Shower Curtains

Simple story really. But a lifetime impact.

I was in grade 1 or 2.

I was at the home of one of my friends. I can’t remember who that was, whether it was a girl or a boy, or even how many others that were there. Let’s make it 6, 2 boys 4 girls.

I asked if I could use the washroom, so I went in, had a pee and came back out again. The other boy had done so also, I don’t remember that part, but I do remember very vividly the next part.

At some 2 of the little girls began making fun of the other boy for “having a Band-Aid on the end of his penis”

They were, of course, referring to the fact that he was not circumcised, and I am circumcised.

It turns out the two little girls were hiding behind the shower curtain, and having a peek.

What’s interesting to me about this childish innocence, if you wanna call it that, is that I don’t look back at it as a positive experience in any way. I looked back at it as a violation.

I had not given my consent to be viewed.

The final haunting part of this memory that stretches back so far, is to this day if I go into use the washroom with someone else’s house in the shower curtain is drawn. I look behind the shower curtain before I do the business I came for.