Fear of Small Boys After my first year of college, I met a man 12 years my senior, an alcoholic whom I now call Bubba. I spent that summer in New Orleans and I met Bubba where I worked. On my last night after work Bubba walked in, sat me down and somewhat cryptically slurred that he liked me. He also mentioned that he could tell I liked him too. For me, this latter bit of information was a surprise. "I like you?" I thought to myself. And, somewhere thrown into this conversation was the story of how Bubba's father shot himself while holding his young son's hand. Whether it was deep sympathy or my desire for male attention, I began to convince myself that I did like this man. I spent the next couple weeks hanging out with Bubba at bars. We did not spend time together unless there was alcohol involved. I new nothing about Bubba except that he had suffered through his father's suicide, he now had a son of his own whom he did not see, and that he enjoyed sucking down Bud Light. Between us, there was nothing to connect over; we did not have engaging conversations. Every time we stumbled into bed we were both wasted on cheap American beer and would fool around but, even drunk, I was afraid of the man in bed with me. The thought of having sex with Bubba was unsettling. I did not trust him and sex left me in too vulnerable a position to engage with just anyone. I was also afraid because I had no sexual experience and I assumed I would leave Bubba completely unsatisfied, that he would reject me and I would be left devoid of the male approval I craved. I left New Orleans without performing any sexual acts for Bubba. Over a college break my sophomore year, I flew down to New Orleans to visit, and of course I saw Bubba. It was after a night of intense drinking that I had sex for the first time. I cannot remember that evening with any sort of detail but I do remember consenting to have sex with Bubba. It didn't last long and when he finished, Bubba rolled over and fell asleep. Apparently he didn't have the same fear of leaving his partner dissatisfied. I left Bubba in bed, went into the bathroom, and began to cry. I felt as though I had done something wrong. But wrong for whom? Was it wrong for me? As in, did I feel uncomfortable with having sex with Bubba because I wasn't ready? Or did I think that I was some sort of slut because I had sex with a man I didn't love, didn't really know? If my friends met Bubba they would see him as a bad man who manipulated their friend into having a relationship with him. They would see the things that I did not want to see, that I was trying to avoid thinking about this situation. I had no idea what I was doing with this man, but he said he liked me, and gave me the attention I thought I needed. In the bathroom, in New Orleans, I couldn't understand why I was so upset, so I convinced myself that everything was fine. Several months later, I realized that I let myself get pushed into offering a part of me to a man I feared, and that part knew to cry. That night, I went back to bed feeling fine with who I was lying next to and what we had done together. I remained content until I woke up the next morning and Bubba was not there. He was in the living room with his friend watching "In Living Color." And when I spoke to him, he wouldn't look at me. He felt ashamed, guilty about our sexual encounter the night before. Neither of us brought it up and I flew back to school. When I got back, I called to see if Bubba even remembered that we had sex. He did. That was all I asked. Our communication dwindled and I grew more and more uncomfortable with the events that occurred. For years I thought about that night and why I could not just move on from it. I couldn't believe that my need to be liked or my guilt over his troubled childhood had lead to a relationship with a man in whom I had no interest. I worried (and still do) about how I convinced myself that I liked, trusted Bubba enough to have sex with him. The whole relationship was proof that I had a hard time relating to men. In high school and college, I chose to shy away from boys and men because I didn't feel I could interact with them. I grew to fear males and placed them into a role as the attacker. I stripped them of any individual personalities. Any male was capable of violence, therefore I did not respect men nor did I allow too many males in my everyday life. Throughout college, my close friends remained female. The only time I chose to spend time with men was when they were dating my friends. I reasoned that these men, because they were committed to my friends did not see me as a sexual entity. In a sense, they were desexualized, thus they were safe. They did not have the potential to reject me so my interactions with them were less confused than they were with, say, Bubba. During these years, any straight male without a girlfriend was a sexual candidate and had the capacity to make me feel unwanted, unattractive, undesirable-rejected. Next to anything made me feel rejected by a male. The smallest sign of inattention meant that a man thought I was ugly. This too made friendships with males nearly impossible as I was constantly waiting for signs of rejection as their mate. Males made me feel powerless, a slave to my desire to be liked, my need for attention. I was powerless over my need for male approval-powerless over my feelings of shame due to an unfamiliarity with sex and my sexual self. As an early teenager, I assumed a nonsexual identity to protect myself from my hidden need to be liked by boys. I carried this nonsexual identity with me throughout my years in high school and most of college. The longer I repressed my sexuality the more afraid of it I became. When I did have sex with Bubba, I felt ashamed because I had done something contrary to my nonsexual nature. Having sex seemed perhaps like an ultimate betrayal to the guarded identity I had assumed as a younger teen. My fear of how males made me feel, their ability to reject me and their role as sexual aggressors made interaction with the males in my life rather unenthusiastic compared to my perhaps overenthusiastic interaction with females. I felt a bond with women because of our common struggle with male aggression. Because of this I (and others close to me) questioned my heterosexuality. I've gone through much of my life stating the oversimplified, "I hate men." If this were true, I would date women, but I don't and never have. I can't say that I never will. I have doubted my heteroness at several points in my life, one such time was when I thought (very briefly) that I was in love with my best friend. But, the fact remains that I am sexually attracted to males. How much of this attraction is based on my need for male approval? I don't know. I can't say if my attraction to men is natural or even healthy for that matter. But it is present. Perhaps the mere presence of this attraction is the manifestation of my need for male approval which then causes me to resent males. My resentment towards men enables me to overlook males as individuals and to group men into a category-that of the other, the sexual aggressor, violent, threatening, insensitive, stupid. Men become an entity to fear and my fear causes an inability to interact with men which makes me feel ashamed because I am not a "functional" straight woman. My encounter with Bubba, however, displayed behavior common amongst women. I was convinced easily by Bubba of my feelings for him and of what I wanted to do (e.g. have sex) because of those feelings. Women consistently permit behavior which makes them uncomfortable as I did with Bubba. When I tell my female friends the details of the time I had my nipple pierced, they are shocked and convinced that my piercer took advantage of the situation. For me, things are less clear cut. In certain situations-as I did-women tend to second-guess their intuition, to doubt the inevitability of harm that will come to us. We tend to be too accommodating. I convinced myself that what my piercer was doing was normal, but I knew that it wasn't. So, does that mean that all women are over-accommodating because they are seeking male approval just as I am? Will we all keep compromising ourselves until we feel satisfied by the amount of male attention we receive? Why is it then, that more women aren't afraid or ashamed of how they react to men? All of the women I have talked to in my lifetime regarding this subject have felt powerless is a sexual situation, have second-guessed themselves into a dangerous position, have felt as though they should, or even had to perform a sexual act without wanting to. So how can women feel safe around men? Why don't other women have the same trouble I have had interacting with males? Are these powerful issues being swept under the rug before women don their red lipstick and head out the door? And what about men? Men must fear their sexual desire-the way women make them feel. My fears, in one way or another, invade and taint most encounters with men. Several times during sex, I have been disturbed by flashes of violent sexual acts that ran through my head. These flashes did not come from my past. They were images I had seen in films or impressions I formed from stories my close friends had told me about violent acts they had endured. Why do those flashes of rape run through my head when I am engaging in an act so apart form what I see in my head? How is it so easy to disregard the many levels to a man and reduce him to merely a threat? Why do men remain the embodiment of sexual aggression? To answer some of these questions, I examine my early feelings of powerlessness against boys. I was afraid of boys because I wanted so much to be liked by them. Just the fact that I wanted them to like me made me feel afraid. Boys obviously held some sort of power over me. I needed their approval, their attention but I was terrified by it at the same time. I had no control over my feelings which was terrifying. As I grew older, I desperately attempted to assert power over these feelings by repressing my sexuality. I became militant about having control over sexual situations but grew to learn that this was an impossibility. For a woman having hetero sex there is a severe relinquishing of power. This is true for both parties involved, but I have always felt that I am surrendering more than my partner in the act of sex. I am being penetrated, essentially overpowered and I have yet to find a man I trust enough to make me feel completely comfortable in doing this. Also, there is the issue of feeling inadequate. I would like to, at all costs, avoid having a man laugh at me because of how badly I'm pleasuring him. There are so many factors that go into why I feel the way I do about sex. While trying to decipher the intricacies of this facet of my life, I am met with too many possible combinations of events and emotions to sort everything out. All of these emotions remain unclear to me, but I have grown comfortable with the nature of such complicated matters. What piques my curiosity, however, is how other straight women sort through all of the feelings I struggle with every day. Is heterosexuality oversimplified in our society? If straight women began to deconstruct their sexuality would more of them find similar underlying fears? As a girl, I had a simple fear of small boys. Now, I'm not sure of whom or what I am really afraid. Abigail Rothberg

 

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