Those who are familiar with my content know that I’ve undergone several very drastic changes in my life. I bring up my former life in Orange County in almost every post, but I can’t overstate that spending so much time alienated within a space where you are always the token, while actively concealing that I was transgender to protect myself and my partner’s ego really does a number on you. When I came out of that and moved to LA, I really needed to let go of the stifled person I was in the OC…but I have a confession:

I miss it.

I don’t really miss the number of times I had uncomfortable, racist conversations or the times when people said transphobic things in front of me, and I allowed it for my own safety. I don’t miss going over to a guy’s house and seeing that his default channel is Fox News. I don’t miss the way in which conservative women checked themselves, and of course me and how it pushed me into a slightly more homogenized way of presenting myself. What I miss is the way in which all of these things took up so much room in my mind that I allowed myself not to acknowledge what had been done to me. I miss the mentality that put these things sharply in the past and deluded myself into believing I was unaffected by them. I don’t blame my ex; I think he was exactly who he was; and I think I wasn’t ready to be real with myself enough to be real with him about my past. Being raped and exploited was a harsh part of my past I did not want to draw attention to. It was the mark on my history that I felt made me worthless. When my ex found out I used to be a cam girl, he almost broke up with me. He didn’t want to date a whore. That sex negativity felt like truth, and concealing my past felt like self management. I had finally got my degree, I had a job and I had a man. Who cares about the past.

But the past, as I’ve learned, creates pathways. It creates habits and norms that shift you in a great way. I think the lie I told myself for so long was that I could somehow deal with men continuing to violate my body, but that somehow my body would not be truly impacted by it. Somehow the scars would be easy to cover with time. But they weren’t, no matter how opaquely I tried to conceal them.

I don’t usually open my eyes during sex.

I am used to two modes of my body being used for pleasure. Either I close my eyes, grin, and bear it, or I exhibit myself as though his eyes are a camera, with a rent payment on the other end. One of the first things I realized as I tried to explore myself in a sexually positively way was that I hadn’t ever really asked myself what turned me on. For most of the time I’ve been having sex, there are boundaries I obviously have around myself because of dysphoria, but I was used to that not being honored. I was used to men touching me where I didn’t want to be touched or pressuring me to perform things sexually that I physically cannot; then denigrating me for not embodying their fantasy. I always saw what I wanted as an after thought. Then BDSM taught me that I can say no, and that no is a complete sentence.

But frankly, I’ve stuck to that a little bit too much; and unfortunately, I’ve learned that most of the world doesn’t care about these little conversations we have in our community and I was reminded of that last year.

As I’ve mentioned a few times, I occasionally go to after-hours clubs, which means sometimes when I go out, I don’t get back home til much later; or earlier, rather. I called an Uber around 4am or so and he came to pick me up. I was wasted and I sat in the front seat of his car. Thinking of this night, it’s hard for me not to think of what I was wearing as I am so used to blaming my body for the things that happen to me. He complimented my low cut top and started driving me home. I was aware enough of my surrounding to see he was driving me the right way. I fawned, the way I always do and he took out his penis and told me to do something with it. I won’t continue the story but long story short, I did what I had to do to get home. And when I did, I immediately took a shower and then could not pick myself off the floor of my shower for hours.

It happened again. I thought it wouldn’t.

I thought that all of the work I’d done would somehow make it so that some of the experiences I’ve had in the past would never be repeated. When it happened to me again, I struggled to process it as something that happened to me. It was like I imagined it happening, but my body knew that was a lie. It was that old dissonance popping back into my brain. Between you and I, I’m so used to being assaulted that I don’t always register it unless it’s blatant, and even then, I usually blame my body.

One night while I was waiting for my car outside of the Rainbow in West Hollywood, I met Ron Jeremy. Ron was always at the Rainbow sitting at the front of the door, usually drunk (or at least fucked up on something) at the door. I’d seen him many times, and had, in my own way been a “fan”. Ron was the first representation of a porn star on TV that I can remember. I remember watching him on The Surreal Life and thinking “wow he’s more than just a porn star” and that impacting me as someone who was raised very conservative and christian. So when he said hello to me, I was genuinely happy to see him. When I leaned down to hug him, he grabbed my hand and placed it on his erect penis and held it there. He then asked if I wanted to see a magic trick; a very strange request when someone’s holding your hand on their penis. I said yes, and he pushed the side of his junk and his penis deflated in my hands. As he went to finger me, I told him that I was transgender and its then that he suddenly seemed more sober as he kept feeling around my genitalia, naming anatomy he thought I had because he didn’t believe me. My uber arrived and I quickly shared my experience on my private Facebook where only my local friends would ever see it. And I had several people reach out to me and essentially say some version of”

“Hey… you know that you were sexually assaulted right?”

And at first I didn’t really feel that way. I mean, yeah, he technically did, but I was there in my low-cut top. It’s a rocker bar, and I was used to being around older men who objectified me. He’s from a different time, he’s just an old fart, etc etc. Then I kept running into him and each time I did, he would assault me in some way. And each time, he never remembered meeting me. One night I hung out with a bunch of people and Ron after a night at the Rainbow. I was wearing a corset that put my boobs on my chin and he slipped his fingers into my top and pinched my nipples. It was very passive how he touches women and very automatic and he never asked if it was ok.

I have realized with age that I have long accepted things that were never ok. I’ve been likely assaulted more times that I can register and rape has happened to me since before I had a conception of my own sexual desire. That has changed me, and it was always unreasonable to pretend it hadn’t.

I reported my Uber driver to Uber and that was the first time I ever did anything official against a person who assaulted me. It was so hard for me not to sit with the thought of “why me?” and not feel like maybe he was seeing in me what the other people who’ve hurt me have seen in me. Its hard to explain but there’s a way in which all of these people have approached me that feels like they’re looking into my soul to see the thing they can harm and they all see the same thing, no matter how far I feel I’ve come. I don’t think he knew I was trans, but he certainly knew I was a black woman. And it’s hard for me to ignore that he probably thought he would be able to hurt me and get away with it. In a way, he’s right, most people who’ve hurt me have. It was scary to report, but I’m glad I did.

When I shared with the world that Ron Jeremy had assaulted me, I had no idea he had so many fans. Many of his fans saying to me some version of “who’d rape you? You’re fat, you’re ugly, you’re black and you’re trans. who would even want you?”. A common refrain we hear when the victim of a known man isn’t quite within beauty standards. As though the only women who are ever truly harmed are white, thin, and blonde. I feel very triangulated by these feelings. Both the feeling people have of saying “why would they do this to YOU” and the deep knowing that the people who’ve harmed me knowing this would be the response society would have.

It’s very lonely being a survivor.

I’d call myself a victim, but I’m too proud. I’m, frankly, still processing that these things happened to me for reasons other than someone thinking I was really cute. Society only wants to believe that people like me are predatory. That we exist as a subjugation of their sexuality. But frankly, my body being violated as much as it has been has made me very guarded. As I said, I’m still pulling myself beyond celebrating that I can say no. Why does this keep happening to me? I’m not entirely sure, but I know that it’s not my fault.

These were thoughts I’ve been having because it’s becoming a bit clearer to me that there are people who’ve heard me speak out about being harmed in the past, who doubt me because I keep speaking about bad things continuing to happen to me. Because I have a long list of bad things that have happened to me. And it pains me to understand that there are people who will continue to do bad things to me because they know no one believes someone who keeps getting assaulted.