High School Memories

Our friend Erica recently published an interesting post about her experiences attending a large and very well known high school. I’ve not talked much about my own teenage life. This might be a good time to share.

Life in 1972-1975

It was a different world. The one-two punch of Vietnam and Watergate shook our confidence in authority and the establishment. We read about the Women’s Movement and marched in support of the Equal Rights Amendment, but real progress on the ground was painfully slow. The oil crisis and the economic recession made our lives more difficult. The summer of love was only a fuzzy memory.

Personal computers were a decade away. The internet was still two decades away. We had television, radio, newspapers, books, and magazines. We could call friends using land line telephones. If they weren’t home, you couldn’t talk with them. Instead of searching on Google, we visited the library.

And yet, our music was amazing (and still is). No one had ever heard of AIDS. Our huge boomer bubble of young people sought to change the world for the better and we thought we could.

High School Bonnie

I was a nerdy, bookish sort of girl. I was never one of the cool kids, but I had plenty of friends. I somehow managed to maintain friendships with athletes, partiers, and high achievers, but none of those labels fit me. I wasn’t a loner, but my friend group was fluid.

I was a skinny girl with a big butt. Like most teens, I was self conscious about how I looked. Thoughts of summertime and swimsuits were a particular source of stress. My version of a coverup was a pair of baggy cutoffs. I worried about my unremarkable hair, small boobs, thin legs, broad hips, and of course, my inexplicably heavy bottom. All these contributed to a general feeling of insecurity. I realize now that just about everyone felt this way. We differed only in our ability to project false confidence.

I was innocent, but I wasn’t gullible. Older guys took one look at me and wanted to figure out how to get my clothes off. Ignoring the media drumbeat of thin models, boys seemed to like my curvy body, at least enough to want to use it for their own purposes. I saw them coming a mile away. I think I heard every dopey pick up line there was. Maybe I should have felt flattered by their attention, but it seemed so transparently self-serving.

School

I was a good student. I liked science and math, but my counselors steered me toward other subjects that were presumbly more appropriate for a nice young lady. I could write, so I joined the school paper and the yearbook staff. This experience eventually led to a career as a journalist.

I have lots of memories from school:

• Sitting in the bleachers watching the boys playing a shirts versus skins basketball game in gym class


• Dancing with both boys and girls at a postgame sock hop on Friday night


• Working all night on a paper because I procrastinated too long


• Kissing in the back of a schoolbus during a late night ride home after an amusement park visit


• Sharing secret crushes with girlfriends


• Cruising in cars


• Sitting in study hall and waiting for the bell to ring


• Meeting friends at the movies

Sex and Spanking

People talked about sex a whole lot more than they actually had sex. I chose to lose my virginity at age 16 with a boy who was genuinely nice to me. It was odd and not satisfying at all. In retrospect, my expectations were wildly unrealistic. We broke up soon thereafter, but his gentleness was a trait I sought in future partners. He’s now a Facebook friend!

Guys hit on me often, regardless of my relationship status. I had a few more relationships in high school, but none were more than a stopping point along the road to Mr. Right. I wish I had fully realized that then. I encouraged boys to spank me, but they just couldn’t understand why I would ask for that. Or how to deliver it. I was frustrated to say the least.

Sex was interesting to me and I could see how it might be fun. But then as now, I was obsessed with spanking. The slightest hint in an overheard conversation captured my full attention. I imagined that there might other people who liked to be spanked, but this was merely an abstract aspiration.

This was the mid-seventies, so we all tried to act as though sex was no big deal. My mother, smart woman that she was, put me on the pill at age 14. She told me it would help regulate my periods. Thanks, Mom.

There was so much that I didn’t know, about myself, about my kink, about boys, and about healthy relationships. I sometimes felt guilty about my desires, but never enough to chase them from my mind for long.

There was so much that none of us knew. We never discussed consent. Rape was something that happened in a dark alley perpetrated by a criminal stranger. Victims were most likely in the wrong place at the wrong time. I am still horrified by how wrong we were and how poorly victims were treated.

The Future

I looked forward to being an adult and going to college, though I had only a vague inkling what that might entail. I heard about sororities that paddle their pledges and I couldn’t wait to sign up. I wanted to meet a special man, become a wife, and have children, a career, and a house. But from the perspective of an insecure high school student, there was no clear path to get there. I also longed for incredible, dramatic spankings filled with exquisite rituals. My fantasy spanker was powerful, but anonymous. He would take control of my life and my body in a forceful way. And, sex, yeah, I wanted that too.

As you can see, I have many varied high school memories. Was I happy? Yes, sometimes. Was high school depressing? Yes, sometimes. Would I like to go back there? No, I don’t think so.