I stopped regularly watching The Real World a few seasons ago. I always give the new season a chance, but a couple years ago, I stopped feeling like I was watching my peers, and started feeling like I was watching people I used to know in college. In short, I felt older than the people on my TV, and their immaturity irritated me.
However, I’ve been watching this season, and it’s starting to get to me. There are two girls that I see myself in, and not in a good way. In fact, one of the girls, MacKenzie, I REALLY see myself in. To the point that watching her on the show makes me feel physically sick. She gets drunk to the point of incoherence yet insists she’s okay. Once she’s drunk, she trusts everyone, especially males, and goes off with anyone she meets. Her roommates worry that someone will take advantage of her, or that someone has taken advantage of her in the past and she doesn’t remember. She tries to justify her blacking out as “normal,” but it worries everyone around her.
That girl? Is me. It’s 100% me 5 years ago, and about 20% me today. What makes me sick when I watch her on camera is not just that she gets so drunk that she’s incoherent. It’s not just that she makes new friends and tells her roommates to get lost. It’s how quick she is to trust the people she meets at bars and go off with them. Because I know that I’m that girl. Watching it from the outside in, while sober, I feel absolutely sick, especially when I watch her leave with some guy she just met. My gut and heart are screaming that she should go back now, that she doesn’t know this man and he’s going to take advantage of her…
and then I feel even sicker because I remember being in this situation countless times. But you know what I don’t remember? Being in this same situation countless other times. And the scariest thing to me about that is that I have this horrible feeling that I’ve been taken advantage of more times than I know. I have this sinking feeling in my stomach that I’ve been raped more times than I think. And I hate myself for it. And then I try not to blame myself. But I can’t help but say, “Britni, why would you get so drunk? Why would you put yourself in that situation?”
I have no answer to that question, beyond that I didn’t know my limits and I was young and stupid. And no matter what happened to me when intoxicated, it’s not my fault. But watching this show, I realized that I really DON’T KNOW what’s happened to me. I don’t know how many times I’ve been taken advantage of, or touched without my consent, or raped. And that is so much scarier than saying, “I’ve been raped X amount of times.” I’d so much rather be able to say that then to look back on my last few years and say, “I honestly don’t know.”
Watching “me” on TV, as scary and upsetting as it’s been, may just be the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I don’t want to be That Girl anymore, or ever again.
I'm Britni, a snarky bitch and generally awesome person. I write about sex, love, and bullshit. If sex-positivity, discussions about BDSM and kink, queer issues, and topics that are completely inappropriate by society's standards make you uncomfortable, then this blog is not for you.
Good Vibes 
4 Comments
Why is it okay for you to write a post like this, yet when other people do it (http://britisshameless.com/2010/06/drunk-bitches-totes-deserve-to-be-raped/ – http://www.casapalmera.com/articles/consequences-of-alcohol-abuse-and-addiction/), it’s worth a rant?
Please don’t think I’m calling you a hypocrite or anything like that. I am honestly just trying to see how it’s different.
All both posts do are highlight the fact that certain situations are riskier than others and acknowledges that it’s best not to get yourself into those situations, although in an ideal world, this would not be the case.
Neither article brings judgement, blame, responsibility or fault into the equation, yet the same reasoning you projected in your previous post could very well be applied to this post by someone else.
I am very glad you’re in a better place now. I have never been a big drinker, but I identify very much with being too trusting.
sweetie. hugs. I don’t have the right words, but I do get it. Life is so scary to me that I have trouble between too trusting and not enough.
GIRL—How can you get the producers thru TheRealWorld to see THIS.FUCKIN.POST as a PRELIMINARY to putting this shit on the air? I’ve BEEN THAT GIRL..I’ve been YOU..I’ve regrets a mile long & ‘date-rapes’ that I can’t blame on them…because I was drunk & saying mmmmOk, Sure…Let’s GO (in my drunken state) Had I been even MILDLY sober? I’d have beat those fuckers off. (and with my cane now, since I’m disabled)
Ugh, I only wish I could have been your friend in those moments. I’d have dragged you out kicking & screaming & waiting for you to sober up & thank me or beat the shit out of me. Either way, I wish I had that kind of friend back then.
Sending you *consensual* hugs