Not sure if this is the right place, but it seems to fit here best. Last night, I was talking to my friend about the high school we used to go to (the better part of a decade ago). She made an offhand comment about how most of her memories of school were off-limits to people other than her therapist, and that comment dredged something up. When I came out, there was one guy in particular who reacted to it. He'd been an on-off annoyance for years, we were in classes together and he'd been a dick to me the whole time, and in particular made up a little song about how I was totally closeted. So it's weird that his reaction to me publicly acknowledging "I'm gay, I like boys" was "no you don't, I don't believe it". And he decided to prove I was straight, by getting in my personal space and touching me on the shoulder and in other places (not The Sex Places) and brushing against me, and if I protested then he'd say "well see, if you were gay you'd like that, so you're straight". This happened a bunch of times. I told my friend about this as a story with the intended tone of "this guy did this, what an asshole, haha" and she got upset. And with the context that it was something to be upset about, I started to get upset. Because in fact what had happened was homophobic sexual harassment, and that was really obvious, and I hadn't really had a clue. I'd known it was uncomfortable and unpleasant and annoying but I'd never really pieced together that this was something I could legitimately make a serious complaint about. I'd just shunted it to the back of my head, and whenever anyone asked if I'd had trouble at school because I was gay I'd say "no, not once" because I honestly couldn't think of anything, despite a dude feeling me up on multiple occasions specifically because I was openly gay. I'm not actively upset about it right now like I was last night, but it's been stewing in the back of my head since we talked, and I'm feeling weird (which is probably the right thing to be feeling). I talked to my mum about it, but her response was effectively "well that's not pleasant but what's the point in being upset about it when it happened all those years ago? it doesn't accomplish anything", which seems to me like it misses the point. I am not finding him on Facebook and sending him a message reminding him that he did that and demanding he make amends, but that is a thing that has gone through my mind and my Vengeance Lobes are telling me this would be a good thing to do - luckily they don't have decision-making power. Part of me is upset at myself because I knew that I didn't do anything about it, and I keep having fantasies in my head where I actually say something to someone and get it sorted out. This also isn't rational, I guess, but I feel like I was in a dark room, wishing vaguely that a light would turn on, and the walls were covered in light switches. The solution was obvious, if I knew about it. And then there's another part of me saying "well compared to what some people have been through this is nothing, you're making a big deal out of a few inappropriate touches", but I recognise this voice as being the one saying "there's starving children in Africa, y'know", and I am accepting that the scale of other people's problems doesn't discredit mine. There's no gold medal for Repressed Experiences, everyone gets to share the prize. So that's me. TL;DR, dude felt me up repeatedly to "prove" I wasn't gay, and I'm only just realising how messed up that was.
...That's such an absurd way to 'prove' you were straight I have to wonder if he was not exactly straight himself and using it as an excuse. Like, that would not make what he did any more acceptable, I'm just trying to figure out the reasoning but it's such a thing without reasoning, you know?
It does miss the point, especially since one of the points is that you're upset about it now, which I think is perfectly reasonable because it sucks to realize a shitty experience you had was something that you might have been able to stop or fight back against if you'd only have the vocab or frame of reference that would have given you an idea of what you were fighting back against. Now you're in the present and there's no way to not have had that shitty experience. I think fantasizing what past-you would have done if he'd known is a good and healthy thing, so long as it doesn't come with blaming him for not originally knowing. Be kind to your past self. He didn't know what you know now - he wasn't just in a dark room, his eyes were closed and he didn't even know that they were. Also, because it usually needs saying - past-you isn't to blame for the harassment even a little. Not knowing why something's wrong, exactly, or what to do about it doesn't make you at fault in any way.
Oh geez, that's fucked up. I'm sorry that happened to you. I hate the argument that people give that 'people have it worse in [insert place here]', because it's such a cheap way to silence others when they're distressed. It's true, other people may have it objectively worse if looked at by an impassive alien, but most of human experience is subjective-- you've never lived in anyone else's life, and so the only baseline with which you have to compare things to is your own experiences. If something was messed up to you, that's all that matters, and anyone saying otherwise is just being downright disrespectful.
Thank you to everyone who posted. I just wanted to post a followup - it's been like three weeks now, and I am much less fucked up about it. It's a thing that happened, I can acknowledge that without feeling messed up and dirty about it. And maybe one day I'll be able to stop something like this happening again, and draw up a nice neat narrative closure. Just. Thank you, guys, I think what I needed most was for other people to give a shit. :)
