“It is my conviction that initiation is a life-defining, affirming, and fulfilling rite of passage supporting and celebrating the young person’s membership in the community and unique gifts and potentials; powerful enough to align the individual with her dynamic person in the world.” - Penniman
I feel I never was initiated and it was very confusing to me when I stopped being a girl and became a woman. For me having my period and then being sexual active were my personal markers toward womanhood. But they were personal not communal. My period came at 12. My father, not my mother, came to school with a bag of feminine napkins. I longed for my mother to help me but she did not come. She never even mentioned it. My sister, ten years older, was already far away living in New York City. I went to the bathroom not sure how to use the pads. I ended up naively putting the pads sticky side up against my vagina. Where was my initiation? Where was my community of female elders? Where was a loving relative to care about me?
My first “sexual experience” may not even been sex. I am not sure even now if we did it or not. I was fourteen years old - high and drunk and I went to bed with an ugly red head guy just because he asked me. Not because I liked him. I didn’t get to like him. I didn’t know him. I wasn’t attracted to him but since my self-esteem was so low, I thought if he wanted me I should oblige. I remember him pumping against my leg, and that is where I still am confused - I never quite remembered if he went inside of me or not. I talked to my cousin a couple of days later and she assured me if I had had sex I would known it. I was hopeful we didn’t do it but I watched my stomach carefully for many months hoping a baby was not going to appear.
This boy and I never really talked after. I remember him having to leave school because of drug problems. I even heared he had gone psychotic because of too much LSD. We loved LSD and mushrooms my friends and I. We loved the hallucinations, the visions and the insights. But we all had this little fear if we did too many we too could “go psychotic.”
Going to college was also a marker. I traveled to Providence, Rhode Island to be an artist. Everyone was so disappointed in me. I had gotten into one of the best art schools in the country and my parents were annoyed, disappointed and angry. The weight of their disapproval was too heavy on me and by my sophmore year I was back home at an Ivy League school learning to be an architect. I was even rowing on the women’s crew team. Every felt better except me.
And somewhere in all that I didn’t worry anymore if I was a woman. I knew I was a woman. I had survived a rape at 15 and a sexual assault at 17. I had given up on my dream of being an artist before I was twenty. I had compromised my mind, body and spirit. It wasn’t a question anymore of if I was a woman but what kind of woman I was going to be.
I feel I never was initiated and it was very confusing to me when I stopped being a girl and became a woman. For me having my period and then being sexual active were my personal markers toward womanhood. But they were personal not communal. My period came at 12. My father, not my mother, came to school with a bag of feminine napkins. I longed for my mother to help me but she did not come. She never even mentioned it. My sister, ten years older, was already far away living in New York City. I went to the bathroom not sure how to use the pads. I ended up naively putting the pads sticky side up against my vagina. Where was my initiation? Where was my community of female elders? Where was a loving relative to care about me?
My first “sexual experience” may not even been sex. I am not sure even now if we did it or not. I was fourteen years old - high and drunk and I went to bed with an ugly red head guy just because he asked me. Not because I liked him. I didn’t get to like him. I didn’t know him. I wasn’t attracted to him but since my self-esteem was so low, I thought if he wanted me I should oblige. I remember him pumping against my leg, and that is where I still am confused - I never quite remembered if he went inside of me or not. I talked to my cousin a couple of days later and she assured me if I had had sex I would known it. I was hopeful we didn’t do it but I watched my stomach carefully for many months hoping a baby was not going to appear.
This boy and I never really talked after. I remember him having to leave school because of drug problems. I even heared he had gone psychotic because of too much LSD. We loved LSD and mushrooms my friends and I. We loved the hallucinations, the visions and the insights. But we all had this little fear if we did too many we too could “go psychotic.”
Going to college was also a marker. I traveled to Providence, Rhode Island to be an artist. Everyone was so disappointed in me. I had gotten into one of the best art schools in the country and my parents were annoyed, disappointed and angry. The weight of their disapproval was too heavy on me and by my sophmore year I was back home at an Ivy League school learning to be an architect. I was even rowing on the women’s crew team. Every felt better except me.
And somewhere in all that I didn’t worry anymore if I was a woman. I knew I was a woman. I had survived a rape at 15 and a sexual assault at 17. I had given up on my dream of being an artist before I was twenty. I had compromised my mind, body and spirit. It wasn’t a question anymore of if I was a woman but what kind of woman I was going to be.
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