Sexual Deconstruction & Getting My Body Back
Content Warning: this is a personal memoir excerpt that details sexual assault and strong sexual content. Please only read with the understanding that this may bring up memories of your own past experiences. I recommend working with a licensed professional if attempting to deconstruct your sexual trauma in this way.
My body didn’t feel like mine until the age of 33.
I am 33 and a half.
My entire 20’s were an experiment in how far I could go with repressing the amount of times my body had been taken advantage of.
An exploration of how much I could shut down and numb out.
When I left my hometown at 18 to pursue my undergraduate degree across the state, I had a reputation for being the girl who always had a boyfriend.
Being boy crazy was pretty much on my report card from elementary school on.
This wasn’t a coincidence though. If you go back through my journals or home movies, the pieces of the puzzle start to come together.
Adult to 6 year old me: “Jessie who is your boyfriend?”
Adult to 7 year old me: “Jessie, perform “Shy Boy” for us on camera!”
Adult to 14 year old me: “Jessie, so and so is coming over, you know, so and so’s son! and they’re so cute! Can you actually wear makeup this time and put on some blush…”
My dad was usually too busy arguing with my mom, kissing strange women in the front of a car I was in the back of or sneaking booze/drugs in the bar, basement or backyard somewhere.
This led to the inevitable “daddy issues” that leave so many young girls at the mercy of the men who neglect them.
My lack of foundation led me to believe my sense of worth belonged in three categories:
seeking validation from men
my ability to perform/excel
my looks
So I did three things:
constantly sought validation from men
remained perfect at everything I did
tied immense value to how I looked and was perceived by the world.
What do you get when you combine those things? A recipe for absolute mental and emotional disaster.
The first boy I ever made out with, told everyone we had sex because I wouldn’t date him.
My first ever intimate experience aside kissing was with a boy who went on to tell everyone I smelled bad “down there” because of one reason or another.
Probably because I wouldn’t go all the way with him…. rumors were one of the many ways you paid for not making a boy feel special.
Not too long after, I was in a boyfriend’s basement with my bestfriend and his bestfriend. An hour into the hangout, we were being coaxed into giving each boy oral sex.
Afterward, my best friend and I ended up locked in my boyfriends laundry room for an hour while she sobbed with regret.
In one of my more serious relationships, during the “courting” phase, a friend turned crush brought me to a movie. In the theater we were holding hands and had yet to kiss but before I knew it his lap was exposed and he was guiding my hand to his clearly erect dick.
I stormed out of the theater, demanded to be picked up and brought home. I was called dramatic and was accused of over reacting.
I ended up dating this person later on and had an ongoing relationship with him for years. He was someone I considered a good friend but looking back I realize all the times I was baited by him, whether he had a girlfriend or not.
He got off on pitting me against one of his longtime girlfriends throughout highschool. Blatantly cheating on her, with me, in front of our friends and her being none the wiser.
We were both guilty for that. And I take full accountability for how my toxicity showed up in that scenario.
I eventually told her everything, which took years for her to believe and now we are friends and I respect her immensely.
This was a harder one to deconstruct because of our mutual attraction to one another through our early years. My experience with him was one of my most impactful.
He even messaged me not too long ago insinuating he had a sexy dream about the last time we were alone with one another.
The last time we were alone with one another he attempted to sleep with me and failed.
He’s married with two daughters now.
When I was 15, I went to the fair with a friend. My mom didn’t let me dress a certain way so I snuck an outfit I bought at the mall into our bags and changed after being dropped off. I chose a skirt that night. We weren’t old enough to drive, or to understand the implications of wearing a skirt when kissing a boy - even with my mothers warnings.
Later that night the boys we were meeting up with, who were old enough to drive and to know better, brought us to one of their father’s houses because no one was home. I was so flattered I was chosen by one of the boys to go “make out” upstairs. What unfolded instead was a 30 second black out where he let himself inside me and finished with out any verbal consent from my confused 15 year old body.
I feared I was pregnant every single day until my period.
I had only had my period for TWO years but I feared I could be pregnant.
Luckily, I was not.
Not too long after that I found out that same boy was an IV heroin user and realized the shame that surrounded the possibility of having contracted an STD.
I never contracted anything from that experience other than a deep understanding that my body did not belong to me.
There was the time at my best friends boyfriend’s house where all the “cool older guys” hung out from our highschool. It was “the” party house and being invited to one of the parties meant something.
One of the boys, a crush of mine from afar for a while, suddenly noticed me after never having even given me the time of day.
The type of guy who likely made jokes at your expense behind your back.
He managed to get me to the basement alone and what again was supposed to be a teenage make out session, turned into me being “pushed” down to the direction of his crotch and coaxed into doing more than I ever consented to verbally.
The same month, I was at his neighbors house who was a girl friend of mine, for a sleepover. We snuck over to his house where he had another friend of his, another popular baseball player, in the hot tub too. That night his friend did the same magic trick with his dick, exposed himself under water and attempted to get me to touch him.
At 16, I was yet again in a different friends (mostly cold) hot tub with the best friend of the boyfriend we were in the basement with a couple years back (remember him?), the same boy who left my best friend sobbing in the laundry room with regret. Someone I considered a completely platonic friend and had no interest in.
It took 2 minutes of being in the hot tub before I felt my hand be guided to what was, yet again, an exposed dick. I ripped my hand away and left the hot tub and my friends house.
Junior year of highschool, I was 17 years old and met a boy, or should I say, a man who was at least 21 years old. I don’t remember if he was 22 yet but I do remember him projecting his shame about my still being in highschool onto me.
Despite all that, I felt so cool. I was being noticed by an older guy, a guy with a car, a guy who could drink legally.
He would pick me up from school and I was basically to act like we were just friends. His friends knew otherwise, but image is everything.
One night, he brought me to the back of his fathers barbershop where they had a room with a couch, TV and bathroom. It was dark and dingy and I can remember almost every detail of the TV to this day, and the movie that played: “Murder at 1600”.
I wasn’t even fully attracted to him but the allure of being wanted by someone older and wiser was enough to keep me from going back to my broken home that night. At that point, I’m not even sure if we had kissed yet.
Innocent spooning turned into him taking off my clothes. The voice in my head screaming “stop” but my body frozen because I didn’t want to cause a scene or be rejected. So I focused on the movie.
I saved the shame for later.
Anything was better than going home.
It lasted a few seconds, never a mention of protection and then he brought me home with very little discussion about what had just happened.
I felt absolutely disgusting but it also felt like the same familiar way my body had been treated all along, so I just chalked it up to my own shit to work out later.
I thought maybe at this point I earned enough credit to be his girlfriend but instead, the next day or so he picked me up from school, brought me to his empty house and attempted to have sex with me in his actual bedroom (technically an upgrade, or so I thought) - where the pictures of him and his ex were still hung all over the walls and on the headboard.
An ex he never mentioned and apparently wasn’t finished with.
When I demanded to be brought home instead of having sex with him, the relationship, or whatever you want to call it, ended.
All but a few of those boys has at least one daughter now.
My first year in college I was engaged to a marine and my high-school sweetheart.
The love of my life at that point.
Someone I shared some of my darkest moments with growing up, and someone who I witnessed go through some of his darkest moments with.
My best friend.
We were traumatized kids who poured ourselves into each other for over 3 years and in that time I lost most of my friends and sense of self. He protected me, made me feel safe and loved and fully seen. It was the first time I was shown what “unconditional” love really felt like and I would’ve let him do or say anything to me.
He was very good to me, until the military took away his innocence.
I was starting college and he was going to war.
We were babies.
We were also bitterly jealous.
Another recipe for disaster.
While at college and living away from home for the first time, I met men who looked at me like I was something to be worshipped, not taken advantage of or controlled.
There was a free spirit energy I was being drawn into and at the same time my fiancée was being indoctrinated into the United States Military and trained for war.
I made bad choices.
I wasn’t honest.
I lied to protect myself.
And I paid the price.
“Slut”
“whore”
“Jodi”
“loose lips”
Those were just some of the nicknames.
I broke off the engagement at one point in an effort to reclaim myself, but at a moment where I wasn’t prepared to leave my best friend.
So we tumbled and tumbled, around and around, in a toxic web of shame, blame and doom.
I was blamed for his inability to perform intimately when he came home from Iraq because I was off being a “slut” at UMass.
I was blamed for every fight.
I was used.
Humiliated.
Made to believe that I had absolutely nothing to offer because at 18, I had decided to at least try to take back ownership of my body.
His friends, one in particular who served with him in his first war, would antagonize us even when things were going well.
We would be out to dinner, finally having a nice time together without fighting, and he would text my ex and remind him how much of a slut I was.
How much I was worthless.
I believed every word.
One weekend, he came up to visit me at school and when he left, things seemed a little off. He was a veteran at 20 and I brought him to parties at a liberal arts college, showing him everything he had been indoctrinated to believe was his worst nightmare.
That night after leaving his visit, he went to the strip club, something he loved to do with his friends who hated me - and I didn’t hear from him all night.
The next day, he broke up with me for good over text. We never actually got back together after this point.
He still used me for his loneliness and sex for several months after, requesting over and over different types of sex that were extremely painful and unenjoyable.
At one point in the midst of all this I was courted online by a Marine I had never met but we shared mutual friends.
He was active duty and stationed in Japan. He flew in massive planes and had me totally enthralled. Another man who could possibly save or protect me, he said all the right things at first.
He was also 6’4 and abnormally handsome, far beyond the type of guy I thought would ever be interested in me, but he was infatuated with me and I was baited quickly.
We spoke via message, phone and text while he was stationed in Japan for several months.
He was respectful, flirtatious and PERSISTENT. I was open with him about my entangled relationship with my ex but I was not honest with my ex about my relationship with him.
I wasn’t honest with my ex about a lot of things and there wasn’t a moment I didn’t pay a high tax price for that while also feeling deep regret.
I was never cut out for being a military wife.
At one point this “other” Marine was scheduled to come home for a visit and we planned to meet since he grew up close by my hometown.
He suddenly became quite concerned about my involvement with my ex and started to become possessive about our exchanges, saying things like I didn’t deserve to meet him if I couldn’t completely cut ties with my ex - which to be fair made sense - but the way he treated me, throwing around insinuations that I was just a slut, yet all along he knew my situation.
For the first time I was being completely and fully honest with all the men in my life.
When we met, we were instantly attracted to one another physically. He took me to dinner and we drove around, made out in his car for hours and eventually got a hotel room and spent the night together.
The next morning I realized the attraction for me was purely physical and did my best to let him know. I missed my ex and although he was beautiful, he wasn’t who I wanted to be with.
He didn’t take the rejection lightly and insisted we get married, he would fly me out to California where he was now stationed and he would take care of me.
I declined his offer and I pursued being a fully single college girl for once.
Within a few weeks, my ex who was still overseas on deployment at the time, was notified by one of this guy’s friends that I had been sending him photos and had hooked up with him.
My ex and I weren’t actually dating, and me and this new guy weren’t actually dating, but somehow both men managed to have complete control over me because of their relationship to my body.
They both proceeded to tag team my phone, email and messages with the same “slut” “Jodi” “loose lips” “whore” narrative for months and I was living in a mental torment, cutting myself, constantly contemplating suicide and drowning my sorrows in booze.
The things those men said to me, about me and about my sense of worth was enough to make you want to drown in your own tears.
It felt true.
It felt like I was being exposed for the awful person I was. And they got a complete joy out of tormenting me.
Two marines I refused to marry and 15+ years of shame piled up on me quick.
Despite all of this, even after we completely cut physical ties, for YEARS my ex would text or message me, coaxing me to send him naked pictures in between reminding me how much of a worthless slut I was for how our relationship ended.
The “other” Marine would also randomly text or message me over the years, reminding me of his marriage offer in between calling me a Jodi.
He stopped when he met his semi-famous model wife and blocked me on all social media, thankfully.
He’s now a MAGA supporter along with my ex.
For a few months I explored being single, kind of. I spent the first semester of my second year of college meeting guys that were unlike the ones described above.
There was M who was a complete and utter gentleman. He showed me that my body was worth waiting for, he showed me patience, tenderness and I found a great deal of my sexual confidence from my time with him. I was actually the one broke his heart and yet he always remained respectful, even when I called him late at night when my exes were tormenting me and I threatened to end my life.
He was one of the few before my husband who never made me feel ashamed about my choices around my body.
I hope he knows who he is if he is reading this.
In high school I also had a few boys come into my life who were the exception. Guys who always asked permission, consent and made my pleasure and comfort their first priority.
You also know who you are, if you don’t feel free to ask.
But no one, not one soul, ever showed me the amount of respect that my Kyle Byron has shown me. Kyle looked at me like I was the rarest flower in all the land the first time we hung out as more than friends. My body was always sacred to him, he always let me set the time-line of when things would happen, and my joy, pleasure and comfort was more important than anything he could gain, all the time. He worshipped me for more than what I could do sexually and he always worshipped my body. He waited months to go all the way. He made sex feel safe.
But I was broken.
Shut down.
It took years for me to fully be able to feel my body, connect with my body and relax into any type of intimate situation.
Kyle never persisted, never coaxed, and never made me feel less than and has defended me and my honor with his every breath, every step of the way.
There is nothing he doesn’t know and he loves me more for every part of myself I share with him.
There are several other stories I haven’t mentioned, like the time I was pushed into a bedroom at a party when I was grabbing my coat by a kid I barely knew.
He locked the door and proceeded to take off his pants and approach me, extremely drunk. I managed to call my best male friend at the time who was at the bottom of the stairs and he broke into the room before anything could happen. (Thanks Billy)
That was the closest to violence I’ve come in terms of sexual assault.
It’s taken almost 15 years to realize the impact of all of this.
To deconstruct every moment of my life so that I no longer carry the immense weight and shame that my experiences with sexuality have brought me.
We carry all these judgements and misconceptions about girls who are “boy crazy”, we assume that girls who have sex before a certain age or who always have a boyfriend are “bad news”.
We forget that these girls are usually lost, abused, neglected and broken.
We trust that these boys/men will protect us, care for us and how they treat us is a reflection of what we deserve.
I’m not innocent, I’m not perfect. I’ve lied, I’ve stolen and I’ve manipulated things at times in my life as a teen and young adult.
The difference is, at 33 years old, I’ve spent the last 15 years owning up to and holding myself accountable for those things.
I’ve spent the last 33 years convinced I was a problem to solve. I was dramatic. I was too much. I was too sensitive.
I wasn’t what I would ever consider “promiscuous” when I was young, despite what I’ve shared here and despite what people might say. Compared to some of my peers, I was a good girl who was usually very vocal about her boundaries.
I was always someone who truly valued sex and only ever wanted to share it with someone who loved and respected me. It’s just not how the system was set up at the time I was figuring out who I was and how my body fit into the picture.
Many girls had it a lot, and I mean A LOT, worse than me. I was spared violence and physical aggression in these situations. Most (not all) of these men truly did care about me in one way or another.
I’ve never needed an abortion.
However, I’ve built my entire adult life on honesty and deconstruction. I’ve built a beautiful, loving and honest relationship with my partner who adores me and knows every detail and nuance of how I came to be the strong willed woman I am today.
Women everywhere, uterus baring people everywhere, are at the mercy of these same men I’ve described above.
A few of these men are MAGA supporters, others are “neutral devil’s advocates”, others I’m not even sure.
A few of these men have made it clear they think it’s okay that the government intervene on our right to choose.
But all of these men would’ve expected an abortion had I gotten pregnant in any of the above scenarios.
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*this post is dedicated to the women who actually had to have abortions because of the men listed above (and ones like them). You know who you are. I see you. You’re not alone.
** if you think you’re one of the men in this post and you want to talk about it, I’m an open book. People change. People make mistakes. I am not closed to exploring how your own experiences and toxic masculinity impacted how you treated the women you were attracted to when you were a kid.
***If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, help is available: https://www.rainn.org/resources
