Get Your Kink Out Of My Pregnancy

I already knew that bodies assigned female at birth (AFAB) were objectified by all genders. I knew, because I have one, and I’ve been sexualised and judged by others (that I’m aware of) since I was about eight years old.

I first understood that my body wasn’t just a body, but a thing to be ashamed of, a thing to cover up, a thing that meant something to others that it didn’t mean to me, when I was getting changed at a public swimming pool when I was a child. My dad had taken me swimming, and he was getting changed in the men’s changing room. I don’t remember, but I presume, that he told me to get changed next to the pool rather than in the women’s changing room, as he thought it was safer - a stranger isn’t likely to snatch me from the very public side of the pool, and I suspect there was no provision for family changing on the men’s side. And I can only assume that, because I was a very young child, he didn’t think anyone would make a big deal of me getting changed there. Perhaps my body had started to show signs of puberty - a slightly less than flat chest maybe. Perhaps it was my fat that caused offence - I was never a lean child, and maybe my fat had started to form what would later be curves, I don’t know. I do know, that what happened next formed a core memory that has been a root of shame and embarrassment for the better part of 30 years. Some teenagers started laughing, loudly. Suddenly, lots of people were looking at me, and then a staff member was charging towards me with a panicked and stern look on their face. They grabbed my arm and pulled me up saying ‘you can’t get changed here’… After that the memory ends. No memory of before or afterwards - a pretty classic sign of trauma.

Upgrade to paid to read the rest.