Good Girl Programming

And the Cycle of Sextortion

If you click the box above you will witness Ashley Reynolds speaking about becoming a victim of online sextortion when she was fourteen years old. In it she says:

I figured the best way (to gain my freedom) was to do everything he asked for and to do it right. But it was never right.

Ashley explains she complied with a stranger’s request for a nude photograph in order to make him disappear. But he didn’t. One extorted photo wasn’t enough. The perpetrator began demanding more and more compromising images of Ashley, and all of her free time.

I didn’t want my parents to be disappointed in me.

On camera Ashley is polite, calm and slightly apologetic as she recounts how she found herself in such a predicament. She demonstrates remarkable grace as she describes what she endured, and it is her very emotional restraint that upsets me. Ashley’s interview feels to me like a Masterclass in Good Girl Programming.

I recognize such socialization because I mastered the Good Girl Program when I was very young, too. Her parents and teachers may have taught it to her with the best intentions. Instilling in her the tools that would serve her best “out in the world.” Tools such as Being Flexible, Saying, “it’s ok” early and often, Granting “yeses,” to others before gauging one’s own enthusiasm. Ashley communicates with an apologetic smile, lest we find her “shrill” or “hysterical” or “a turn off,” already understanding audiences won’t respond to a more assertive version of herself, she demonstrates a perfected octave, pitch, and cadence as she implores us to listen.

It should come as no surprise then, that having become an excellent student of the Good Girl Program, Ashley has no way to refuse her abuser’s audacious requests. She has no lessons in delivering a guilt-free, “No.” Her good natured retelling of the harassment only highlights the very scaffolding Good Girls lean into when they are actually distressed. In recounting her ordeal, Ashley’s emotions hardly surface. She has been socialized, as many girls are, to believe their suppression lends authority. Good Girl Programming teaches girls to bottle their emotions and push them deep down, then forget all about them. Once inside, FEAR is renamed “anxiety,” and treated like a personality defect and RAGE? Well, Rage is so taboo it's immediately relabeled “upset.” Girls learn their anger is an almighty threat to our social fabric and can never be expressed, only numbed. With a prescription. Or wine. Often both. At a glance the gentler sex appears just fine. She’s placid and cloaked in thick disappointment, sure, and she may be mute and a little zoned out, but she smiles as she speaks and seems “normal.” Just like the rest of them. They’re all just fine.

Now it may surprise you to learn that statistically boys are the primary victims of sextortion. They are. Boys are often coerced into sexting in similar ways to Ashley, but men experience sextortion differently. They believe they are engaging in consensual interactions online. Then they are shocked to learn these sessions have been recorded when payment is demanded for the removal of their images. The difference in tactics used as boys mature into men is noteworthy. As boys age, they are socialized to resist. Considerate boys are labelled wimpy and compliance is often teased out of them by adolescence. Not only is this completely unfair to boys, it is wholly devastating for girls. Because just as girls are mastering the art of excising “no” from their vocabularies, boys are reaping the rewards of becoming more adversarial.

And we all lose.

Boys become men who suffer under the burden of assumed superiority (or is it boys become insufferable men who assume superiority?) while girls mature into emotionally severed women. No one is ok.

Not by a long shot. When we apologize for the crimes of others, and acquiesce to things we do not want, and when we routinely ignore our needs in order to please, we run the risk of slipping deeper into dissociation.

But there is a way out. When we invite our “NOs” to surface and make time to uncork some of the emotions that have become buried, long lost aspects of ourselves can begin to synthesize and heal. By journalling on scraps of paper you destroy before the first light of day or by improvising songs about joys and sorrows long gone, you invite your inner world to surface and can bear witness to all your fragmented parts.

The kindness we seek outside may never come, and we could die waiting. Don’t. Extend that unconditional acceptance towards yourself now. And integrate all of you into one. I leave you with Lola Young’s brilliant anthem to flaws and imperfection, Messy, because it is unapologetic and raw and fully human. Enjoy ~