Genesis

And God created Isabella Bardou.

Believe it or not, all women are biologically composed of minimal levels of testosterone, the male hormone. I ponder how my testosterone level compares to that of other women, because I have yet to meet a female who feels as sexually inclined as I do. I was the type of little girl who discovered the functions of all of her body parts very quickly. Barbie dolls bored me; so I would take their clothes off. When I would watch Sesame Street, there would be scenes in which real people were alone on the screen unaccompanied by puppets. It would show a man and a woman ballroom dancing, and this physical contact would arouse me. At age 4, I did not know what sex was. So I was extremely sensitive to the slightest depiction of physical contact. As a result, after seeing the man and woman dance on Sesame Street, I would touch myself; I would masturbate.

Up until age 11, I thought there was something extremely wrong with me. I watched the D.A.R.E. “Don’t Do Drugs” commercials they always aired on Nickelodian in between Doug and Rugrats, and I categorized my habitual touching-myself antics with addictive drugs. I couldn’t tell anybody about what I did so often because there was no way anybody in elementary school understood. I’m sure looking back I could spot a boy or two with those prepubescent antics I had. Let’s be honest, though, no 9-year old is going to bring that up in the middle of Language Arts class. Year after year, I told myself I was going to quit. And every time I was done “rubbing my vagina,” I would be so upset with myself. I hadn’t the slightest control to stop myself. If I wanted to touch myself, I had to do it because there was no way of getting my mind off of it.

At age 10 my parents sent me off to sleep away camp. I was the first to start developing boobs, and all of the little boys were dazzled. I was the first to “French kiss.” Everybody crowded around the little bridge that separated the boys’ bunks from the girls’ bunks, and watched as the lucky boy and myself stuck out our tongues trying to emulate what big kids did. Of course, we all improved over the summers.

Backtrack. My parents had put an old school television set in my bedroom when I was around the age of 5 so that I could watch it at bedtime instead of knocking on their door every night to complain about what I now acknowledge as insomnia. 5 years later, I discovered that I received fuzzy receptions of all of the Playboy channels. This would serve as my pornography before coming across the illegal downloading opportunities of Napster, Kaazaa, Morpheus, and Limewire.

At age 13, my summer after 7th grade, I found myself hanging out with the 14 and 15-year old boys at sleep-away camp. Their voices were deeper and they had armpit hair. I felt connected to them and felt obliged to surround myself by them. At the time, I thought they were the cool older boys and I just felt cool hanging around them. But looking back, it was so much more than that. I was able to share my trait of raging hormones with them. Gradually, one or two of my friends in my bunk started to tell the rest of us that they, like me, masturbated, but only every once in a while. They described it as rubbing themselves for that feeling that lasted for seconds. It was this description that let me know I was not completely alone in doing this, but I most certainly was alone in my addiction. I recollect one night when we were doing impressions of each other during the later hours before having to turn off the lights for OD (on duty counselors). “Okay now do Isabella!” and everybody put their hands on their crotches.

The time I spent with the older boys during the summer after 7th grade became more and more frequent. And eventually, they felt I was ready for bunkhopping. For those of you whom are not familiar with the term, bunkhopping, at least at my camp, was waking up in the middle of the night and trekking to the athletics field to partake in some sort of activity that broke camp rules. It was planned. At Friday night camp Shabbat dinner, I went to the boys’ side of the dining hall to refill the ice pitcher as I always enthusiastically volunteered to do at every single meal; no explanation necessary. I went over to Adam Silverberg’s table to go “say hi.” And he told me, “We’re coming to get you tonight, are you down?” I was so down.

In the early AM hours of the night, I woke up to a group of boys surrounding my top bunk with a flashlight in my face. They saw I was up, and snuck back outside my bunk to wait for me. I climbed down my latter, swallowed an entire container of tic tacs, chucked the remainder I had into the garbage as an act of anxiety, and scurried to join them.

We walked onto the field and there were a bunch of 15 and 16-year olds smoking cigarettes and/or pot in different circles. Everybody was dressed in black to beware of authority figures coming to condemn everybody on the premises. Adam Silverberg pulled me aside and we started walking away from the masses toward the trees surrounding the field. He was over 6 feet tall, a full head and shoulders taller than I was, and I liked the feeling of walking next to somebody whom was so physically dominant over me. We finally sat down at the outskirts of the field and talked and made out for a bit. Then, he asked me how I felt about trying oral sex, giving him head. I told him I felt good about trying it. He talked me through it, and I took his guidance and went up and down his dick, but I definitely was overwhelmed; I do remember lifting my head up a lot and taking a lot of breaths. But I remember Adam Silverberg saying, “You’re pretty good actually.” He finished after a little while. Probably 5 minutes. But who knew then that that was a short time? Actually, for a 15-year old, it isn’t.

The next morning everybody in the bunk asked if I did it, if I went bunkhopping. Being a stupid 13-year old, I told them. I told them everything. These were the sisters I never had. And of course, every bunk at camp has its rat. And my bunk’s rat decided to irresponsibly take responsibility for the reputation that would be precede me for years to come. During Saturday morning Shabbat services, I was escorted to the camp office and was seated with 6 different staff members including 2 of my counselors, my division leader, and some camp directors in a secluded room. Imagine being screamed at by 6 different adult figures simultaneously demanding “DID YOU OR DID YOU NOT GIVE ADAM SILVERBERG ORAL SEX LAST NIGHT! WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?! YOU ARE NOT LEAVING THIS ROOM UNTIL YOU SHARE EVERY DETAIL WITH US!” I would kill to go back now and deny it all just to avoid the drama. But being yelled at constantly, I was so scared and felt so ashamed. Wasn’t it enough that I myself had to deal with my sexuality? And here these self-proclaimed adults were, potentially scarring me. Female adolescence is so fragile, and they had no hesitation to shatter mine to pieces. I finally admitted to everything, and from then on, I was labeled the camp slut.

For a good week, I felt absolutely humiliated. I couldn’t look at Adam Silverberg. Then it started to hit me: what I did was fun! I had broken the rules; I went on an adventure. And now, I was labeled Isabella Bardou, the huge slut. I figured that since I was going to be labeled the huge slut, I should at least have fun in return for taking on such a scarlet letter. I went bunkhopping quite a few more times that summer. I learned what it felt like to be pleasured by someone else, and I learned how to sixty nine. At age 13, I was known as the huge slut, and my poor brothers would take on so much slack for it in the later years, but I was doing what in my heart and in my head didn’t seem so wrong.

I still had my friends for the summers to come. They were by my side and took on the reputation of notorious rebels for me. Our bunk was always put next to the division leader’s house for the next few summers. The summer after 8th grade, I would cut my shower hour time in half and would have sex talk meetings with the older boys. It was liberating and I wasn’t going to subdue my sexual comfort.

At age 15, I found myself in a relationship. I had a boyfriend. I had never considered anal sex to be real sex, and I was a virgin, so we decided it would be fun to drive into the under-construction neighborhood across the street from his neighborhood and have some fun in his fully loaded SUV. With lots of lube, we had anal sex. The first few swings hurt like a baseball bat. But once the lube started kicking in and I stretched, it was really fun. Then as we were putting our clothes back on in the car, a police car drove through the dirt road and pulled up behind us. Fully clothed in 30 seconds. He tapped onto the window; we were in the back seat. It looked like two adolescent kids making out in a car. Very PG. He asked for our ages: he, 17 and I, 15. He then asked if my boyfriend knew I was under 16 and if I were alright. For God’s sake, this was my fucking idea.

Later in the spring, my boyfriend got a $500 hotel room for me to lose my virginity in. It was done the right way. Roses, champagne, lovely dinner beforehand. There was no abnormality about it. Just that it was not done in a juvenile way. After about 2 years of the relationship, I felt things for me had soured. I guess I was bored. And to this day, I think I am still too immature to settle down. I need to find myself first before thinking for two people. Perhaps it’s selfish, but hey, it is my life. It’s not that I’m never going to be monogamous; I just need to know who I am before attaching myself to an individual whom I will need to learn to know as well as myself. I’m not forcing myself into anything. I think I’m just being practical. Call me that uneducated word…slut, call me what you’d like. If you’re one of those girls at the bar pointing at me like I’m some University of Michigan exhibit, frankly I find it flattering. I also find it comical because I haven’t the slightest clue whom you are. I hate labels. But if I must categorize, I call myself a feminist who is putting herself first, that’s all.

***as always, names have been changed