The Time When He Evaluated My Private Parts

This is embarrassing and so super personal and beyond mortifying, and some may not agree with this level of detail, but <throws hands up in air> here it goes. This is my blog and my story.

He made me feel insecure about a very, VERY private thing: my body.

I'll never in my life forget where I was and how I felt when this was said to me.

I was standing in his room, near the dresser. I had just showered and was wearing a robe. I'd untied the robe, with the intention of getting dressed, so it was hanging open. He was standing in the doorway to the bathroom, looking at me.

"Has it always looked like that?" he asked, his eyes on my lower half.

I didn't understand what he was talking about at first. I thought he meant my stomach.

"Well, I mean it has never been perfect but there's a little extra skin after being pregnant..."

"No. I mean your vajayjay," he said. He always called it that. It was super creepy and super gross.

I. wanted. to. die.

I felt my face get hot. "What do you mean?!"

He shrugged. "I dunno. It just looks...different...from other women's I've seen. I figured it looks like that because you've had a baby."

I just blinked, dumbfounded. He wasn't the first man I'd dated in the three years after my divorce and meeting him. I hadn't heard anything like this before.

Was I hearing this correctly?!?

"I...I'm not really sure what you mean..." I stammered.

"It just looks different. I can tell you've had a baby just by looking at it. It feels different, too. I can definitely tell the difference between women who haven't had a baby, like my ex, and you." He said this in a glib and cavalier way.

I remember looking down at myself and feeling so...mortified. I told him that I looked the same now as I did before I had my son, and that I'd never had any other similar comments before him--only that I knew that everyone's bodies are different and no one looks the same.

"Yeah...but I can tell you've had a baby. There's a big difference between women who haven't given birth and women who have. You got really torn up!" He said this with pity.

As if my son had done this to me.

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I can honestly say that I've never felt more unattractive in my life. I don't clearly remember how the conversation ended. I think I just shrugged it off or changed the subject. But inside I wanted to curl up in a ball.

Of course now I know what this sociopath was doing. By making me feel insecure about a very intimate area, he was trying to make me feel grateful that he was willing to be with me despite this egregious flaw.

When I was pregnant with our child, he asked the OB/Gyn if I could have an extra stitch after the birth. He asked that more than once.

Such evil. I was faced with such evil and I didn't even know it.


Love and Support for Kate Ranta and Family