A boy’s experience from the #MeTooMovement
A boy’s experience from the #MeTooMovement
How a childhood friend taught me about sexual harassment, from a male’s point of view
Writer’s note: This post was originally published on Medium’s “We Need to Talk” on February 10, 2020.
“Can I see your penis?”
When a teenage friend asked this question to a cute boy in our neighborhood, my eyes bugged out and I cackled. Danielle was a wild girl. She was the kind of girl who loved to get attention from boys our age with her T&A*. She once put a bunch of stuffed animals in her shirt to see if any guys would notice. They didn’t. That was just how heavy-chested she was. My best friend and I thought she was comical, and there was never a dull moment when she was around boys our age (around 13 or 14).
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But this particular question and the response to it taught me a valuable lesson about how some girls (and grown women) can stereotype boys. When she asked him this question, we were all standing near his porch, people-watching as Metra train riders got off at their stops. He’d crack a joke about where they were going or some random comment about their apparel. And we’d move on to looking for the next train. But for whatever reason that day, Danielle was just in a horny mood. And she was adamant about seeing this guy’s member.
Although I was not sexually active in high school, pretty much all of my friends (female and male) were. Minus one childhood crush who I turned into Lucy van Pelt over, I was way too chill to come on this strong. It just wasn’t in my nature to be this forward. My idea of a perfect Schroeder (at that age) was someone I could kiss, not what she was asking to see. Still though, it just didn’t occur to me that something was wrong with her question.