#personal stories
When I was in high school, there was a boy a year older than me that I would sometimes see around the neighborhood (we lived down the street from one another), at school, and at parties. When he was a senior & I was a junior, I accepted a few rides home from school with him, probably a dozen times or so. We kissed on 3 occasions at the end of the rides home, and again on 2 different occasions at parties. We texted back and forth briefly. Nothing further.
It was very clear that there would never be anything past that. He tried to get in my pants on a few occasions, but I very clearly told him no. He had an on/off relationship with another girl in my grade, and although she and I weren’t exactly friends, I still respected her and wasn’t interested in things going further with him regardless.
He graduated, and I still saw him around with no issue. My senior year, I became friends with the girl he was on and off with. We spoke at length one evening during a “girls night sleepover” about how sorry I was if I ever intruded on their relationship and things were ok between us. She told me he did some really shitty things to her. I felt so bad.
Everything was fine. Until the summer following my graduation from high school. I went to a party hosted by a friend of his that a few of my friends would be at. When I arrived at the party with one of my girl friends, we took a few shots (3) from the bottle we brought and sat around talking to people. The boy approached me and offered me a beer. I accepted and took a few sips from the beer (I hate beer, and will ‘nurse’ one until I can discard it without seeming rude), and didn’t think anything about it already being opened when he handed it to me.
A friend of mine that I hadn’t seen in some time asked me if I wanted to go out on the porch while he smoked a cigarette and catch up. At that point, I had been at the party for maybe 20 minutes max. The last thing I remember is sitting down on the porch with my friend.
The next thing I remember is a very fuzzy, vague memory of being in a closed bedroom, with the boy on top of me. I mostly remember the feeling of pressure. He was inside me. It’s a brief memory.
My first real, clear memory is the worst one. I wake up, on a couch at the person’s house, it’s morning. Someone is on top of me, having sex with my sleeping body. It makes me sick to my stomach thinking of it - it was a different guy, a total scumbag, someone who I would have gagged at the thought of even touching me before this ever happened. At this point I was coherent enough to say “what the fuck do you think you’re doing” and shove him off of me, and hit him in the face. I remember his wide eyes, shocked that I had woken up.
Prior to arriving at the party, I had made arrangements to sleep over a close guy friend’s house (we had been friends for many years, our families are very close) because he lived nearby the host’s home and we had a sports meet early the next morning. I stumbled around looking for my phone, and saw all the missed calls and texts from family and friends. I was 2 hours late for the sports meet.
I stumbled down a main street in random bits of clothing I found in the house, vomiting as I wandered around waiting for my mom to come get me. The sports meet was a bit of a blur, too. Lots of vomiting, loss of consciousness.
Later in the day I started asking questions. Apparently after I went to the porch, I seemed extremely drunk. My friends thought it was strange, since they know me well enough to know that 3 shots would never do me in like that. My girl friend brought me up to a bedroom and tucked me into the host’s sister’s bed, as I couldn’t make it out of the house. I passed out right away. She stayed with me for a while and other people checked on me.
Eventually she had to leave, as did my friend whose place I was to stay at, but I refused to leave when I was roused enough to speak to anyone. They said I just kept demanding “let me sleep, I need to sleep”. I weaseled information from a guy who stayed at the house pretty late, who confirmed that the boy had later gone in to “check on me” a few times, and on one occasion he stayed in the room for a while.
When I got home from the sports meet, I was angry. I knew what happened. I called the boy and demanded he come to my house immediately. He refused, saying he didn’t feel like walking. I told him to get in his fucking car and and drive down the block then. He did. He pulled up out front of my house.
I walked outside and he rolled down the window, chuckling. I’ll never forget his smug fucking look. I asked him if he had sex with me. He laughed and said yes. I told him to get the fuck away from my house and he drove off.
A few months later, at a party, I saw the girl he dated on and off. We talked for a while and I confided in her what had happened. At the time, very few people knew (still to this day, very few people know). She confided in me that he had done the same to her before - given her a beer that was drugged and raped her when they were “off”. We cried. She said she’d heard he’d done it to other girls.
I felt dirty and still do. This was in 2013. I still wonder who else had taken advantage of me. Was there anyone else that raped me that night? Just the two I know of? I’ll never know. I still feel shame. Contacting the police never even crossed my mind. I’m from a small, conservative town. He was a celebrated athlete, and alcohol was involved, albeit in a small amount in my case. Looking back, I still believe I would have ostracized myself and caused myself even more trauma by reporting it.
This event has haunted me. My life began to go downhill slowly but surely afterwards. Intimacy issues, severe drug addiction, behavioral outbursts. I still feel an ever-growing intense anger. I would do anything to watch him get his ass beat to a pulp.
I confronted him once, a year or two later, at a party, after I saw him and said something rude to him and he made a snide remark about me having a “roast beef pussy” (nice try, not true, but better luck next time!). I don’t even remember what I said, I went into a blind rage - this was at the height of my behavioral anger issues and was close to my descent into even more serious substance abuse issues.
I said no, and since I wouldn’t give myself up to him, he took me. Used me like a blow-up doll. As a result of his actions that night, I was raped twice, and I don’t doubt that they were the only two.
Thanks, boy. I hate you and I hate myself.
This happened to me at age 14-16. When I was 14 I met a guy online who was a couple years older and we became really good friends and he eventually became my boyfriend (even though we’d never met). I hate talking about how I met him etc because there were so many warning signs: didn’t know what he looked like, jealous and manipulative before I’d even met him and pressured me into spending all the money I had on a present for him whilst I was on holiday because ‘I would if I loved him’. When I came home from holiday we decided we should actually meet up, he lived about 40 minutes away and because of this he convinced me he should stay over at mine. My parents weren’t happy and said no but I eventually changed their minds (I lied about how I knew him). I genuinely didn’t think there was anything wrong with him staying. Obviously I was young but I was certain nothing was going to happen because I didn’t want it to and he didn’t seem like that kind of guy (so naive).
When he came over it was clear he was who he said he was so things were fine, a little awkward but fine. We hugged and went to hang out in my room. As soon as we were upstairs he was shouting at me because I got makeup on his expensive shirt I said sorry and turned the tv on to find something to watch. This part is difficult for me to talk about but I’ll try my best. We must’ve only been watching tv for a minute or so before he made a move. He tried kissing me and I didn’t really know what to do, I’d only kissed one other guy before so I was kinda terrified. I didn’t really kiss back at first but did eventually, I mean he was my boyfriend and there’s nothing wrong with kissing your boyfriend I thought. But things escalated. Before I even knew what was happening his fingers were inside me. It hurt. I was a completely inexperienced 14 year old virgin. I kinda froze up at this point, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want it but I didn’t say no. I hate talking about this because I hate how I didn’t do or say anything. He told me to go to the bed and we did. He got on top of me and tried to penetrate me, this is when I actually started to protest. I said no, stop, started crying. It hurt and I bled. He didn’t finish and stopped a few minutes later. We just lay there for a while until he started crying and asked if he just raped me. I can’t remember what I said to that.
We kept having sex over the next month, I didn’t protest, he wouldn’t use condoms because he didn’t like them. I ended up getting pregnant but didn’t find out for a few months. I didn’t want it. He did. He actually begged me to keep it so we could be a family, I eventually agreed until I spoke through it with my family and realised I didn’t want a baby. He wasn’t happy but I went through with it and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do but I don’t regret it.
Over the next year or so I was still with this guy. It wasn’t great. We had sex but I never actually wanted to, but again didn’t ever say no. He started being manipulative saying what to wear and not, having issues with who I’m friends with etc. At the time I was a big fan of the 1975. He then banned me from listening to them because he listened to a song and said it promoted cheating and he thought it’d make me cheat. I still don’t listen to them.
He started being financially manipulative too. I didn’t have a lot of money because of my age but the money I did get went to him. This is actually how I ended up breaking up with him.
It was just after my 16th birthday and I got some money so we went out shopping. Basically he wanted to spend it and for the first time I actually stood up for myself and said I wanted to spend it. This led to a huge argument in the middle of a clothing shop which left me in tears as he stormed off. I was so embarrassed, everyone was staring. I went outside and asked my dad if he could come pick me up, he could tell I was upset. I walked over to the car with my boyfriend following who had managed to find me again and we got in the car, we hadn’t spoke. When we got home I spoke to my mum privately and said I needed help breaking up with him. She didn’t and still doesn’t know anything that happened but she did help and actually was the one to tell him I wanted to end things. He cried, dropped down to his knees and held onto me and wouldn’t let go. I was crying my eyes out and my dad had to drag him off me and my mum took me away to my grans whilst my dad took him home. I wish I could say it ended here but we were in contact for months afterwards, he was trying to get us back together.
I eventually blocked him on everything but that’s when the fake accounts started. He even hacked into my Facebook and unblocked himself and started messaging me on there again. I still hadn’t told anyone about what had happened and didn’t until I was about 17. I didn’t realise how serious everything was until i went to therapy. I sometimes stop blame myself and wish I could’ve done something about it.
I developed depression and anxiety and have taken multiple attempts on my life and have scars that will never fade. I also had another unhealthy manipulative relationship that lasted until I just turned 19.
I’m 20 now and still struggle but I’m a lot better. I’m in a healthy happy relationship with a man who treats me right. However, I still have a fear of saying no.
I have never told this story before.
It was the summer of finishing school, I was 19 years old and had a five-month-long holiday inbetween finishing the final exams for school and starting uni in October. Me and my friends drove to the next bigger city with the train, to go out, almost every weekend. We went on concerts and metal parties, and sure, we also drank a bit (In Germany the legal drinking age is 16 for beer and 18 for liquor), but due to the expensiveness of the drinks, it was never more than two, maybe three longdrinks. This may sound like a lot, but the way they are mixed there’s usually barely any alcohol in them. Therefore drinking three of these will still let you be almost sober. Also, my body had a pretty high tolerance for alcohol, and I’d really had have to drink heavily in order to get actually drunk. Additionally, I’d been having these exact two to three drinks every weekend for months, I knew exactly how many of them I could drink without an effect (1-2), I knew how many I’d need to drink to get slightly tipsy (3-4), and how much to get noticeably tipsy (5 and up). I was also used to taking a cab to the train station in the city (about 10 minutes), taking a 20-minute train ride and then a 10-minute walk home, in the village I lived in. I knew exactly at what point during the evening I’d have to stop drinking, to be sober when leaving for home. Since the parties only started at 10pm and the last train came at 1:30 am, I never stayed long enough to be actually wasted. What I’m trying to make clear is that while I was just 19 years old, I was used to alcohol, I was used to the locations where we partied, I had a close group of friends who travelled with me, I had self-imposed strict times when I left the party for home, and I knew exactly what I was drinking and how it would affect me. In short, I was partying and drinking responsibly.
Going out in a tight knit community such as the one we found ourselves in, due to our taste in music, it means you start to recognize the same faces in the venues you go to for concerts, for parties, for festivals, the people you stand in line with at the bar, are the people who organize the next show, who own the record label, who play in the bands. You start to know people and they start to know you. The older people look out for the younger ones, make sure they’re handling their drinks, make sure they know when to leave to catch their trains/buses etc. Girls and women have whatsapp chats dedicated to leaving the venue together, so that nobody has to go home alone. In short, I had a strong sense of familiarity and security with these people. Then that day came.
There was a concert, five bands from the wider region were coming to our city and playing a concert. The subgenres they played were pretty broad, and some of them were big enough to attract their own fans to the venue, people from further away and people who otherwise weren’t involved with the local scene. Needless to say it was incredibly full that night. The last band that played was one of our friends, so we had made plans with one of them, to spend the night in his flat, he had a big sofa and two camp beds, and his flatmate was out of town, so one of us could also spend the night in their room. At that point we knew him for months, and trusted him completely. And it wasn’t like we were only young girls in the group, we were mainly guys, and then me and two other girls. It was a 100% non-sexual sleeping arrangement, and everyone was aware of that. Before the show, we went to his flat to drop off our things for the night, and to help him transport his equipment over to the venue. Then the problems started.
You see, music scenes can be complicated, especially the underground scenes, and some subgenres and their fans don’t go well with each other. That night there was a mixture of a lot of different genres, which each had a mixture of people in the crowd. You had your leather jacket bruisers to whom music ended in the mid-80s, paired with super niche neo avantgarde experimental metal, just to name an example, and there were some tensions in the crowd. People were rowdier than usual, and some got ridiculously wasted. There had been some instances where security actually had something to do, prying drunkards from each other, before they could throw blows at the other’s face. I was still more or less new to the scene, having existed in the microcosmos of my home city for years, and never really gone out anywhere else. I wasn’t used to this in the way that I am now. I was uncomfortable, and I stopped drinking after my first drink. I quickly became aware of how sober I was, as everyone around me got increasingly wasted. One band from Dortmund got kicked out of backstage (sounds more prestige than it is – it’s just a backroom with a sofa) for “doing coke on my sofa”, as the owner put it. They riled up their posse and started having fights with the people who organized the show, culminating in the schedule being changed, so that they would play earlier than planned, just so they would leave as soon as possible. They didn’t like that at all, and you could hear the shouting from backstage inbetween songs.
In the end, I decided to leave early. I wrote in the whatsapp chat if any of the other girls wanted to head to the train station together, but nobody answered. I waited for an hour, but nobody wanted to leave. Then 1am came, and with that my last chance to take the train. I asked once more, but still nobody wanted to leave. Walking alone in that part of the city, where all of the concert halls and clubs were, on a weekend, was a really bad idea. People got mugged and worse, one of my friends was mugged that summer, so it was just a security measure not to travel alone. I stayed. I went to the bar and ordered my second drink of the evening. Hours had passed since the first drink, and there was no way this one could have made me as drunk as I became.
I remember waiting at the bar for a long time. But that was okay, it was full that evening and I had all the time in the world (the second-to-last band were just finishing up their show, the band of my friend hadn’t even set up their equipment yet, I’d be stuck at the venue for at least another hour). One of the friends of the band from Dortmund was there. He noticed a patch on my jacket, we talked about Blackthrash, he offered to buy me my drink. I tried to decline, telling him truthfully, that I was more interested in girls, but he insisted, saying he didn’t want to buy me a drink because he wanted to get laid, but just because he liked me. It was a nice gesture, I didn’t really believe him, but accepted the drink out of politeness. I saw my acquaintance at the bar pour me the same drink I had had so many times before, there was no way she was responsible for this. She gave the drinks to him, he paid for them, offered me my drink and toasted with me. Then he asked if I wanted to go to the outside part of the venue for a smoke. I said sure. I felt bad that he had just bought me a drink. The whole time I was so fixed on him, I was so sure he had bad intentions, he came with the rowdy band, he was one the ones that had been involved with the small fights earlier, he had the look of a typical bruiser, long ratty hair, 80’s mustache, crusty jeans vest, bruised knuckles, and he seemed to be a lot older than me, that I started being hyperaware of what he did, if he was trying to slip something in my drink or lead me to a lonely corner, that I let my guard down for anything else. He wasn’t the problem. My friend, at whose place I was staying the night was.
My friend saw me talk to the guy from Dortmund, he came over instantly and started talking about how he was about to play, that the crowd was getting so much bigger than before, how awful the previous band had been and that’s why he stayed sober during shows, because he just loves music so much. It was a horrible mess of ego running wild, geared at pushing the other guy’s buttons. He was amiable enough to ignore the jabs and just talk on. Sometime during the conversation I handed my drink to my friend, just to tie my shoe. During that moment, the guy from Dortmund had turned his back to us, to light a cigarette against the wind, and I was tying my shoe. It must have happened then. When I got my drink back from my friend, it didn’t take long. I was ridiculously wasted within a short amount of time. The guy from Dortmund was friendly enough and took care of me, giving me water to drink and keeping an eye on me, but eventually he had to leave with the band from Dortmund (who had been kicked out for punching the owner of the venue), to head home, so he found the only person he knew to look after me, my friend.
My friend was about to play, and he took me backstage, propped me up on the sofa and started groping me, that’s as much as I remember, then my memories fail. But the memory was all hazy, it was difficult to tell if I had just dreamed it, or if it had actually happened. The next time I woke up was after the gig, hours later. The other bandmates had already loaded their equipment into my friend’s car and left with a cab for home, the owner of the place was already announcing his place would close shortly (venues in Germany have to close at 5am). I woke up with a spinning head. My shirt was ripped at the neckline and I had love bites all on my neck and sternum. I felt horrible and didn’t remember the evening as clearly as I do now. I still thought the guy from Dortmund was responsible for this. Especially since my friend was being so caring and friendly with me, and telling me how he had seen that the guy from Dortmund had apparently taken advantage of me in my supposedly drunk state. He told me my friends had gone home when they read my message in the whatsapp chat, leaving me alone with him. I believed him without further thought. He was sober, he was the friend I trusted, the guy from Dortmund was a stranger who had showcased his violent tendencies in the fights before. I went with my friend, never second guessing.
Still drowsy from what I had thought was drink, I fell asleep during the car ride to his place, and I had difficulty walking straight, when we went up to his flat. Instead of leading me to the living room, where the sofas and field beds stood, he led me to his room, claiming to “take care of me”. Then he closed his room door and said “There now, we’re home. No need to be coy”. I didn’t understand what he meant, and tried to ask him about it, but all of my words were slurred and I was ashamed of seeming drunk. He just told me to go to sleep in his bed, that it was fine, that he’d take care of me. Then he joined me on his bed, running his fingers over my face. I told him “no”, but he didn’t stop. I told him “I don’t want this. Stop”, but he pulled my head into a kiss. I tried to shove him off the bed and then he hit me, wrestled himself on top of me and ripped up my shirt completely. I started crying and asked him to please stop, please don’t, please leave me alone. But everything I said made him angrier. He pushed me down, whenever I squirmed he choked me. So I stopped moving. He tugged and ripped my clothes from my body and stuffed my underwear in my mouth. Then he turned me around and tied my hands and neck to his bed. I tried to fight him off, but I couldn’t. I was hazy and exhausted and my body froze up in fear. I had never been beaten before. If I moved, I choked, if I tried to scream, I choked, if I cried too loud for his liking, I choked. And so I just… lay there. And endured it. All the time he grunted about how I had to stop being so coy, how he knew I wanted this, how I had baited him with the guy from Dortmund, how I was his wh*re, how long he had wanted to do this, how he deserved this and so on and so forth.
When it was over he lay down next to me and smiled at me, telling me how good I was in bed, and if I needed aftercare. He pretended that this had just been some bdsm roleplay, but it wasn’t. He let me lie there, tied to to his bedpost, gagged, bruised and naked, unable to move, to talk or to scream, while he berated me on how consensual what he did had just been. But it wasn’t. I knew it wasn’t. He said things like “Oh, you should have told me you’re new to bdsm, this was just roleplay”. But I knew that wasn’t true. And when he finally untied me, I ran and never looked back.
I know I should have gone to the police, but I was 19 and stupid and thought nobody would believe me. I live in a conservative town, and just the month before there had been a big court case, in which there had been video evidence of a woman being raped, and her abusers had framed it as a consensual bdsm scene, and had walked away from court without a sentence. I was sure my situation would turn out the same. And all of his rambling about had gotten to me. I started doubting myself. I started believing that it had actually just been a normal scene for him. And I was so ashamed of myself. I had broken all of the rules I had been taught. Never travel on your own, never leave your drink unattended, fight your assaulter with all the power you can muster. I stopped showing up at the local scene, until I eventually moved away, for fear of meeting him. When I moved town, I finally mustered the courage to go out again. And I want to explicitly say that what happened to me has nothing to do with the music scene involved. I have met so many nice and good-hearted people running shows and metal bars, I don’t want to scare you away from this type of music scene. I just need to tell my story.
It’s been years, but sometimes I wake up in the night, still drowsy from sleep, and for a heartbeat my mind brings me back to that place. I can’t have sex the way I used to, I’m always always reminded of that night. But I never told my partners. I never told my friends. I didn’t even tell my family. That one night is eating away at me, every day of my life. And I needed to get this story off my chest. If there is one thing I can tell you is please, do all of those things you thought was not necessary or overdoing it. Know your alcohol tolerance. Be aware of how many drinks you can drink to reach what stage of drunkenness. As soon as there’s a deviation – tell your trusted(!) friends. Even if you’re sure nobody spiked your drink, it may have just been someone you hadn’t had your attention on. Never travel alone at night, and if you’re in a travelling group, stick to that group, even if you’re told “Oh, they went home early”. Call them. Just to be sure. If my friends would have been in his flat, it wouldn’t have happened. If you don’t know someone well enough and have to spend the night at their place, don’t do it alone. Especially at a distant friend’s place. Meeting someone at parties and being alone with them is vastly different. No matter how safe you feel in the venue you’re going out, even if everybody knows each other and there are whatsapp groups dedicated to women for going home together, don’t get lulled into a false sense of security. Know the people you trust and stick to them. If you’ve wrote to them that you’re going home, but you return to the venue instead, let them know. And lastly, the one I’m the most upset about, that I didn’t do. If you wake up in a venue like mine, there’s going to be staff at the bar, organizers from the concert, security staff at the door, people who sale the tickets, people who clean the toilets, just any staff member. If your memory is hazy, don’t let the people you wake up to tell you what happened. Find someone from the staff, tell them you were drugged and assaulted and that you need to LEAVE. Most staff of nightclubs and concert halls will bring to to a safe staff-only room, call you a cab, and make sure you can leave without your assaulter noticing. If you have no place to go like I did, because the train doesn’t arrive til morning, go to the police. Even if you’ve had bad experiences with them before, go to the police and tell them what happened and that you have no place to go. If you think you’ve been drugged, you can opt to make a test there. Even if you haven’t been drugged, just made drunk, you can find shelter for the night there, or they will sometimes even bring you home, especially if you’re underage. Even if you get in trouble for breaking curfew, or underage drinking, it doesn’t matter. Those are things that will trouble you for about a month. What happened to me will eat away at my soul for the rest of my life. Whatever you do, find help as soon as you notice something is wrong. Don’t wait, don’t let people tell you what you need. Tell the staff, tell the police. Get out of there.
This spring, my Women’s and Gender Studies class at the University of Miami hosted an event called Canes Consent. The event was to raise awareness about sexual assault on campus with the aim of eradicating it, however one of our speakers told her story and we were all inspired to help her get justice. Angela (who has consented to having her name used for this cause) was violently raped by a fellow UM student to the extent that her vertebrae cracked, and the school only suspended her rapist for a semester. Because of this, he is currently back on campus endangering Angela and other students here. My class and I decided to help Angela get justice against her assailant and create a safer campus environment by getting her rapist expelled before he can graduate on May 8, 2015. We are also taking additional measures against him, however this is a priority. As a survivor of sexual assault myself, this is a very personal issue, so I ask that you sign this petition to support Angela and pass it on to whomever you can. This is a time for solidarity: together we can change the way the University of Miami, and other institutions like it, handle rape and sexual violence cases.
I am aware that this blog is primarily for telling personal stories, but at the moment I feel Angela’s story needs more attention than mine, because her cause can help make a change.
Thank you,
Anna Whelan
thinking about middle aged gay love is like. we have a future and we have time
my mother divorced my father when i was 7. it wasn’t because she was gay, though she did discover this later (another reminder that it’s okay to find out who you are at 40, at 50, etc, and also for who you are to change) but because she had thought he was the great love of her life and he turned out to be a shitty person.
my mother married my ma when i was 11. i think they do have a great love. i think they love each other the way you can when you’re middle aged – having seen the world, being able to see each other’s flaws, knowing themselves. they see each other in full, and they love each other and the world for it.
they dance on the street to buskers (very embarrassing when you’re twelve; very cute when you look back on it as an adult). i shit you not – they pass me their purses and dance on the sidewalk, laughing. i thought was something that only happened in movies.
my ma makes my mother eggs every morning because my mother can’t cook for shit. my mother presses my ma’s work blazers for her because my ma still can’t figure out how to work the new iron.
when it was warm, high-school me would wake up on the weekends and wander downstairs to find them sitting in the backyard in the sun, drinking coffee together and splitting the newspaper in a surgical, exact process since they’d worked out who wanted which sections years ago.
my mother is happier than she’s ever been. my ma, too. there is a future out there for every gay person who’s always known they’re gay, like my ma, and for everyone who figures it out later, like my mother. there’s time.
they’re growing old together. i cannot express to you how much they are leading happy lives, loving each other, with a huge family surrounding them. i cannot express to you how much they have this beautiful future that they are living and will live.
i want you to know, if you don’t have any older gays in your life: they’re out there. and they’re living these full, happy lives.
sometimes i look to my moms and i think, i want a life like yours. and looking at them makes me believe i will get it.
Growing up in a superstitious, very religious Catholic family that retained strong ties to “the old country” meant being raised with a weird mixture of beliefs.
My maternal grandmother in particular would pray to Saint Anthony whenever she couldn’t find something, often enlisting the help of my cousins and I to recite the prayer/chant because, “God listens to children first.” But having parents from Ireland and Scotland, she also would regularly leave out gifts of bread or milk to her “house brownie.”
- For anyone not aware, a brownie (also known as a brùnaidh or gruagach depending on where the folklore is coming from) is a type of fae known to live in or around a house and help with chores. They would be insulted if you offered them payment for their help directly but enjoyed small gifts like fresh milk or bread left out for them in a corner. Some stories say that if you gave them clothes they would leave for good (often out of anger over the insult).
Now, I have never been able to find a story where a brownie helped it’s housemate find a lost item but my grandmother would always leave out a bit of cream if she needed to find something. She never answered directly when I asked her why, instead just telling me that it was “for the best” before heading off to cook or clean, her mission to find the lost item over. I don’t know if she thought the brownie had borrowed it, was playing a prank, or if she believed that the helpful soul had seen the lost object laying around and hating clutter, had put it away somewhere she hadn’t thought to look. I have a feeling it was the last one because once she had done a thorough search, said her prayers, and left out her cream she stopped worrying about it. And sure enough- poof! As she would be going about her business, there the lost object would be, out in plain sight.
I’m positive that there are non-magical reasons for why when she stopped freaking out while searching, she was able to think clearly and find her lost item. But I also have been in enough situations where we had most definitely looked in a certain spot and there had been nothing before but now there the lost book, pen, or knitting needle was.
And belief or no belief, I’ve grown up asking the house brownie for a bit of help when something is lost. Bread and honey are regularly left in a certain spot outside of my house. And even my partner, the least superstitious person I know, has gotten into the habit of saying, “I think the Brownie moved my *insert object here*” though he’s at least half joking.
Reader Alert: Homophobic Language
I’ve been called “fag” many times in my life, but probably the last place in the world where I would have expected to have it happen again was the “Paganism and the LGBTQ+ Experience” panel discussion at Paganicon.
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