Most of us cringe when we recall our first sexual experience. But for one woman, her first time brings back horrible memories of shame and upset, too.
To raise awareness of the need to discuss consent with teens, she shared her story on the Humans of New York Facebook page, and it’s pretty chilling.
“It was the summer between 8th and 9th grade,” it begins. “We were make-out buddies. Sometimes he’d talk to me during the day. Other times, he wouldn’t.”
That’s how it was between them for a short while. Then one night, things got more serious.
“We were in his basement….getting drunk, and he kept asking me if I wanted to do it,” she wrote. “My heart was racing and I was terrified. I kept saying, ‘maybe’, ‘maybe’, ‘maybe.’”
But her ‘buddy’ wasn’t happy with maybe, and took action so she’d make a decision once and for all.
“He said, ‘no more maybes. Let’s flip a coin.’”
The coin indicated that they should have sex, and the author says that her “stomach sank.”
“After we finished, he said: ‘I think I heard my dad upstairs. You need to leave.’”
Once she got home, she was filled with shame and guilt.
“I filled up a whole page in my journal,” she wrote. “I wrote in purple sharpie, over and over: ‘It didn’t happen.’ For the longest time, I felt like it was my fault for feeling hurt.”
“Like I was being overly sensitive. It took five years for me to realise that consent is not a coin flip.”
What a heartbreaking story, and one so many women can relate to growing up. The boy in question took advantage of her, and there’s no excuse for it.
Come on, mums, let’s teach our sons one more time that only ‘yes’ means yes. ‘Maybe’ doesn’t yes, ‘no’ doesn’t mean yes, and a coin flip certainly doesn’t mean yes.
