There are many things in my life I wish my young eyes had never seen.
I wish I had never witnessed a man beheaded online.
I wish I had never witnessed my dad deteriorate from cancer.
And I wish I had never seen a group of young men take turns having sex with one girl.
It was the summer of ‘92. I lived in the community of Auburn Park on the southwest side of Chicago with my grandparents. It was my Junior year in High School and I decided to travel to the neighboring suburb of Ford City to the Ford City Mall to apply for a summer job.
While I lived in a sneakers and ball cap kinda neighborhood, I was a Doc Martins and derby kinda kid. The Ford City mall was very multicultural and the fashion reflected that diversity. It was the one place I could shop and feel comfortable in my own skin nearby.
Ford City also had another appeal to me - a crush in the basement.
The basement area of the mall was where all the cool kids hung out at the indie shops and boutiques; skaters, Graffiti artist, B-Boys, Goths, and Hippie kids all together. I fell somewhere in the middle.
That’s where I met him.
I was a closeted kid and he was an employee in one of the stores. He was about 18 years old and was always dressed to the nines in his fitted slacks and well tailored shirts and ties. I had the biggest crush on him and so did all the girls who came into his store. So I had the extra added motivation of hopefully working at the Ford City Mall - him.
We had mutual mall friends and he eventually befriended me. I would stop by his job often to hang out with him. I knew - or as much as I thought I knew at that age - that he probably wasn’t like me. He would never likely reciprocate my silent attraction because I assumed he was straight and I feared not to test that assumption. I was OK with that.
So I pretended I was the same simply to be near him. The story of my young life.
We talked about girls; the girls we liked; the ones we didn’t like; the girls with the big butts and big boobs that walked by. He was quite the charmer and I watched him woo the female shoppers and leave with a phone number or two only to listen to the follow up stories of his sexual conquests a week later.
This was normal. I grew up a part of the “Bro-code.” I had to be accepted in order to survive. So I learned to pretend.
Being gay in my community wasn’t an option. It was never a consideration. If you were male you were automatically assumed straight and were given the rules of manhood at birth. There is an insidious misogyny that lies beneath the Bro-code that is passed down generation to generation, from father to son, uncle to nephew, brother to brother, and even mother to son.
- You were asked how many girls you were dating.
- The conquest of vagina reigned supreme. Losing your virginity was paramount.
- Your sexual conquests were to be celebrated, shared, and exploited amongst the brethren like an Elk’s head.
- You were not-so-subtly taught that there were varying types of women with varying rules of engagement like catching a Pokemon.
The basic three types were…
I. The Good Girl - is the one you give your heart to, bring home to momma, and one day marry. She was typically a virgin and her virginity was the draw and biggest challenge of them all. She was going for the Gold. The Holy Grail.
However, loyalty was not something you owed her. In fact it was encouraged to seek other girls behind her back until you decided to settle down.
II. The Bad Girl - She was the finest and the most experienced. She owned her sexuality and wasn’t a virgin. She was a trophy girl. It was a crowning of your manhood if you could tame a Bad Girl. The things she could do and would do to you if you win her was a symbol of your manly abilities. You had to have the goods and the swag to nab and keep a bad girl. A Bad Girl was the perfect accessory to everything; your clothes, your car, and your cash.
You hoped to make her a Good Girl and then the Good Girl’s rules would apply - the cycle continues.
III. The Ho - These were the easy girls. They didn’t put up much of a fight sexually. They were down for whatever. Promiscuous. The low hanging fruit. They were the girls passed around for sport. “It ain’t no fun if the homey can’t have none.” They’d do anything for a Klondike Bar. Car Booties aka Chicken Heads.
You didn’t have to respect them because according to the Bro-code they didn’t seem to respect themselves. These were the girls you called up just to get your rocks off.
However, they were also viewed as some of the most dangerous because they were the ones waiting in prey to entrap you with a baby.
Yup, it was all their fault if they became pregnant and decided to keep the baby because we-the-men didn’t want to wear condoms. It was also solely their faults if you opened up the Crab House in your drawers or caught a leaky flaming penis.
Unfortunately, no one seemed to be concerned about HIV - because that was “for the gays.”
However, this Bro-code categorization wasn’t always sound and true and who you may have thought was one type of girl was actually another. One could easily switch parties. So in the end they all just fell under one general category - Bitches.
The term Bitches is like the terms Nigger and Fag. All seek to destroy the humanity of an individual and reduce them to a set of false and destructive stereotypes to allow one to excuse their irrational fear and to justify a false sense of superiority.
I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to the homophobia and misogyny I was socialized in. It engulfed me; in entertainment, at school, in my neighborhood, and in my household.
Misogyny was as common as white bread.
I’d would also be lying if I said that I didn’t silently or vocally support this culture while trying to fit in and hide my own sexuality.
I didn’t truly believe in the code but rarely did I do anything to challenge it. The burden of purity, the burden of respect, the burden of decency, the burden of promiscuity, and the burden of sexual expression were always placed on the women.
If you challenged that you were subject to... suspicion.
None of us men were ever held responsible for our desires, sexual expression, or our sexual actions - unless we were Queer. Then you’re going to hell.
We’ve always been given the excuse that, “It’s in a man’s nature.” While women’s natures are viewed as either Mother Mary or Mary Magdalene.
So on this fine day at the mall I decided to visit my crush. It was in the early afternoon and only a few shoppers walked about here and there.
We launched into the regular Bro conversation as usual.
“Wassup lil homie?”
“Nuthin’ just trying to get a job, make some cash. On that grind” I replied.
“I know, right?”
When suddenly we were abruptly interrupted by a guy who rushed into the store.
“Yo dude! You won’t believe what’s happening?!” He exclaimed.
“What?”
“Ol’ girl’s fuckin’ in the stock room.”
“What girl?”
“That bitch from…”
They went back and forth excitedly like they were sharing the good news that Santa was in town.
“Yo kid. She’s puttin’ out.” The boy said.
You could have sworn from the guy’s glee that someone was handing out free iPhone 7’s.
My friend’s eyes lit up with excitement and he decided to follow the White Rabbit like he was late for an important date.
He looked at me like, c’mon. Let’s go and see.
My stomach dropped. I wasn’t interested in the least. I was doing enough pretending just to be around him and now he wanted me to follow him and watch a strange girl have sex in the back of the mall’s stock room. This just seemed like an all time low for him. I couldn’t even see him as a guy that would be interested in that. He wore fitted slacks, well tailored shirts, and ties for God’s sake!
The boys took off and I froze in place. They turned back to me, looking at me as if I were to turn around I’d turn into a pillar of salt - pink gay salt.
I couldn’t blow the cover of the Bro-code and be seen as “suspicious.” So I went like Alice in Wonderland.
The boy speedily led us down the rabbit hole into a private corridor that led into an employees only area. There was a guy I had never seen before on the look out - the Cheshire Cat - ready to call the warning alarm in case security or another mall employee arrived. We then followed the boy down the hall and to a stock room where the double doors were ajar.
And there they were…
A group of young men, at least 4, of all ethnicities, waiting their turn to have sex with a girl who was spread eagle on her back on the dirty stock room floor. She couldn’t have been any more that 16 or 17 years old. I was shocked. I was disgusted.
I looked at my friend to garner some semblance of humanity and there was none there. He was void of all reason, concern, worry, or guilt, and was suddenly possessed by a raging lust like he had smoked the pipe with the Blue Caterpillar.
There was already one guy between her legs. His pants were pulled half way down to his knees and his butt was exposed as he took advantage of her. She looked up at me from the floor, maybe out of fear of getting caught - or maybe with the hope of being found. Our eyes met and I wished I could have turned away. She wasn’t smiling. She wasn’t grimacing. It didn’t appear that she was enjoying it much either, but she also didn’t seem frightened or in need of help.
She wasn’t crying, resisting, or screaming. There was no one holding her down by force. I didn’t know if this was consensual or coerced.
Did she ever say no? What happened before we arrived?
The other guys in the room were yelling for the one to hurry up so that they could get their turn before someone found them. That’s when my crush - him - the one I had been enamored with for the summer, commenced to unbuckling his belt and unlatched his slacks to get in line for the opportunity to take advantage of the situation.
Then the moment of shock wore off like Alice’s potion and I realized where I was and what I was actually witness too - or could be. I realized who this Mad Hatter was and he wasn’t the person I believed him to be. The last thing I wanted was to be a part of whatever the hell was going on in Wonderland.
There would be no “Off with my head.”
So I ran. I ran out of there as fast as my feet could touch pavement.
So many thoughts were racing through my mind as I ran.
The girl looked underage and the boys were older teens. Even if this was consensual sex, it would be statutory rape. Every guy in there would be convicted and imprisoned.
If she was of the age of consent, then no one was wearing a condom. What if someone had a disease? No one seemed concerned about HIV or any other STDs.
Was she being raped? I couldn’t tell.
How does someone actually act when being raped?
Do they always scream, “No!”
Do they sometimes lose their will and allow it?
Is non-resistance a sign of permission?
What If she was a willing participant, should I have cared?
Based on the Bro-code I shouldn’t have cared. She was supposed to be seen as just a ho, a trick, a skeezer, but that didn’t make it right.
I convinced myself in haste that she was a willing participant. I was only concerned with covering my own ass.
I couldn’t understand what she was possibly gaining by giving herself away to a group of strange boys - If that was in fact what she was actually doing.
I didn’t know for sure. I still don’t know. I’ll never know.
I didn’t report it because the code was never to trick. Never drop a dime on your brothers. Besides, she didn’t seem to show what I thought were the tell tale signs of rape. So I erred on the side of safety which was erring on the side of misogyny. I remained silent about the incident and I believed that even if I had shared it, no one would have shown any concern for the girl.
They would have likely thought what I was taught to believe. “She was just a ho.”
The fact that her humanity could be so easily discredited by me or anyone else was shameful. I am embarrassed by that. I regret it till this day.
I no longer remember the girl’s face and I never knew her name. I no longer remember the face of my crush and I no longer remember his name. I never saw him again.
Yet, their faces and names are the faces and names of many young men and women across the country; Young men who, innocently or willfully, succumb to acts of misogyny that are not-so-subtly taught, commonly and repeatedly excused, condoned, and supported in our society. Furthermore, young women who fall victim or prey by coercion, force, circumstance, or choice, and bear the brunt of the scarlet letter in the court of public opinion.
They are guilty until proven innocent and even then their record is never completely expunged.
Some young men are accused of or charged with crimes they may not have committed because they have put themselves in immature, vulnerable, and questionable positions - a record they too will never be able to expunge in the court of public opinion.
Some men escape punishment for the sexual crimes they commit with full purpose, malice, and intent, because of the excuses we make for the Bro-code and the faults we lay in the laps of women.
I am happy I ran that day. I am not happy that all I did was run.
As a community we have to find a way to raise our boys into better men and we have to be vigilant in protecting and defending our girls as they become women. We have to hold our boys and men responsible for their actions and mistakes or else we are raping their minds along with the bodies of our girls.
I cannot place blame in the situation that happened 24 years ago, as I could not discern the truth of the matter then. I can only now accept and own up to my part in contributing to the continuance of a pervasive belief that I was born into which fosters volatile and tragic transgressions at the expense of our girls and women everywhere.
For that I am deeply sorry.
I cannot be a man and a coward at the same time.
There are many things I wish my young eyes had never seen and that moment was one of them.