My Most Lonesome Year
Or, what I learned from my hoe phase
I’ve always felt uncomfortable in my body. Some days I can’t even look at myself in the mirror—every time I do, my eyes go straight for my legs, thick thighs extending to my weak ankles, my high arches making my feet look alien. I hate the feeling of fabric on my lower body, opting for my most billowy jeans and chastising myself when I can feel the waistband a little too much.
I first watched porn when I was 11. It was by accident. In 2006, Youtube had a tab on the top of the page showing what was being watched. I saw an indecent thumbnail and clicked. And the puzzle piece snapped into place—so this was sex, the mysterious act my friend Maggie had whispered about during a sleepover. I felt that I was witnessing something dangerous, an act I was too young for, yet unable to stop myself from playing the video over and over until Youtube took it down. I knew immediately this was a top secret affair—girls weren’t meant to look at this kind of thing. What would that mean about me? The fact that I enjoyed it frightened me also, a deviant act tinged with the shame of the forbidden. I was unable to stop myself from coming back and back again—but I knew it was a secret I would have to take to the grave.
I got my period when I was 11. My older cousin was living with us at the time to study at a community college near my house. I saw the first strains of blood in my underwear and knew immediately what had happened. I stole her pads for the rest of the year. Only after she went back to Taiwan and her supply ran out, did I admit to my mother that I had begun menstruating. She asked me while we were going to the movies. “Do you have your period yet?” she asked nonchalantly, as if only just remembering that girls my age were supposed to have started puberty. At the time, she would stand in front of me while I brushed my teeth and point out all the ways I did it wrong. I didn’t want her to observe me any further. Admitting I had gotten my period felt like I was admitting to a fault, growing up too quickly with no control over my own body. The shame made my chest tighten. I didn’t want to let her know my body was changing. “Yeah,” I replied, looking straight ahead.
The same year I saw a family friend who hadn’t seen me in a while. “Small pig!” she exclaimed in Chinese as a greeting. The surprise on her face was so apparent. “Small pig?” I repeated to myself for the rest of the day. “What did she mean by that?” I asked my stepdad. I could see how uncomfortable he was. “Well,” he began. “It’s possible that you have gained a little weight.”
I turned to my mom. “Is that true?” I demanded from her. Previous to that, weight was never a thought in my mind, the world a cornucopia for my enjoyment. It was like I opened a portal afterwards, my body open season. I had invited her in unbeknownst to me, no meal off limits if eaten in front of my mother. “Not too much,” she would say, taking the food from my plate.
A secret fear planted its seed in my mind, growing larger as I got older—a fear that my body wasn’t like everyone else’s, that actually it was gross and wrong, constantly waiting for someone to correct me. I had taken to doing mundane things in secret, brushing my teeth, snacking, dressing. Junior year of high school, I had a boyfriend for the first time. After a few months, it became clear that sex, sooner or later, had to be had. I googled obsessively for days what pubic hair would be most normal. I was afraid that when I pulled my pants down my boyfriend would be repulsed by how I looked and how I smelled, that somehow his desire would be wilted on account of me, that this was the one vagina that wouldn’t have men panting, that he would see through me and all the ways I differed from everyone else and find it disgusting.