Amanda Todd committed suicide at 15. Before she did, she composed this Youtube video to tell her story. An older and wiser person would see that doing the Youtube video was probably only a way to feed the trolls and tormentors, but for a kid her age, it was the only way she thought she could reach out. Tragically, it didn't work.
When this girl was in seventh grade, she showed her breasts on a web cam. The guy she showed them to screen captured it and later tried to blackmail her into performing sexually on camera for him or he would release the pic. Things got worse from there. The boy was never dealt with by the authorities. People were horrible to her, and now she is dead. And many, many other people are complaining because she wasn't accountable for her actions and didn't take responsibility for being a whore.
Yeah, fuck them.
People are going to say, "oh she shouldn't have shown her breasts on the webcam. Why would she do that? Didn't she know better?" Look, in theory, yes. She probably did know better. But in the moment, when someone is flirting with you and you are 12/13 years old, it doesn't seem like a bad thing. You feel special,wonderful.
I know this for a fact. There was a boy I LOVED SO MUCH when I was in fifth grade. I mean, seriously, worshiped the ground he walked on. One Saturday he asked me to meet him at the playground. We rode bikes there and I was just in heaven. When we arrived, we started kissing and flirting. One of our other friends, another boy, rode up as well. We started talking to him and the boy I was crushing on made a request. I still remember the way his voice sounded as he said it. "Show us your boobs. Come on. Please show us your boobs."
Without even considering why I shouldn't do it, I grinned at him and lifted up my black and white stripped shirt and showed off the glory of my breasts. I had epic breasts in fifth grade . . . probably the only time they were epic. For like half a second, I felt like a love goddess. I felt like the queen of the world.
And then they started laughing.
They weren't laughing because my breasts were ugly. Because, they weren't. They were laughing because, at the end of the day, we were 11 and it made them nervous. But I didn't get that is why they were laughing. To me, it sounded sneaky and evil and like I was totally the butt of some joke. And my split second of sexual power dissolved into shame. Complete and total shame.
I still remember how that shame felt. And it was only just for that afternoon, you know? When I think about this little girl being made to feel that way over and over again, it sickens me. When I think about how people treated her, how they delighted in saying they hoped she died, it sickens me. When I think about the fact that no one was brave enough or decent enough to go and sit with her, to be her friend, it sickens me.
Our society has such a fucked up view of female sexuality. We want women to be respectful and pure and sensible . . . but at the same time, we structure our culture around the allure of sexy women. We have commercials where hot girls in shortshorts feed each other food. We glorify the idea of the sexually available woman . . . but we don't want her to be anyone we know.
I wish someone had taught Amanda to be fucking brazen. I wish they would have taught her to own her actions, to smirk at the people making fun of her and just say, "So the fuck what?" I wish they would have taught her to be value who she was and not define herself by one moment, one bad decision. I wish they would have taught her to not think everything was her fault.
But that didn't happen. Instead, our culture teaches girls to try their best to be attractive, usually no matter what the cost . . . but at the same time, to be ashamed of any 'slutty' actions they take, and to hate other girls for their 'slutty' behavior as well. So they grow up confused, resentful, damaged, and feel no one really values them.
Some of them kill themselves.
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