I learned everything I know from watching Clueless, Scream and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. An essay about feminism by Lizzi Sandell. Continue reading “Being Clueless in the 90s: A Personal Essay About Girl Power”
I’m a senior in high school, and I’m having an extremely inappropriate relationship with the boys’ soccer coach at my school. It’s been going on for 3 years now. A few weeks ago he told me that he loved me, and I just really have no idea what to say or do. He means a lot to me, but he’s a 27-year-old man and I’m 17. He has a wife and I have a boyfriend. He told me that he would leave his wife for me, but I never thought it would get to this point. I don’t want to end what we have because he does what I like sexually. My actual boyfriend refuses to do what I want in the bedroom because he doesn’t want to hurt me, but Coach is into the same stuff as me and the sneaking around makes it fun. If you have any advice I could really use it. Kate
First off, I’ll say that you seen very mature and self-confident for your age, which is such a cool thing. Secondly, I’ll say that your relationship with Coach is “inappropriate” from his end, not yours, and that you shouldn’t feel any shame about anything that’s happened. Also… well, maybe I should preface all of this by saying that I’m probably not the person to give you the most motherly or morally-sound advice… but you did ask me for help, so I’m going to tell you what I honestly think.
Despite you clearly being very smart and independent, what you might not understand now is that Coach is probably a pretty big loser. Any married adult who starts sleeping with a student at the school where he works, starting when she’s 14, can’t be too impressive of a person. I promise, when you’re older you will look back on this and laugh—it will be a great drunken anecdote—but you will also realize how tragic coach is, especially when you’re grown up and successful and even cooler and smarter than you are now.
When I was 16, I was sleeping with this 27-year-old guy—not my teacher, just a guy from my town. I loved fucking him. It felt so cool to be sleeping with someone so much older than me, and I loved that he was so sexually experienced, that he’d traveled, that we could have conversations that were far more interesting than the one’s I was having with the guys in my class, that he had chest hair (lol), etc.. We had sex for about a year. I had a lot of sexual “firsts” with him, and I was definitely more sexually confident, and just generally better at sex, after I met him. However, even though I don’t regret what happened at all, looking back on that relationship now, I’m like “Oh my god lol, that guy was such a loser.” I couldn’t see it at the time, because I felt very adult and on the same level with him, but in hindsight I know that I was still a child in a lot of ways, and under the age of consent, and that he was an idiot for sleeping with me.
I know you don’t want your relationship with Coach to end. However, it does feel like it might be coming to a breaking point. For one, he seems a bit delusional—like, he’s going to leave his wife for you?! How does he realistically think that’s going to work? Not only would he be fired if people found out that you were together, but he would also likely go to jail. He is the adult in this situation, and he should have been the responsible and not slept with you. This wasn’t your mistake, it was his. However, even though he’s the adult in this situation, it seems that you’re the only who’s acting like one.
This is a tricky situation. It might not be a good idea to continue seeing him if he’s threatening to leave his wife, which makes me think he could be a bit unhinged. Of course, he could just be talking shit to try and be romantic. You’re smart, so you have to ask yourself some serious questions: Do you always feel safe with coach? Do you think that if you stopped the relationship he would get so upset and could do something harmful to you? You’re the only one who can answer these questions. I think it’s valid if you want to keep your history with him a secret. However, if you ever feel at all that he could do something to hurt you, then you have to tell your parents and/or your school immediately.
Believe me, Coach is definitely not someone you want to be in a serious relationship with, and he’s also not the only guy in the world who can give you the sex you want. You’re clearly sexually progressive and experienced. Go out and find a new guy who fucks you like you want to be fucked. He can be older than you, he just shouldn’t be your teacher! (Although until you turn 18 I’d refrain from fucking someone too much older, because of annoying legal reasons.)
xoxo Karley
photo by William Eggleston /
To my first prom, my junior prom, I brought a freshman. It was a last minute thing, as I didn’t have a date and didn’t want to go on my own, for obvious reasons. The freshman, Sam, was in my art class, and we were going to prom “just as friends”, although I still kind of wanted to fuck him. Why not?, I thought. He wasn’t that cute but he was really funny, and I liked the way his bony chest looked through his thin white T-shirts. I imagined he was probably a virgin because he was only fifteen. Maybe even fourteen. Fourteen would be better, I thought.
About twenty minutes after arriving at prom, after the cheesy photoshoot, Sam asked me if I minded if he danced with another girl—a girl called Annie who was in his class, who had come as the date of some gay musical theatre guy. I said I didn’t mind even though I kind of did. As I watched them slow dance and make out, I wondered if they had planned this whole thing—if he had agreed to come with me because he knew she would be there.
Even though he made out with Annie most of the night, he still came to my friend’s after prom party with me, because he felt obligated. I did not feel guilty for dragging him away from Annie to the party with me against his will, although the whole thing did seem mildly pathetic. When we got there I kept making him shots, trying to get him drunk enough that he would want to have sex with me. At one point he said, “Are you trying to get me drunk so that I’ll have sex with you?” I shrugged, like, maybe. Soon after that his mom picked him up.
A few months later, when we came back to school after summer break, Sam and Annie were officially dating. He lost his virginity to me while they were together. After we fucked, lying in his single bed, he told me that he really loved Annie and respected that she wanted to wait, but that he wanted to have sex with me for practice first, so that when Annie was finally ready he would be, “ya know, like, good at it… or at least not bad at it.” I said that was very thoughtful of him. We continued fucking for the next few months. Mainly in my car, or sometimes in his shower, if his parents were at work. By the end he was pretty good at it. My mom saw Sam in the grocery store recently and told me that he was in medical school.
For my senior prom I didn’t have a date, either. Although this time I cared less because a few of my girlfriends were going solo too, so we planned to just all go together because, ya know “boys suck, we don’t need them, we’re feminists, blah blah whatever.” On the evening of the prom I was feeling super teen-angsty and bad about myself. I had recently dyed my hair dark brown in an attempt to look “exotic”, but accidentally just ended up looking, paradoxically, like tan goth. Also, there had been an eyeliner disaster or two while getting ready, which resulted in some tears and subsequent puffy eyes.
As a joke, one of the popular jock boys in my grade came to prom with a fat blow up doll as his date. Everyone thought that was really funny. “Ha ha, Aaron brought a fat blow up doll in a dress to prom, that’s so funny,” etc. My recent ex-boyfriend was there with his new girlfriend. They both worked at McDonalds. As I sat drinking non-alcoholic punch I wondered if they had been fucking while we were together, in a storage closet at McDonalds during their breaks, or up against a refrigerator full of frozen hamburgers or something. It made me feel nauseous to think about it, although I had also cheated on him multiple times, to be fair. I went to the bathroom and drunk a bottle of cough syrup with my friend Amber.
At an after party Aaron wrote my name on the forehead of his fat blow up doll, held it up and shouted, “Karley, it’s feeding time at the zoo!” Everyone thought that was really funny, too. I wasn’t even fat, although I did have quite large, muscular thighs. I was an athlete. Aaron has yet to leave the small town we grew up in.
