A No-Good Actress in a Porn Film

 I have been watching 'Off Campus', and in the show, Hannah (Wellsey) was raped. She carries the story and the trauma as a part of herself. And every time I see it being mentioned in the show or have it come up, there is a part of me that stills to a stop—breathing, listening, on the lookout for any movement out of order. I do not know why. I haven’t ever been sexually assaulted. Not really, atleast. I don’t think I would call it that. It would be a disservice to the ones who have gone through worse things. I even hate myself as I say this because writing this, saying this, thinking it is a disservice in itself. A huge part of me thinks it is still me trying to find a way to justify it, to chalk it up to the “not my fault” column on my board, so that I can look back and still be your perfect daughter, friend, girlfriend, human. It doesn’t help that I don’t remember a lot of it. It feels like I lived through someone else’s experience, like something that was not real. I remember things, but I don’t really remember them happening to me. I remember moments of liking it (?), and I think that is one for me to say that it was consensual (but also, I hated it and doesn’t that have to count for something? That it felt not okay after, for whatever reason, that I didn’t really like it).

A no-good actress in a (subpar) porn film

“Really” is a really complicated word. It wasn’t “really” sexual assault. I didn’t “really” like it though. Oh “really” and “really,” which one of you is bigger? Oh really, oh really, which one of you do I turn an ear to, which one of you do I listen to? It ended and I couldn’t fall asleep again. I remember staring at the wall and that little bedside table, one of the only things that my blind eyes could see without really blurring, and I remember getting out of bed an hour later to wash myself from head to toe. Was I washing the sin out? Was I washing away the truth and the lies? Was I washing away the touch that I really did not like? I don’t remember what I felt, why I washed myself from head to toe, but I remember feeling clean but I don’t know what clean here I refer to.  I remember being alone and feeling alone and judged inside my head and outside. I remember not really understanding but crying at absolutely odd times. I remember stumbling to my perpetrator and my co-victim because I think it was the closest I had felt to not lonely and comforted in a long time and the sinner who had sinned couldn’t really judge me for my crime. But I also remember coming back to my room and peeling all my clothes off. I remember hating them and hating myself and hating how I dance and those two particular songs. I know it wasn’t just about the morality, but then I really also can’t be really sure. Oh really, oh really, why do you have to make it such a complicated lot? I close my eyes to maybe remind myself of what I might have felt back then, so that I can work through it if needed or turn my back to this yet another random rant, but I close my eyes, and I cannot feel any emotion. I’m playing a movie in my head—it is a porn film and the actress is no good, she hesitates too much and she says too many “no’s” and wants to only sleep in with someone’s arms around her. I can hear myself howling and crying as I write this, maybe I have struck a nerve but I don’t really, really know. If you ask me, I don’t think I’ve ever really been consenting or in control, but I think this was worse, and I don’t know how to prove it and how to stop myself from questioning her. I remember not remembering and I remember others proclaiming it my fault. I think I am biased, but I’ve never ever been biased towards myself before. So what changes now? Why do I think I’m somehow being less cruel? Am I just my mother’s voice telling me to lie naked as men line up to devour my flesh from its bones? She blurred my lines of desire and consent—am I just being her, blurring them for her now that I don’t let her know? Am I her voice? Is the “really” also hers? I really want to know, but then I really don’t know how. Oh really, oh really, why are you so complicated? Am I really my mother now? Am I really just her daughter? Am I a whore? Am I a slut? Am I all she has talked of? Was I asking for it? Did I nurture it into me? Is it my nature to deserve this? Am I really just my mother now?