Feature image by Axelle/Bauer-Griffin / Scott Taetsch / Marc Piasecki / Robin L Marshall / Dimitrios Kambouris via Getty Images
Oh, how we miss sleepovers at 13! We were eating way too much candy, staying up late to talk about boys, telling embarrassing stories and jumping on beds. Nothing felt better than giggling with our friends for hours after the lights went out. We always dreaded the morning because that meant finishing our homework before school on Monday. Yuck.
Even though my middle school years were filled with bullies, awkward body parts and feeling like an outsider (whose weren’t?!), I sometimes miss the simpler times when all I cared about was hanging out with my BFF4EVER.
Most of us probably didn’t have a girlfriend at 13, so now is your chance to cuddle close to your “best friend” and tell her how you really feel! Plan the slumber party of your dreams and discover the gal you’re meant to be smooching under under the sleeping bag.
I got Kristen Stewart 😆
Gillian Anderson!!
Rosario Dawson! Happy with this outcome!
I don’t think I’ve ever struggled so much with a quiz question as when I had to pick a boardgame!
kristen stewart! am now having some very vivid flashbacks to middle school sleepovers of many varieties!
Gillian Anderson! Both current me and 13 year old me would be stoked
Tessa Thompson fuck yeah!
Yet another person who got Kristen Stewart.
I got Kate McKinnon! Don’t really know about her but this description was accurate:
You’re weird and probably didn’t have many friends in middle school, but that never bothered you because you always danced to the beat of your own drum! You have 1-3 very specific hobbies you’ve mastered over your life and this is one of the many things Kate digs about you! You’re unapologetically yourself and you expect your super hot, super funny, super smart gf to always be true to herself as well! Your combined quirkiness is couple goals!
I got Lena Waithe, and I would definitely make that mistake but I was definitely NOT “the cool kid in middle school who could’ve asked anyone to be your boyfriend or girlfriend” 🤣🤣
I – I don’t understand how I’m supposed to pick only one of those pillow forts when clearly the answer is a mega-fort incorporating all of them? Help?
Candace Parker apparently digs the one fort I did pick, though.
I stop doing sleepovers at 12 but I’m glad Kate McKinnon would’ve been my lady
Sara Ramirez, cool!!
What about her did you like that was cool to us
Thank you for including that Princess Protection Program interview poster, that *really* did the trick to drop-kick me back to age 13!
I was too old for sleepovers by the time any of these bands came out but I did just have a vivid sensory memory of lip-syncing “Baby Baby Baby” into a hairbrush with friends while drinking Capri Sun, so thank you for that
I hate that most of my sleepover memories are me being the tiny asshole who was trying to go to sleep at 10pm because I knew my parents were coming to get me to go to church in the morning – honestly evangelicalism ruined my childhood!! love this quiz + theme though :)
Hi, I got Sara Ramirez and I am very happy. You got me at “You’re a hot person attracted to hot people”. Why, thank you for noticing!
Sara Ramirez!!!! OMG.
Gillian Anderson😅 Yeah, don’t think soooo😂 Only memories I have of Anderson is from my childhood, when my bestfriend and I had sleepovers at her house. My bestfriend always made me watch the X-Files, which her dad didn’t allow her to see, because we were too young for it (and I absolutely HATED watching it😆 No good memories on my part😭)
Haha finally another person who wasn’t an Anderson fan when they were young
Lena Waithe ! Colour me intimidated, but as we know The Quiz sees all and tells it like it is !
I actually never had a sleepover (gasp!) but if I had, all of that burgeoning queer energy at 13 would’ve made it over-the-top amazing, just like these choices. It was hard to choose !
I’m very jealous that you got Lena Waithe. I might have to take the quiz again and doctor my answers…
o m g!! I also got Lena Waithe and also never had sleepovers! This quiz inspired me to start planning one! Unfortunately Lena Waithe will not be attending since she does not know who I am, hahah, but I am pleased to invite my “Fag5” group of friends, now that I have a group of friends for sleepovers… I was definitely *not* the cool kid who had game, I was the, to paraphrase another AS quiz, “mysterious kid always leaning on stuff and [when not skipping class] saying profound stuff in class” aka being the class clown/bullying my teachers/challenging the content. Yay us & our shared celeb gf Lena Waithe!!
It took me several questions of this quiz to realize I was supposed to be answering it as my thirteen-year-old self and not as my adult self? Oops.
Still, no regrets.
Rosario Dawson! And the description was spot on for me. Never have I taken a quiz so seriously. Haha
I also feel compelled to share that my friends and I were chaperones a few years back at a queer youth summit. And with some free time in the evening we dug through the games at the mess hall. We decided to play Pretty Pretty Princess and instead we called it Pretty Pretty Pillow Princess 😂 Honestly, kinda silly but it turned out to be a strangely healing thing for me. I appreciate this quiz for bringing back that memory to me. Thank you 💕
I got Debbie Downer because the moment I read “What prank are you pulling on the first person who falls asleep?” I almost threw my computer.
REALLY?! WE’RE ADULTS & WE’RE STIL ROMANTISIZING THIS NON-CONSENT BULLSHIT?
As the kid who was almost always the “first person who falls asleep” – because it turns out not every human body is equally great at enduring sleep deprivation and every human body needs rest to survive – the range of “pranks” I’ve endured goes from having objects thrown at my unconscious body to sexual assault.
One more than one occasion I was told I shouldn’t be upset because I knew what I was getting into because I “fell asleep first”. You know what was (often) more upsetting than the prank itself? Finding out other people thought “it wasn’t cool” but failed to intervene. Notice any patterns here?
For a website that waxes poetic about body autonomy and consent this is so off base I’m regretting my A+ subscription for the first time ever – it is the only paid subscription I have maintained during my last 14 months of unemployment – but the idea that this “joke” passed through without challenge feels real fucked.
I am so sorry that any of this happened to you or anyone else for that matter. I am not sure what is worse the abuse or that people knew better but did nothing to intervene… Especially people who were supposed to be friends… people who chose to associate with each other unlike family, coworkers, etc.
No one in my circle chose to abuse each other. We never even thought to do even the most benign “prank.”
Perhaps it’s a geographical, cultural difference. When I went to high school with different people, I learned of the “pranks” the boys did to each other and how they quickly escalated. Luckily the adults stepped in.
Did any of your abusers receive reprimand, punishment, or later have a sucky life?
I don’t wish a sucky life on anyone – I just want people to interrogate what types of violence is culturally framed a nostalgic childhood experience.
Pranks are often really shitty, I agree (not even to get into the awfulness of sexual assault).
I wonder if it’s helpful to see this as one poorly thought out, mistaken question in a quiz (from someone who perhaps had very different experiences with pranks), rather than as the essence of the website coming through such that their (as you say) noted commitment to bodily autonomy, consent, etc. is a farce? I feel like one reading is more charitable to this website’s consistent commitments than the other.
In theory, yes, but also, no. If everyone knows how shitty pranks are, then why are they still a point of cute nostalgia? Why was it even included? If you wrote the piece, would you think to yourself “The thing I really miss about middle school sleepovers was fucking around with people’s bodies while they are unconscious and unable to reconfirm their consent to this act?”
Every reader on this site knows the power of the written word – how we can see ourselves reflected in someone else’s story can empower us or dismiss us. Just because this is a fluff piece doesn’t dismiss the oversight.
I think Chandra did a much better job responding, so I’ll defer to that comment after this, but just to clarify my comment:
I don’t think everyone “knows how shitty pranks are” – I was only saying, I personally think they often are. I think perhaps enough people had positive or neutral experiences with them such it doesn’t stand out as problematic to them in the same way. Maybe they only had sleepovers with very good friends where people weren’t bothered or something? That wasn’t my experience, but I can imagine it.
I really appreciate your comments – I think my anger comes from the fact that, no, most people I’ve engaged with as an activist have not interrogated their participation with abusive community practices as children.
It’s not a good/bad human thing – assigning morality to the individual leaves less room for understanding how we frame and engage with consent and body autonomy as a society – especially when engaging with bodies that cannot verbalize consent.
I find pranks obnoxious and if anyone pranked me while I was in a vulnerable position, (not even mentioning sexual assault, which is the next level of unconsenting trauma), I would be looking to pay this person back. I would be out for revenge.
I don’t prank people. It is not my thing. When pranking, such in the case of this quiz, involves messing with people who haven’t provided any consent at all because they are asleep/unable to provide consent, and is positioned as a joke, this is abominable, contemptible and needs to be challenged.
The rest of this quiz is fine. But the pranking of this nature needs to stop. What is being offered here as an option of “fun”, is abuse.
TY for understanding. ❤ I WISH I held more rage, but mostly I was the kid who just didn’t get why I was shamed for “making it a big deal.”
The best thing that came out of all that garbage is one time, two goth girls at music camp found out some mean girls pulled shit on me and called it out & then took me under their wing – which explains my deep and unquestionable love for hotties with severe bangs.
I can relate to having experienced “harmless” pranking as extremely upsetting, as a kid who was subjected to other kinds bullying and consent violations, so I appreciate this perspective being brought up. I hadn’t thought about sleepover pranks in that light before. I’m guessing the author probably hadn’t either, or the other people who reviewed this quiz before it was published.
To me, this just underscores how much of what we thought of as acceptable as adolescents can come up in unexpected ways, and be reframed in retrospect. We are all in an ongoing process of learning, and I appreciate that Autostraddle strives to create a space where we can have these conversations in good faith without shutting each other down. I can understand having a strong reaction to something like this, especially if you’ve been harmed by the kind of person who did pull intentionally malicious pranks (or worse). That’s a terrible thing to go through. But I also believe that we have all had different experiences that will sometimes result in unintentional blunders, and I trust that Autostraddle’s long history of consent advocacy speaks more to their ethics than this one misstep.
Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve worked with youth since I was a youth – a great excuse to avoid shitty experiences is getting paid to teach other children body autonomy – but some of us did know at a young age that pranks are just hazing are just forms of community condoned abuse (even if I couldn’t have articulated as well it at the time). I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that I was targeted because I was the kid who said I didn’t want to participate.
I think you nailed it on the head when you said that you didn’t think about it. Bullying presented as “a prank” isn’t designed to give space to rescind consent without being shamed. It’s literally how the game is played.
But also, ignorance only goes so far. This site has repeatedly featured articles and writers discussing the pervasive nature of interpersonal abuse in the LGBTQ community – how do you think that shit starts? Abusive behaviors rarely start at an extreme – witch hunts never start with a stake burning.
I have experienced interpersonal abuse in the LGBTQ community that started from seemingly innocuous comments and snowballed into something much worse, so I’m familiar with that process, and I understand the urge to curb it as soon as you perceive it. I think you are right to point it out, I just don’t personally think that means this space is entirely worthless. I trust that it’s not the kind of place where this would be allowed to snowball in that way. I’ve spent enough time here that I feel safe offering the benefit of the doubt, and I believe that we will end up with no community at all if we can’t allow each other the room to make mistakes. You are of course totally within your rights to withdraw support, if that’s what feels best for you. For me, I choose to approach this issue differently, but either way I wish you well.
I said this was the first time I questioned my support – literally the first time. That’s why I felt the need to post my complicated feelings and not apologize for it.
I’m very surprised to have gotten Rosario Dawson as my celebrity girlfriend. I mean, she’s great and the description of our life together sounds lovely, but…
Maybe because I’m from an older generation – I was 13 in 1983, but I was hoping for Joan Jett or Kristie MacNichol or someone butch. There are like almost no real butches on tv, though, so maybe I was being unrealistic.
I guess some of us were quite, um, serious about this quiz…
My type: Rachel Maddow- smart butch with short hair and glasses and a lot to say
I thought I saw her jogging in lower Manhattan once and I nearly lost my mind!
I got Sara Ramirez who is basically my type but I wish I got Rosario Dawson :)
Kristen Stewart! I am thrilled obviously!
A