As I join the other millennial women in the shambles of what was supposed to be sweet nostalgia, I keep thinking about one experience that I had that feels like it really encapsulates what it felt like grewing up a gril in 2006. As more of the Epstein files have become public, some of the names and connections surrounding him have made the culture we grew up in look different in hindsight. Les Wexner, for example, built the retail empire that included Limited Too and Victoria’s Secret, two brands that helped define fashion, femininity, and desirability for me and many other teen girls in the 2000’s. Wexner also had a long personal and financial relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, and his name appears more than 1,000 times in the released Epstein files. Having that context (and a fully devoloped brain) things look a little bit different in hindsite.
When I was 16, I went to a Nickelback concert with some friends. As I was dancing with my friend at this concert, I heard two of the older males, probably in their 50s, behind us talking about jailbait. I’m sure I wasn’t consciously aware of what that meant then, but I know now. As we listened to the music and danced, time passed and the men continued to drink, and with that got braver. One of the men came up behind me, wrapped his arms around me and grabbed both of my boobs in his hands. When he let go, I turned around and said, “You know I’m 16.” He shook his head and said, “So am I tonight.”
In my logical mind there is a part of me that knew it wasn’t right at the time, but as 16-year-old comphet lesbian with low self-esteem, struggling to understand the world around her, it made me feel powerful to have their attention.
I was absolutely brainwashed. And I think there’s something particularly disorienting about realizing how normalized it all was. Like, it wasn’t just individual creeps. It was baked into the marketing, the music, the shows you watched, the way adults talked about teenage girls. The whole culture was set up to make that concert moment feel normal.
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