My Body(11)

Suddenly, out of nowhere, I felt the coolness and foreignness of a stranger’s hands cupping my bare breasts from behind. I instinctively moved away, looking back at Robin Thicke. He smiled a goofy grin and stumbled backward, his eyes concealed behind his sunglasses. My head turned to the darkness beyond the set. Diane’s voice cracked as she yelled out to me, “Are you okay?”

I nodded, and I may have even smiled, embarrassed and desperate to minimize the situation. I tried to shake off the shock. I walked away from the set and the warm lights, crossing my arms over my bare chest. I felt naked for the first time that day. The music stopped. I stood by the monitor for a moment and glanced around at my new friends. No one, not one of us, said anything.

Diane finally spoke. “Okay, well, no touching.” She addressed no one in particular, her megaphone now hanging loosely at her hip. I pushed my chin forward and shrugged, avoiding eye contact, feeling the heat of humiliation pump through my body.

I didn’t react—not really, not like I should have. Neither did any of the other women. Despite how many of us were there and how safe I’d felt in their presence, we were in no position to hold Robin Thicke accountable on the set of his music video. We were working for him, after all. We paused awkwardly, and then we continued shooting.

When journalists asked me about the video over the years, I didn’t allow myself to think of Robin Thicke’s hands on my breasts, or of the embarrassment I’d felt standing naked in front of Diane. I was defensive—protective of the environment she had tried to create on set and of the other young women who seemed like they could’ve been my friends. I was also ashamed—of the fun that, despite myself, I’d had dancing around naked. How powerful I felt, how in control. I wondered: What if I had yelled in Robin Thicke’s face and made a scene? Stopped the shoot? Maybe my big break never would’ve happened.

In my early twenties, it had never occurred to me that the women who gained their power from beauty were indebted to the men whose desire granted them that power in the first place. Those men were the ones in control, not the women the world fawned over. Facing the reality of the dynamics at play would have meant admitting how limited my power really was—how limited any woman’s power is when she survives and even succeeds in the world as a thing to be looked at.

With that one gesture, Robin Thicke had reminded everyone on set that we women weren’t actually in charge. I didn’t have any real power as the naked girl dancing around in his music video. I was nothing more than the hired mannequin.





My Son, Sun





I WAS FOURTEEN the first time Owen forced himself on me. We were lying on the crusty carpet of his mother’s condominium. It was early morning, and I was so exhausted that I could barely keep my eyes open. I wanted water, but there was none. I remember the way his skinny jeans tightened over his erection, and I remember the dirty shoelace he used as a belt. I’d told my parents I was sleeping over at a friend’s house so I could stay out all night and go to house parties. Owen, who was sixteen, had said that’s what I should do. He’d positioned himself as my guide to a new school and a new world. I believed he was my way into meeting new people. It was only later that I realized he didn’t have many friends himself. My status as a hot freshman girl was what got him the invite to those house parties in the first place.

I remember his freckled skin and pale stomach and how his nose started bleeding when he was on top of me. “It’s the Accutane,” he said, blood dripping onto my collarbone. His blood was so red it looked fake, as if it came from a bottle of ketchup. The texture was as thick as syrup. He wasn’t embarrassed. I remember the way that red looked against his bright blue eyes. I remember his long blond eyelashes as they blinked, elegant and in slow motion as he held his hands to his nose.

When Owen got my number and texted me to hang out over the weekend initially, I’d lied to him.

“My mom’s family is in town, so I’ll be spending time with them. Sorry!” I reread the text silently before I hit send. A perfectly reasonable excuse, I thought, closing the screen and hoping he’d go away.

“Ha ha,” he responded immediately. “Who hangs out with their family all weekend? We can go out after ur done with them. There will b a cool party on Saturday we can go to. I’ll drive.” I was embarrassed. How could I be such a child as to think that hanging out with family was a valid excuse to miss parties? I was in high school now; I needed to act like it. Besides, I didn’t want to be with my parents on the weekends anyway.

“Okay,” I wrote back. I didn’t know how to say no.

I never felt safe with Owen and always wanted to go home when I was with him. But I suppose home didn’t feel right either. This, he, seemed like the real world. This was high school, this was being an adult: scary and out of control just the way everyone said it would be. I wanted to rise to the occasion, prove I was ready to handle it.

One night, Owen drove to an empty parking lot and started to kiss me. I thought I had to kiss him back since he’d taken me to a few parties, so I let him fumble in my pants with his hand. I wish someone had explained to me that I owed him nothing. I wish someone had instructed me not to get into his red truck at all. I wish that when the cops pulled up, I’d told them that a part of me was relieved to see them. I wish they hadn’t said I was on the wrong path, that I could end up doing drugs, that I was bad, and had instead said, “We’re worried about you; you’re still a kid. Let us take you home; this isn’t your fault.”