Comedian Cal Wilson. Photo / Supplied
Comedian Cal Wilson has spoken candidly about the horrific school bullying she suffered at the hands of her fellow peers.
The 46-year-old, originally from New Zealand, said the girls at her high school would have to endure a ritual dubbed the "barracuda" before being accepted as a "cool kid",
Speaking on The Guilty Feminist podcast, Wilson, who now lives in Melbourne, recalled the terrifying moment she was held down by the "popular" rugby players.
"I wasn't one of the cool kids at school, I was a nerdy drama kid and in the last year in high school I suddenly started to be on the periphery of the cool kids," she said.
The television personality likened the "barracuda" to something "like getting the blue tick on Twitter... the verification from the rugby team".
"What happened was that if you were one of the girls the rugby players approved of in some sense, they would grab you and hold you down, and one of them would bite you on the a** hard enough to leave a bruise," Wilson explained.
"They didn't take your pants off or anything like that... they'd bite you through your clothes."
The stand-up comedian remembered the vivid details of how the abuse took place that left her with a bruise for up to two weeks.
"I was thrown to the ground. I had my arms pinned, I had my legs pinned and I was bitten on the a**," she said.
"I didn't know how to feel about it. It never occurred to me to go home to my parents and go: 'I've just been assaulted by a rugby player'. It just didn't occur to me that was something you could say."
And the suffering didn't stop there after a frightened Wilson said she faced another round of the barracuda.
"As they threw me to the ground in the common room, I had a rugby player holding my arms down and a rugby player holding my legs down, and the third guy was going to bite me on the a**," she said.
"I just suddenly went 'I don't want this to happen any more, I don't want to be bitten again'. And so I started struggling, and then I had this realisation that I couldn't move, I was pinned down.
"I felt like I was struggling for my life, I had this fear of like: 's***, I've got to get out of this'. I was struggling with all of my might and I could not move.
"[Then] I had this horrifying, ugly epiphany that if I was in this situation for real - if I had three men holding me down... that I would literally be f***ed."
Wilson said she eventually broke down in tears, as she recalled feeling "vulnerable and powerless" when she struggled to escape.
She said the boys were "absolutely appalled" because she "hadn't been a good sport" after "ruining the fun" for them when she started sobbing.
The well-known comedian said the second round of the barracuda actually put her back to square one after she felt like an outcast at school.
"I tried to talk to a couple of them [rugby players] about it to say what it felt like, but they were huge," she said.
"The only way I could've made them feel as vulnerable was if I held a gun to their head. That would be the only way they could understand how it felt to be that powerless."