When I was 13, the part of puberty where your body shape changes hit me. It came earlier for me than it did for my classmates, and I became curvy where the other girls of my grade were still flat. Hitting puberty was an immense crime! Girls accused me of stuffing my bra, mistook newly sprung female curves for fat and called me names. Out of jealousy or ignorance or plain spite, these girls punished me heavily for my crimes. I still bear the insecurities that these girls awoke in me.
In high school, I made the mistake one day of telling a male friend that I was having terrible cramps from my period. Admitting to having a normal, fully-functioning reproductive system was an immense crime! He told me I was disgusting and that he wouldn't speak to me until I was "off the rag."
I just shared some real stories about times when I didn't do anything wrong, but I was punished for the sin of existing in this body. These were traumatic, and the pain stays with me even though I know now that I didn't do anything wrong or shameful.
AND DESPITE MY SELF-PITYING TONE SO FAR, THERE'S MORE TO THIS POST THAN WOEBEGONE WHINING.
I've paid the price for my "crimes," but maybe others are about to come before your judgment bar. We all hold, perhaps unknowingly, the position of judge, jury, and executioner. Before we sentence a person to pay for their crimes, we should be sure that they have actually done something wrong. Some of the things we most commonly regard as flaws, faults, and follies are really genetics, or nature, or the way people were brought up. And nobody deserves to pay for a crime they didn't commit.
