Rowing Ruminations Part 5
(No spoilers for any book, rowing or otherwise!)
(In fact, this post contains absolutely nothing about rowing!)
There was an event in our school where all the
freshmen athletes from all the clubs were expected to do some kind of
performance. Some of the clubs just did a song and dance, but others, including
crew, did lewd skits. Ours that year involved me wearing a black miniskirt (borrowed
from classmate) and a bustier (actually it was a black trash bag wrapped around
and tucked into a strapless bra) and black high heels (Annie Cat, they were my
speech outfit high heels), wielding a black leather whip (one of the
upperclassmen brought it home from India, long story). The other freshman, who
were covered with strategically placed plastic beverage bottles painted an
opaque flesh color and nothing else, were forced by yours truly and her whip to
go under a limbo bar that was also strategically placed on a freshman who’d
lost a very important game of rock, paper and scissors. No one wanted to do it,
but we all did. It was just what you did back then when the upperclassmen told
you to.
Just before we got on the stage was the
first time most of our team saw us. Most of them thought it was
hysterical, but the crew captain took one look at me and freaked out.
(Interestingly enough, he didn’t freak out at how the other freshmen were
dressed, or rather, undressed.) He told me to put on my jacket before I got up
on the makeshift stage in the student cafeteria, so I pulled on the navy blue
nylon windbreaker I always wore to practice. The other upperclassmen booed and
yelled at me to take the jacket off, so I did. I didn’t think how I was dressed
was that big a deal because they weren’t seeing anything they wouldn’t have seen
if I’d been on swim team (the women’s swimming club had done a cute, tasteful
dance…in their Speedo racerbacks), and the guys were obviously much worse off.
The skit was lewd, and that was probably the bigger problem than what we were
(or weren’t) wearing, but that was just what you did back then. I hope college
kids nowdays have better taste, but somehow I doubt it. This probably wasn’t a
thing just in our school, because in the reception after the Three Schools
Race, the other schools had skits that were similarly (dis)tasteful.
And then there was that one year when, one
of the other schools, in their skit, one guy held the other down and opened his
mouth and…never mind.
Seriously, I think no one in the Three
Schools noticed I was there until like my third or fourth year (except when we
were doing our awful skit). One thing I didn’t get that much of during those
early years was attention that was, if you will, gender based, from my own
squad or from any of the other schools. I don’t know if the upperclassmen were
watching out for me or if no one was interested in me because I was so plain. I
got standard issue teasing (especially about the lewd skit, because we
performed it at every race reception) but nothing beyond that. They’d say lewd
(rude? I’m Japanese, I can’t tell the difference :P) things to each other and
occasionally discuss conquests and plans while I was within earshot, but since
none of it involved me or any girl I knew personally, both sides were happy to
let well enough alone.
2 comments:
That skit sounds like the sort of thing that would end up in a movie - I've never experienced anything like that but then I was never on any college sports team.
A movie? Who do you think would play me in a movie? :P It wouldn't be a Japanese movie, because in the national level university athletic league in Japan (think NCAA), women can't cox men's boats, while they can in the UK and US.
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