A WEEK IN THE LIFE OF A PSYCHO-SLUT: Rumors, Labels & Violence
If the title didn't warn you that this one's about to get ugly, then you must not know me very well yet.
If you have school shooter trauma, blood & violence trauma, or anything of the like, this one may not be for you.
There were no guns involved in this episode of my life, but I'm about to open the door to a very dark room, and I'm going to look into the eyes of the one who lives there. You can look, too, if you want. It's scary to let you look. But stick with me. I promise we'll head back upstairs after this tale is done. Not to the shallows. I'll just need a little bit of sun and air once we close this book.
--
In the second season of 13 Reasons Why we learn that Justin sought out Hannah in a coffee shop to apologize for allowing his bragging comments and everybody's ASSumptions to ruin her reputation over the misleading photo he took of her coming down a slide in a dress.
Justin: “Once you get tagged at Liberty, that’s what you’ve got.”
Hannah: “Your tag seems a little easier to live with than mine.”
Because Hannah is a girl.
While Justin is hailed as a champ and a hero at the thought that he hit a homerun with her, all the looks--shocked, scandalized, disgusted, loathing...those looks say it all at the mere thought that a girl might have let someone do more than kiss her.
How dare a female have a sex drive that rivals, or even outstrips the masculine? How dare she act on it of her own impassioned free will?
Spring 1987
8th Grade
While I was talking to Jake last night, they must have called Queenie and the rest of the Court, who must have blabbed to all the boys, because when I walk down the hall before school on Monday, the eyes bombard me. The hissing tongues fly in my wake, punctuated by scornful laughter.
When I get to my locker, there’s a note taped onto it. I blow out a long, slow sigh. Here we go again. I peel off the paper and open it. Inside there’s an unwrapped, unfurled condom along with the single word: “SLUT!” I nearly drop it all in revulsion. Praying that the thing is not used, I throw the hate-bomb and its pasty, shriveled gift in the garbage. The laughter grows louder, more threatening.
What exactly did those girls tell everyone I did?
The truth would be bad enough, but if they embellished...
They've always embellished, and people have always believed them. The last time this happened with so much hatred, we were only in fifth grade. Now we’re eighth-graders, and their malice is backed by a whole new level of cruel.
“Slut,” comes the whisper behind my back. “Fuckin’ whore,” and “Slimy cunt.”
My eyes fly open. You don’t…you just don’t use that word!
All of mine lodge in my throat. This is where I'm supposed to be yelling back. I'm supposed to be telling them off. Telling them to F-off, but you just don't do that either. Not if you want to be a good person. You always turn the other cheek. You always forgive and understand that they just have hard lives at home.
They're just miserable, so they have to make everybody else around them miserable in order to feel better. Just be the better person.
That's what my parents always say. What they say in church.
Doesn't matter. Even if I wanted to tell somebody off--I don't! But every word is crammed inside my throat by a steel trapdoor so I just put my eyes on the floor and get rid of the gross hate-bomb.
On my way back to get my books, some of the guys thrust their pelvises and make lewd grunts. After I open my locker, somebody hip-checks me and I hit the sharp edge of the door. Wincing, I catch myself and push it all the way open. From behind, somebody else grabs the back of my head and gives a hard shove. I fly face-first into the locker frame, smashing my forehead-shoulder-knee.
Over the receding laughter and high-fives, I fling my groaning self upright, grab my books, and slam the door so nobody can push me all the way inside and lock it. This has become the latest in hazing this year, along with swirlies, both copied from what the senior high bullies did to to us when we were new seventh-graders.
Now my classmates do these things to each other, usually to the smaller boys, but I wouldn’t put it past anyone to do them to me. I’m rather small myself. Farmgirl already threatens to drown me in the toilet whenever I so much as look at her wrong. I wonder how many will join her now.
It goes on like this for the rest of the day.
When I finally make it inside the safety of my house, it truly is shades of fifth grade all over again. I’m not hungry. Not talkative. I burst into tears at the drop of a hat. But this time, when Mom asks what’s wrong, I can’t even tell her the truth of why they’re doing this to me.
I mean, I am a slut. Aren't I? I let Jake put his hands on me in that most intimate way on the second day I met him, and it hasn’t even been two months since I made out with another boy on my couch.
I can’t help wondering if I deserve everything they’re doing to me.
The priests would say I deserve way worse, because I have no desire to swear I’ll never do it again. I want to. And on Friday when Jakes comes out to see me, I know I will.
TUESDAY
I reach into my locker and pull out my books for English. A fist descends, slamming both my hardback and notebook onto the floor. Papers go flying. My book skitters across the hall. As I scramble to pick it up, feet play soccer with it and stomp all over my papers, dirtying my homework, tearing my assignments. And all the while, the laughter and the comments boom overhead.
“Fetch, Dog! Fetch!”
“Whuff-whuff!”
“Yeah, on your knees, super-slut!”
"Wow, look at the way she sticks her butt in the air as she chases it!"
“Aw, too slow! Come on, fetch! Whuff!”
Eventually, I manage to collect my belongings and stalk back to my locker. There's a whole boulder in my throat today. I can barely breathe around it. I certainly can't fire off a comeback that would get them off my back. I scramble for something. Anything. Words collide and crumble in my mind. It's nothing but rubble, dust, and a big, empty blackboard refusing to produce words.
Anything I say would only make it worse anyway. If I yell back, they’ll call me Psycho and push harder. If I push back, they’ll punch, and if even one person punches, we’re all getting detention. Maybe even suspension, if the fight is bad enough.
No Tolerance.
“We don’t care who started it. We don’t care why. We do not want to hear it.”
If that happens, I’ll have to deal with my dad. It’s not worth it. Besides, I don't WANNA have to shove or punch them. That's the last thing I've ever wanted to do to anyone. Just the thought of it...
Every time I imagine it, every time my body flinches and I almost push back, I start shaking and feel sick to my stomach.
It's like staring down the highest hill of the rollercoaster as it slowly clicks up to the crest and hovers--I don't wanna! I don't wanna! I don't wanna!--because there's no fun whoosh at the bottom. Only a splat and a crash.
You can't take back hitting someone. Not with your hand. Not with something harder than your fist. Not with your words, and I don't know how they can sleep at night. I even hate swatting flies in my house or hearing the bug zapper go off. To hurt someone on purpose...
That would be a thousand times worse than the way they hurt me.
This will all die down. If I stop reacting, it’ll lose its fun for them. It always does. If I’m just a great block of ice and stare straight through them like they don’t exist, they’ll get bored and move onto some other mean game.
I feel nothing.
I see nothing.
I hear nothing.
You are not here and neither am I.
I only allow myself to come out of the deep freeze at lunchtime when Mari and I dance in the out-of-the-way lobby behind the gym, when I bawl into my pillow after school, and when I hear Jake’s voice on the phone.
--
WEDNESDAY
Notes. Shoving. Tripping. Jeering.
My body slams into the locker again and my books go flying--into the locker at least. But that still means I have to bend down and pick them up. I turn sideways, keeping The Pack in my periphery as I scramble for my books. They stand back there in a clump, arms crossed, eyes narrowed, teeth bared in snarling grins. I don’t see faces anymore; I don’t register names. They are a scornful sea, sloshing through the murk of this windowless hallway. Occasionally surging. Forever spewing bile. They are not mere smart-asses. Only cruelty will do.
“Whatcha lookin’ at, super-slut?”
“Got a problem?”
“No, man, I think she likes you. She wants you.”
“She wants everybody.”
“Ew. I wouldn’t touch that diseased hole with a ten-foot pole!”
More crotch-bumps. More snarling laughter.
I slam my locker door shut. That sound speaks my mind better than I ever could.
--
THURSDAY
My books are on the floor again. They had to pry today. Manhandle me more than usual. At least I’ve managed to stomp on them so I can snatch them up before the soccer game starts. My teeth remain clamped behind my lips. Purposely. Happily. I have nothing to say to any of them anymore. I push out breath after methodical breath so I don’t whirl around and hockey-check the next asshole who puts their hands on me into the lockers. The thought doesn't make me sick today. It makes me salivate.
My heart races. Whoa! What is that?
Without incident, I get my English books stowed on the top shelf and pry out my Science book. I can feel them all behind me, to every side.
No Tolerance.
No Tolerance.
No Tolerance.
Don’t react and they’ll go away.
I reach in for a pen, but somebody slams the door shut, clipping my hand. With a loud cry, I pull my stinging fingers into my chest. The tears spring to my eyes and I scrunch my lids shut. Two streams slip down my cheeks, burning.
“Aw, poor baby! You gonna cry now?”
Shane gets right into my ear with a deafening, “Waaaah!”
Another image hits me--cracking my palm across his nose. I want to break it.
I barrel away before I make it real, but Bobby lunges into my path, sucking loudly on his thumb. I veer again to find Stacy and Carin leaning against their lockers with their arms crossed, looking oh-so vindicated with the rest of the Court all around.
And then she sneers it, my Nemesis of the Week. “Cry baby! Why don’t you run home to Mommy!”
The hallway goes silent.
Queenie Kris tosses her blonde, Madonna-cut hair in slow motion. The glint off her teeth blinds me and I wince away, shutting my eyes until the flash ebbs. All the voices are low and muffled like when I’m underwater. Bass-level devil-laughs. Diabolical and too slow. They match the red eyes in every face around me. I wish I was underwater now. Sitting down on the bottom of the pool.
You’re going to wish that, too, in about half a second.
See, my mommy doesn’t want to hear it. She and my daddy-kins already went through this with me in fifth grade, and they are just done with my tears. Done with all this “childish drama.” They're done with just about everything to do with me. They've always refused to intervene and now they refuse to so much as listen to my complaining about it. “Well, I don’t know what to tell you anymore. You’re just going to have to work it out yourself.”
Oh…Oh, I’ll work it out, all right. You watch me work it out.
"You never, ever, EVER punch back, no matter what,” right?
Okay.
I won’t punch them.
I drop my books and crumpled papers. Before they can thud on the floor, I'm across that hallway with a rocket-launcher bellow. My shoulder hits my Nemesis in the gut. She blasts against the lockers and I grab her by that crusty, teased, Aqua Net hair to bash the back of her head against a locker door. I fling her onto the ground, still holding on, still roaring out my rage. My knee lands on top of her, then my ass. Pinning her down, I keep screaming and screaming and bashing the back of her skull into the concrete until something gives.
I glare up at the rest of them. “You want some of this? DO YOU!”
Their jaws are open wide. So are their eyes. For once, they have nothing to say.
“Who’s fucking next!”
They all back away and keep their vile motor-mouths shut.
I pick up my books and papers. Stand up. I rabid-snarl in dark glee at the equally dark puddle of blood oozing from the half-cocked head on the ground. Those pretty blue eyes are glazed and fixed on the ceiling. Whirling around, I stare down every one of them until their gazes lower and their heads duck like a pack of kicked mutts.
Queen Kris’s curled hair finally quits tossing. It settles around her perfect face. Her perfect smile turns into a perfect sneer. “What a loser,” she says, crossing one ankle over the other.
Beside her, my Nemesis crosses her arms and smirks in triumph. So does Willow. So does Becky. So do they all.
I finally get my eyes to blink.
What was it that just flashed through my mind?
What WAS that?!?!
Clutching my books to my chest, I duck my head and plow through the crowd.
I’m not only a loser. I’m not just a slut. I’m horrifyingly evil for imagining such things. And for how vindicating it felt to imagine it. I’m a little light-headed. More than a little queasy.
Keeping my chin low, I focus hard on the ground so I can stop seeing those sinister images, stop seeing it in their faces. Hearing it in their voices. If I can’t get through this crowd, I will utterly lose it. I really will launch myself at the next person who puts their hands on me, and if I do that, I am terrified that I will never fucking stop until there's too much blood--mine or theirs. So I keep my eyes down and bulldoze through them toward the staircase.
They let me go.
Maybe they are smart Asses after all.
--
Thank goodness for my split-second ability to extrapolate possible consequences from my potential actions. Thank goodness for my coping mechanisms’ hyper-vigilant propensity for doing it All. The. Time. "Should I act? Stay very still? Smile? Keep a completely neutral face? Meet the eyes? Don't? Move? Flee? Fawn? Fight? Analyzing...analyzing...analyzing data of likely outcomes..."
Thank goodness this self-defense skill slammed such gruesome images into my brain, allowing me to understand how easily I could harm someone--or worse. I had known that for a long time. Wasn’t that why I had been terrified of the locker room after we switched to a male swimming teacher in third grade, leaving that obstacle course of sharp, metal protrusions, violent girls, and concrete with no adult supervision?
This realization of just how quickly I could have charged, chin down, across a line I could have never come back from… I was bigger than my Nemesis. Stronger. Faster. I was considerably more athletic. Plus, that level of rage over that many years? If her superior experience with physical confrontation—or pure luck—didn’t neutralize me, nothing might have halted my bull-rush across that fraction of a hallway. Nobody stood between us in that moment.
But I didn’t like the potential worse case scenario outcomes. Not one bit.
So I got myself a ten-lock mechanism for that dungeon cell where I’d imprisoned the Beastly creature I had just glimpsed inside me. She was ferocious. Ruthless. No way I was letting that thing upstairs anywhere near the control room. For years, I kept her down there, and I kept myself on a very short leash with a choke-chain and a muzzle.
Until one day, I started writing about a gladiatrix. Then I started learning how to fight like one. Eventually, I became a true martial artist. Eventually, I learned how to stand up for myself.
But don’t think for a moment that I’m writing some inspiring super-shero story. Remember that whole Overcomer Poster Girl y’all once thought I was? Remember that old inspiring blog about Mounting the Insurmountable Summit of Dain Bramage & Injury everybody loved so much?
Yeah, that was the censored, glitter-washed version because while I wrote it, I was held in financial shackles and a professional choke-chain by…certain situations we’ll be getting to.
There is a ton of inspiration in my story, make no mistake. But there's no Hollywood ending. I keep warning you. I'm a devotee of the Underworld, and you have to eat a lot of broccoli and peas to get the yummy desert. It's the veg that provides genuine nutrients to build a strong body, after all, not the vanilla nice cream with rainbow sprinkles on top.
A lot of people say I’m just spewing the pathetic Legend of a Loser, or at my most glorious, the origin tale of a villain. Rawr. Heck, maybe I'm just whining.
Isn't that the word you like most?
Fun fact: When a female opens up her mouth to open up a can the way Hannah Baker does when she's finally had enough, she gets an additional branding of “crazy…insane...psycho.” I’d seen it with the girls who stood up for themselves.
Eventually I became one.
I get called “crazy” a lot, for a lot of different reasons, and heck, I dunno. Maybe I am. Would I know it if I was?
Do you?
Because social cannibalism, genocide masked as "patriotism" and "peace-keeping," slavery masked as "the natural order" or at best "good service" to the Matrix, consumerist gluttony that satiates nothing, working one’s self to death by 40 for that overpriced, oversized, overcompensating SUV, stress-buying because you just committed the travesty of wearing polka-dots when everyone knows it’s polka-squares this season, having children because you’re “supposed to” and foisting the love-starved-mini-assholes you made off on everyone else until they “grow up” to exacerbate the mommy & daddy issues they inherited by ignoring or abusing their own kids…?
That all looks like insanity to me, but what the fuck do I know?
These days I actually get called “crazy” more often than “slut” but I still get that one, too. Doesn’t matter if I’m celibate, faithfully married, or dating around. I mean, have you seen the way I shake my ass? Have you ever read my steamy, kinky fiction? You've read some of my steamy, slutty memoirs.
Ooooh, and now I’m unshackled--excuse me, unmarried so…you know, I must be a threat to every penis owned by another female, and I must wanna spread for anybody who winks. Or maybe I’m one of those “evil lesbo-femi-nazis” who “just doesn’t have the guts to come out of the closet.” Or, oh! A “dominatrix who doesn’t have the guts to grab a whip.” Or just a “fuckin’ crazy bitch.”
Isn’t that what you told everyone I am? And didn't you provide all those tasty, seedy “details” to back it up?
(I am not a dominatrix, FYI, and I prefer a crop when I switch, thanks. Although I have the occasional heteroflexxigrrl leanings, I actually have a pretty renowned thing for bisexual guys, so…you might wanna fact-check before you let your hole flap. I mean, shit, your locker room blathering about me could be sooooo much more colorful if you just stuck with the truth.)
Bullshit has always been easy to believe about me whether the rumors were true or not. People seem to get off on believing other people are sexually depraved.
And/or insane.
(Probably because we do all the shit they wish they had the guts to do, and we refuse to do the shit they sell their souls for.)
The labels used to bother me. Occasionally they still do. Mostly I put my hair in two high pigtails and drink tea with my pinky finger raised while smiling a diabolically innocent smile and tonguing my canines.
I also X-ed out all but the D of my PUDDIN necklace with black electrical tape way before Birds of Prey, and you can fantasize it’s 'cause I’m all about the D. Any D. Ooooh, maybe even your D.
The people who love me call me Harley.
So do some of the people who hate me.
***
THE STOP BULLYING SITE WITH MANY RESOURCES
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CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE:
--UP NEXT: We're going to top off with WHAT HAPPENED ON FRIDAY, and then let's have us a discussion about the difference between finally rising up and going off on abusers...versus truly learning the Arts of Self-Defense, shall we? Because there's a big difference.
--OR: Those photos are screenshots of my Harley Quinn dance to that exact song, I'm Gonna Show You Crazy. You can check out the Work In Progress HERE.
--OR if you're just joining us and are wondering how many episodes you've missed about this childhood war, it starts HERE.
--THE NAVIGATION TABLE OF CONTENTS
MORE LINKS, IN CASE YOU DON'T KNOW THE BACKSTORY REFERENCES:
1) What happened between us all in 5th Grade.
2) If you find yourself exasperated with my visceral reactions to violence, you may not know the term HSP.
3) Why that "run home to Mommy" comment almost unhinged me.