patient was fed 4x’s in 25 days because you claimed she had Refeeding Syndrome, which included labs show she always tested negative for and the cure is not … not feeding the patient.’
Nurses ‘we put the patient in full restraints because she became agitated when we would point out she might as well enjoy the day because it might be her last.’
I fight. It’s all I know how to do. And honestly, to see the misogyny come back with this administration was the closest to my heart snapping in half I’ve ever gotten. Because the implication that I did not deserve my life - because I was scared? Terrified? Have intense medical panic and now couldn’t walk or talk?
I survived because of all the men who came before those doctors that taught me HOW to survive them. And in that, I wouldn’t change anything. Now, I try to save others. Because there are so very many others.
That last paragraph is so powerful and I'm thrilled too put myself in your company as someone else who used what was done to me to help save others. And I couldn't agree more with your reaction to the misogyny of this administration.
If Sassy was still around, I can imagine the back in style article for all the vile things they’ve brought back into fashion. And for what? Money?
What a waste of a lifetime, to spend it hating people you think are holding you back. Why do they not understand - it’s themselves? It was ALWAYS themselves holding themselves back. So much duh.
I have a pet peeve of overt stupid.
I'm moved by and sending my hugest gratitude to the reader who just paid to subscribe while reading this post even though it was not required in order to finish reading it or to comment. You rule and I will make it worth every penny. The regular writers and I THANK YOU!
I admit, the first thing that popped into my head when I heard what Kelly said was Survivor Type 2: Identifies with Perpetrator.
Not an excuse, but also not surprising given her proximity to power and patriarchy.
Of course I don’t know her life, but how many women do we all know (especially us GenXers) who don’t acknowledge abuse as abuse because we think of ourselves as willing participants in these particular sexual situations — because it’s important to our psychological health that we are NOT VICTIMS.
We were Mature for Our Age so of course we attracted men when we were teens.
Honestly, from what I’ve heard in my work as a coach & healer, I think this is the story of our generation. Thank you for writing it down.
What an incredible comment. Thank you. What you said about women needing to feel that we are NOT VICTIMS is exactly me and I completely agree with your theory on it – including the idea that that is particularly so for Gen Xers. Why do you think that it is specifically strong in our generation?
Also, once when I was in an abusive relationship, I kept saying "I don't want to be a victim" and then my friend's husband rightfully said, "but you are a victim." It really hit me that it was a fact.
I think it's just where feminism was at, at the gen X point.
We hadn't yet started using the word 'survivors'. Which is what younger people say. Younger people also carry themselves with rage and righteousness. Not shame, embarrassment, 'it was partially my fault' etc. I feel like gen X were among the last people to have that shame/stigma attached, not through any of our own doing.
I think you just nailed it and thank you! That makes a ton of sense and I relate to it personally also. There were absolutely no survivors or metoos at that point - and no room for anger at all.
I also forgot to say that, unlike being mature for my age, physically at least, I was a late bloomer (as you can see from these pictures I think) but I rationalized attention from older men as being partially my fault in other ways. We will come up with them!
We do. I had an adult body by 12 1/2, but many of my friends didn’t and they rationalized it too.
Most academic women I know have had at least 1 abusive relationship. Back when I was an academic, I thought it was particular to us, all that rationalization, but now I wonder if it just isn’t so common that most women have had one.
Re Xers, it’s interesting. I think the “she’s asking for it” attitude was amplified by birth control and the sexual revolution and we were not immune to taking that on, even as we lost friends to AIDS. By the time we came of age virginity was something to be discarded quietly (embarrassing if kept too long) or, if in a religiously oppressive environment like many of my cousins experienced, you’re taught submission and keeping your mouth shut so you don’t ruin that nice boy’s future —and your own reputation. We had the right to control our bodies, more freedom than any generation before or after, but with that came the expectation of increased responsibility for our own safety. So if something happened, well, whose fault was it, really? Why were we there? What were we wearing? Why didn’t we use our rape whistle or fight back? I think this cognitive dissonance ran through us. I was a Protestant in a Catholic high school, and I remember so many discussions of what counted as sex, what level of sin was each act. And I especially remember that being “carried away” in the moment was considerably less sinful than any sexual act while on birth control, since that was obviously premeditated sin. I also remember that we were all aware of which priests like boys and which liked girls and we tried to keep away accordingly.
Oh how I love to read your writing, Jane. And in reading, I immediately zoomed back to watching the movie Smooth Talk, starring Laura Dern and Treat Williams. It's loosely based on a short story by Joyce Carol Oates. I saw it in the theater with my mom and one of my mom's BFFs and it destroyed me so badly that I couldn't stop crying long enough to regain muscle control and get out of my seat. My mother was baffled. But really, you are describing in your essay is what it's like to be on the cusp of womanhood but still, in experience, a young girl. Like Dern, I was tall and willowy as a teen and often attracted attention from older men. Even though I looked older than I was, my emotional state was that of an naive teenager. I saw how vulnerable Dern's character was - vulnerable to a handsome and older guy's attention. Treat Williams was perfectly cast. I saw myself in that role and it really frightened me. Reading your piece (your sweet friend with those Hells Angels...so profoundly unthinkable) brought me back to that day in the theater. It's so complicated and thrilling being 15. Please keep writing for us!!!
One MORE thing: you really do look like Laura Dern.
Wow, now I want to rewatch that movie. It devastated me also, I remember, and I now realize it was for similar reasons to yours. Thanks for that enlightenment. And I love writing for you, so as long as you want me to, I won't stop.
Also, opportunity to say that Laura Dern is such an incredible actor (and person).
Thanks for this awesomely insightful comment.
Maybe we need an AJPT movie night so we can all watch this movie together (and metaphorically hold each other's hands!) My mother always said that I reminded her of Laura Dern when I was younger so that's probably why I had an extra hard time watching that movie. Your piece also made me think (and rethink) Joey Buttafuoco's grooming of Amy Fisher.
Wow, I haven't thought about Joey buttafuoco and Amy Fisher in a long time. Another great example. Also, I'm actually sincerely loving this idea of an AJPT movie night.
I would love to all watch a movie together. How fun!!!
Why not? Let's do it!
Count me in!!! 🥳
Yesssssss. With a guest appearance by Ms. Laura Dern! (Thank you so much for the compliment. Next time I'm at the salon, I'll have to ask my stylist to take the blonde WAY up!) xoxox
Oh my goodness I’d forgotten about “Smooth Talk”! What a perfect example.
Right?! I still think about that movie a lot.
THIS ESSAY IS AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is so spot on: "Teenage girls also had sexual desires of their own...with way more potential for guilt or shame than if they simply saw themselves as victims of others’ desires". I have never considered this before. I have never read a statement like this before. It is so absolutely true.
Yes, I absolutely did. I was a sexually active teenager by choice at 15 with boyfriends. I wanted to look hot, flirt, get attention, all of it. AND I, like so many women, was also preyed on by older men who I DID NOT SEEK OUT, and did not realize it wasn't normal until a long time later. That is a very complicated thing - to want something, but then to get it in 1) a healthy way and then 2) in a very skewed, perverse, and damaging way. It's a very "watch what you wish for" dilemma that erodes your trust in people. This dichotomy continued from age 15 to age 21 for me with the older men stuff.
And those ads for lawyers are sick and also not surprising. People get away with sexually abusing children and teenagers all the time, and now I see that lawyers advertise supporting predators sans any kind of shame about it. "...an abundance of professionals in the field of child sexual abuse are more skeptical of child and adolescent claims of abuse than available research suggests is required." I DO NOT believe this at all. An abundance? Bullshit. I have worked with teenagers for two decades alongside counselors, social workers, school psychologists, collaborating with pediatricians, etc. and I have never had these professionals say anything like this. Also, it WOULD be in the research because they are people that would WANT this type of this to be published if it was true, so it would surely get funded as a study.
So much to say about this topic, but this is a wonderful and essential read.
I can't thank you enough for this comment. The validation of my arguments from someone with the professional experience you've had means a whole lot. And your experiences as a sexually active 15 year-old who was
preyed upon by older men in just the ways I'm talking about is also validating, as well as moving, and I'm so glad you shared it. Thank you.
Yes, I am so glad you did. I also want to add that I am not necessarily surprised that another publication would not print this. The articles here are truly groundbreaking. The media overall right now is playing things very safe, and it is only through courageous editors that these types of stories are printed. Fabulous fabulous fabulous.
Thank you so much and I'm really glad you addressed that because I was genuinely, hoping (and still am) for other takes on whether you see this as controversial and why you think it would be a problem for other publishers. When I said it was the story of my career, I was being very factual actually. Back at sassy, I truly didn't realize that telling the truth to teenage girls would be so controversial that it would lead to a boycott and the magazine's eventual demise. Again, here I felt unclear about exactly what was controversial about making this point. Though I see how it could be twisted to say that I was in someway minimizing sexual abuse of smaller children?? or maybe that I was somehow suggesting that 15 year-old girls wanted this?? In any case, I have a lot of respect for the editor and I appreciate him being straightforward with me about it so I could just go ahead and publish it here. I'll write something else for them and not all of my ideas are racy, fortunately! Just the majority!
I am thinking of why certain pitches and essays of mine have gotten rejected, in a professional and respectful manner with explanations. One reason I saw - with what ended up as something I am very proud to have developed for Current Affairs on women’s sobriety memoirs - was the angle was too research-y and lacked a narrative thread. Not every publication or editor has space for something that combines narrative threads with research. Also, when pitching that one, some pubs didn’t want to take on something they perceived as a woman attacking other women who are considered groundbreaking.
The other reason with regards to a story that has greatly affected me because someone I love is involved was that it could lead to a lawsuit or an “ethics” dilemma because it involves a crime. But editors put that as: Is this your story to tell? The answer to that question is very complicated, but it is not too too too far away from the themes and personal stories you have touched on.
I do think the feedback I received was fair, but I see trends in some responses and in how editors need to work depending on how the pub is positioned. However, I am no media maven!!! These are just my own experiences with pitching and writing and making a little teeny tiny inroad when I can. I am no consultant!!!
This is true, combining narrative with research is a tough "sell" even if said research would improve a piece. I was pitching a major outlet this past year and was encouraged to do so by several other writers who said some of my stories were perfect for this particular pub. But upon closer inspection I realized that even though they do indeed publish a lot of stories that fit my ideas there is a very narrow and defined formula that they operate on. And if you deviate from that formula you have no chance in placing a piece there. .....
Yes, and sometimes these formulas work well for a quick essay: What X Taught Me About Y, for example. This is so corny, but I feel like every rejection is an opportunity for reflection. Sometimes my pitch wasn’t tight enough or lacked the ol’ razzle-dazzle. It wasn’t clear wanted the story to say. Other times, it was obviously NOT a fit for a particular pub, and I only realized in hindsight. The work, however, the real WORK is sitting with yourself and looking at the words on the page and discovering something. This indeed sounds so cheesy - corn + cheese is like a freakin food truck elote over here. 🌽 🧀 Ok time for more coffee
>>> This is so spot on: "Teenage girls also had sexual desires of their own...with way more potential for guilt or shame than if they simply saw themselves as victims of others’ desires". I have never considered this before. I have never read a statement like this before. It is so absolutely true. <<<
This this this.
Jane, I have so many thoughts but first is my heart going out to both you and Cindy and Christy and her friends. It's so awful and the layers of damage run deep. As a mom of a toddler, I sometimes just avoid stories like this because it's too horrifying, but I want to be as prepared as possible.
2 things struck me - I'm not really sure that you're agreeing with Megyn Kelly. I think we can acknowledge that 8 and 15 are very different ages, especially in terms of how girls see themselves and their sexuality, while also acknowledging that rape is equally wrong in both instances.
And on a lighter note, I find it totally hilarious that you're encouraging people to comment without reading your own post. I think most people, myself included, would be like, "Read this and tell me exactly what you think."
You're awesome for saying that. I sincerely don't expect everyone to want to read through this, but I love everyone here and want to talk to them regardless.
And you nailed it about Megyn Kelly. That's exactly what I was trying to say, thank you! And that we don't need to prove how young the victims are to show how egregious this predatory behavior is and how much it needs to STOP.
I'm also so glad you pointed that out about your daughter, because I want to keep that in mind as I write also and not upset people (except the people I want to upset). Thank you.
Now I want to read a 15-year-old’s response to this! I think that would be a very interesting full circle moment for you, Jane, and the rest of us.
I agree! I will keep my eyes open for that. I would love to publish one. There was that brilliant 14 year-old who made the video shortly after Megyn Kelly's statement came out discussing it from her perspective. I don't remember her name, but she nailed it too.
I'm at Ikea and can't stop thinking about this...growing up in the 80s and early 2000s, the media really did a number on young women to make us feel like we had to be the perfect little genie in a bottle/ DRRRRTY (forgive the Xtina references) so my friends and I pretended to be sexually precocious as a power move, like the women who seemed to be having power on our screens. Ultimately, a bout of molestation from a family member and a bunch of messy barely consensual "hookups" had me sleeping (and ultimately having a God damn baby with) a bunch of older men in an effort to subconsciously "master" the trauma of all this shit as a young girl...I think that's what a lot of us are doing. I see my eleven year old daughter and her friends and often think about the exact thing in this article, Jane. We want to pretend we have autonomy over our burgeoning sensuality as young girls, we are "choosing" to get blackout amd "hook up" with the old men/Hells Angels/ whatever...ugh. Only from this vantage point can I see it isn't a God damn choice at all. 😪
Wow what an incredible comment. The part about pretending to be sexually precocious as a power move was is something I hadn't even thought of, but it's so true. And it was so exactly me also. My friend Cindy, the same one in the story, and I pretended to be bisexual with each other because back then it was less common and we knew it made us look more sexually experimental, and therefore stronger than we were.
Megyn was 15 and in the same class with a few of my friends' little brother and sisters over at Bethlehem Middle School. No senior at my prep school would have been caught dead dating a freshman. On the flip side of that, I was dating college girls at 16 since I was in the hardcore punk scene in the early 80s and was 6 feet tall by 7th grade. It was a weird age, a weirder time...but Megyn is still one of the most hated people from back home, and there's a lot of competition with Anne Coulter, Elise Stefanik, Andy Cuomo, and the NXIVM cult.
Wait what?!? I am beyond thrilled to be hearing from someone with this insider view. And very interesting to know that she is the most hated of all! Thanks for the fascinating addition to our discussion here.
We called it Smallbany back in the 80s, and everyone knew everyone. Her dad taught where my grandma did and I remember he died young. I was only marginally aware that she existed as I was already sneaking down to CBGB or the Anthrax most weekends.
OK, you're awesome. And I fully assume that you caught a performance at CBGB by our Sassy house band Chia Pet. (Just kidding about you actually seeing us there, but we did open there for the Lemonheads and then for Bikini Kill at Wetlands too.)
And isn't it wild how people who are products of the same town come out so differently?
I remember Chia Pet. I knew someone who knew someone at Sassy, through Eugene Lang and Parsons. Was it Letch Patrol who got a "cute band alert" in Sassy?
My band was mentioned in passing in Vogue, which was odd as I doubt we were covered by any music magazine bigger than Maximumrockandroll when we were around.
Fantastic essay, Jane. A real distillation of that very cusp-like age. Where we're almost in womanhood, physically, culturally, in terms of how we're perceived, and in terms of our fledgling desires and thoughts and choices, but we're also BABIES. We are tiny babies. Fifteen is so very young. Thank you. My heart goes out to your friend who you're no longer in touch with.
Thanks so much, Kim, for getting what I was attempting to say and for the kind thoughts for my old friend.
This part moved me as well. Partly because I wonder how much things have changed since we were 15. To a certain extent, this cycle of desire and shame continues throughout our lives. Women who want and have a lot of sex are sluts and are shamed or pitied, men who do the same are studs and envied.
Whew! This stirred up the feelings. I happened to be 15 when Sassy debuted, so I feel like I was the target audience. 😊 But wow—this reminded me so much of what it was like being 15 and in 1988. Terrible. Like Cathy, I looked older than I was (short, but very curvy) and drew a lot of unwanted male attention. When I think about the girls in the Epstein files, I think about how, when I was 13, I was wooed by a recent high school graduate. He was awkward and I think looking for any girl who would have him. Luckily, I got skeeved out after a few days and broke up with him before anything happened. And I felt guilty for DECADES about that, not even realizing that maybe a 19-20 year-old shouldn’t be wooing a 13-year-old. I was lucky—I had friends who did not escape such conditions unscathed. Horrible, traumatic shit was done to so many of them, and they had almost no support. Especially if they didn’t return to acting like “good girls” afterward.
All of it comes back to one big point: the world is not fond of teen girls. Maybe it’s better now. My enby identified as female until they were 16. Their experience was so much different, mostly because as parents, we protected them. There was an occasion in sixth grade when a neighborhood friend texted me that she saw my kid walking home with an older boy and looking very uncomfortable. Just as the boy went in for an unwanted hug, my friend yelled, and he got outta there. I was so grateful that my friend intervened and told me what happened. That’s the difference between my kid’s childhood and mine—the intervention of adults who gave a fuck. Teen girls need more of them.
Wow yes yes and yes to everything and every important point you just made here.
I'm so happy to know that more adults get involved now when they see this stuff. My growing up sounds exactly like yours. And s
Sassy coming out 10 years after I experienced all of this making it exactly when you were 15 is everything I wanted when I launched it.
What you said about the punishment for not returning to being "good girls" is so correct also. Christy did not return.
And I really really relate to what you said about feeling guilty for decades over that guy. I'm sure that I am still harboring guilt about things that I didn't realize I was the victim in from those teenage years. What a time to be a girl - in terms of both the age and that era. If that doesn't make sense, I'll come back and clarify it because I know what I mean to say, and I'm also so blown away by these comments that I may not be as clear in my responses as I would like!
In 1988, I was 16 trying to extricate myself from a relationship with a 20 year old who used all the tricks to make me feel like a prick tease who toyed with his worship. Dude, I didn’t ask you to switch to the commuter college so you could be close to me. In fact that revealed how much I was getting over this crush as you were falling harder. He also like my curves when I didnt. He wasn’t forcing me to have sex // and we didn’t do “it” but he sure made me feel bad for leading him on and never putting out. I am working on essay, could be an IHTM, about the time I was convinced I was pregnant by him — despite no penetration just lots of messy not-so-dry almost naked humping. I made up a doctor’s appointment midday to go in town for a pregnancy test. As I told the nice lady what we’d done and she was just was so nice and administered the test so matter of factly that I had to laugh at how bizarre it all was. Of course, I’d gone on a diet at this point and lost 1ike 13 pounds — why I missed my period. I’d been gestating an eating disorder since summer and it has blossomed into amenorrhea. The look of anger when I told him about the test confirmed my decision to break up with him.
Wow - what a devastating story, Jane. I'm glad you weren't at that party! I also hope that Christy is okay today, and that karma has thoroughly obliterated the "men" who raped a child. The kids in my high school English classes are truly "kids" in every sense of the word (moreso than we were) and I can't imagine anyone viewing them otherwise. On a lighter note, what lovely photos of you as an adorable young girl! 💖
I love that you put quotes around the word "men". Yes.
And it is interesting to hear from your teacher's perspective how young these teenagers are. Things have definitely changed since the Sassy days it seems, in terms of kids staying kids for longer, which makes the Megyn Kelly argument that preying on them as though they were mature enough (or "barely") sicker than ever.
💯
Brilliant…I can relate in so many ways. The word used for what happened to many of us back then is irrelevant to me. The fact that it was and with some people still is socially acceptable makes my stomach curl.
My god this resonates.
~ I had a close call with a biker group myself, when I was 15, but was able to talk my way out of it (outwit, if you will). It was in NY. On LI to be more specific. They called themselves The Pagans.
~ My 14yo friend was accompanied by her parents to abort her unwanted pregnancy.
~ Another friend, at 12, yes 12, willingly had sex with a stranger who had picked her up hitchhiking. This was just 1 year after we had celebrated my birthday at a diner, feeling like grownups because my parents agreed to drop us off and pick us up so it could be just us, ordering, eating, laughing. During that outing, Susan came out of the bathroom walking funny but looking concerned: her first period, so she jammed a bunch of brown, scratchy paper towels from the dispenser into her underwear.
In 1 year’s time, she went from innocent kid, to saying what the hell, it’s only sex. Oh, and she was the one who, a few years later, introduced me to her “friends”, the above mentioned Pagans.
Being a teen in the 70s was wild. But the sexual experiences, threats, harassment, all of it, of course changed us. We were fed a bill of goods saying it was liberation. Or worse, “flattery”.
It was neither.
My stories didn’t end when my teens years did, or when I severed ties with Susan who was headed down a road that was most definitely not for me.
Unwanted advancements are all around us, everyday.
Some more persistent than others.
We live our lives checking our surroundings like our life depends on it. Because we know it could.
I relate to everything in here and it's also so beautifully written. I really appreciate this comment. I am always surprised that many of my male friends don't realize that the threat of unwanted advances and even rape are with me every day. It was shocking to me that #metoo was a revelation to anyone. Thank you again for sharing your story here also.
Thanks Jane. I appreciate you opening the door. Your title of this piece was very compelling! I am always curious to hear self described “unpopular opinions”, and this one is truly a must read.
I thank you so much for that. I didn't want the title to be a bait and switch situation because I am not actually agreeing with Megyn Kelly but it did most succinctly say what I wanted to say and I'm glad if it helped get people to read it. Really thanks again.
In the 90s, I was briefly married into a family with a Pagans MC member. His claim to fame was beating up the rock group Kiss at their LI bar/ clubhouse. So, unfortunately I knew some of those folks. None that I knew are alive anymore.
I haven’t consciously thought of that incident in decades. Your
comment is oddly comforting. Thank you for that 🙏
I won’t name names, but it’s a small damn world, that’s for sure.
Thank you for this article. I loved Sassy magazine!!
That makes my day! Sassy loved you too. And still does!
Thank you for this, Jane! It’s so hard to talk about this- teenage girls are not children. But that doesn’t mean it’s ok to sexually exploit or assault them.
Exactly and thank you!