Non-fiction / Unashamed-My Sexual History (revision)
When I started having sex it wasn’t because I was in love. My first time wasn’t enjoyable and certainly not special. For most of my life my sexual activities were a symptom of my inherent inferiority. The consequences of my actions were once my deepest source of shame.
There were many reasons why I was inferior to everyone else. Adolescence was not kind to me. My acne was so bad that even complete strangers felt compelled to come up and ask me what was wrong with my face. I made a habit of walking around with my head down. When talking to people I wouldn’t look them in the eye. Wrongly I assumed if I couldn’t see then they couldn’t see me.
The hardest time of my life was in middle school. My mother sent me miles out of my neighborhood so I could attend a “good” school. I got a superior education and maintained my honor roll status all while classmates tortured me mercilessly everyday. “P-I-M-P-L-E-S!” was just one of my infamous nicknames. On class surveys that measured such superficial (but significant) categories as, best dressed, best looking, and best hair I always ranked dead last.
By seventh grade it seemed like out of nowhere everyone was obsessed with sex. At school all everyone was talking about was kissing and boyfriends, and sex. Whenever possible kids would gather in the back of the class playing the secret game of “Dare,” where horny and curious teens would dare one another to touch, kiss, grind, or fondle another classmate. I usually watched with envy because none of the boys were interested in touching me. At home I hung out with a three girls who lived on my block. Shelly and Tasha were older but Tina was my age. Shelly and Tasha were full of stories about their sexual exploits with the neighborhood drug dealers. They loved to “school us young bucks” about sex. They made fun of Tina and I for being virgins. They told us the worst thing would be for a guy to find out that we were “tight.” Around thirteen womanhood kicked in, dramatically so for Tina. Soon she started to brag that she had sex with a twenty-four year old man. That left me as the only virgin in the group. My inexperience became a running joke.
I vowed that I would lose my virginity by the time I was fourteen. On my way home from school one fateful day I passed a group of drug dealers on the corner. One of them broke from the crowd and approached me. I kept my eyes to the ground as usual. Gently, he took his finger and lifted my chin. Looking straight in my eyes he told me I was pretty. I replayed his words over and over in my mind. It wasn’t long before I had sex with him, several of his friends, and his brother.
Sex hurt more than anything. I didn’t even know that the act included penetration until the first time I did it. But I kept having sex for two reasons. First I was trying to keep up a front. I didn’t want anyone to know how inexperienced I was. The last thing I wanted was to be accused me of being young. Second, I got myself into situations with the guys where I felt like I had to have sex with them. I didn’t feel that I had the right to say no.
Losing my virginity did not solve any of my problems. Instead of my friends getting off my back about me being a virgin they called me a whore. At my first GYN visit I was diagnosed with three different STD’s, Gonorrhea, Chlamydia, and Trichomoniasis. The health care providers were very concerned but I wasn’t. It wasn’t AIDS and I knew that medicine would get rid of it. I took the antibiotics, went back a few weeks later and everything was clear. They gave me condoms and instructed me to use them every time I had sex. I couldn’t explain to them why I couldn’t follow their instructions. I knew I was lucky that guys even wanted to have sex with me. It wasn’t my place to tell a grown man to put on a condom. And so naturally the next time I had sex I didn’t, even though I had a condom in my pocket, and despite the fact that I knew he had given me Chlamydia before.
I don’t know when the symptoms started but pretty soon I knew that I had been burned again. I didn’t go to the doctor right away. I guess a part of me was embarrassed so I just waited until my next regularly scheduled appointment in June. (It was April at the time.) In the meantime I started to notice other changes in my body. All of a sudden I was extremely tired all the time. My breasts were tender. When I started throwing up I knew I was pregnant. The nausea would come everyday around three thirty. My mouth would start to water and then I would have to rush off the subway train just in time to vomit in a trashcan on the platform.
The doctor confirmed that I was pregnant sometime after eighth grade graduation. Because of my pregnancy I had to be transferred to another clinic, however the new clinic couldn’t get me an appointment until August or September. Before switching me they asked me if I had any other issues. I didn’t tell them about the Chlamydia. Instead I just waited for my next appointment and suffered with the disease throughout the summer, which ironically included a week at a Bible camp.
Four pills easily got rid of the Chlamydia but by the time I was in my second trimester I had another problem that pills couldn’t treat. I don’t know when exactly I first noticed them but when I did I didn’t tell anyone. Instead I waited for my next doctor’s visit. I lie on my back on the examining table with my feet in the stirrups and my legs spread apart as all kinds of medical personnel marched unannounced in and out of my room gawking at my jumbo-sized genital warts. The ordeal was humiliating but at least when it was over I would be treated, or so I thought. The doctor refused to treat my warts because I was pregnant. I had no choice but to take matters into my own hands. Every day I would withdraw to the privacy of the bathroom and treat my warts. I would apply petroleum jelly to the healthy areas surrounding the warts and alcohol to the warts themselves, both internal and external. The process was long and painful. Gradually the alcohol would dry the warts out and I would pick them off.
In 2002 it had been eight years since I had genital warts and five years since I had an abnormal pap but those facts didn’t comfort a boyfriend who found out that I once had “warts on my pussy.” He demanded that I shave my vagina so he could inspect it and make sure I didn’t still have them. I was willing to do it, but then he changed his mind. He said it didn’t matter if I had them or not. He could never touch me again and then he left, like I never meant anything to him at all.
I was devastated as I realized that no one would ever love me. My boyfriend was an ex-con. If even he found me repulsive I knew that no decent man would ever see past my faults. I had more sex partners at twenty-two and more STD’s than most women had in their whole lives.
Every visit to the GYN reinforced the fact that I was disgusting. I was a patient of the same family planning clinic for more than ten years but that didn’t stop them from taking a complete sexual history every other annual visit. They asked the same questions every time “What age were you at your first pregnancy? Have you ever had an STD? How many partners have you had?” Of course medical personnel are supposed to take the answers to these questions with a detached professionalism but my case forced their personal opinions to show through. I resented their judgment and eventually stopped answering their questions honestly. I left out the fact that I ever had STD’s. I found justifications to not count many of the men that I had been intimate with. I felt a lot better about myself.
But new sense of self-esteem did not help with my relationships with men. I repeatedly ended up with men that used me. Other times I’d have sex with men or do things for them that I didn’t want to do and I had no explanation for why I couldn’t just say no to them. My therapist suggested that I allowed those things to happen because I was ashamed of me. Quickly I disputed this fact, reminding her that despite everything I am a college graduate with honors. “But,” she reminds me “it’s not something your proud of.” She continues, “Shame is when you feel bad about yourself because something is inherently wrong with you. Do you feel shame?”
After thinking for a while I answer “Yes, I mean let’s be real. I was a whore. I made the choice at fourteen to go out and seduce grown men.”
She stops me right there. “How does a fourteen year old girl seduce a grown man?”
“Look the age of consent in this state is fourteen so plenty of people feel that…”
She cuts me off “So you would allow your fourteen year old son to have a sexual relationship with a twenty-seven year old woman?”
“Of course not.”
“But what if he came to you and said that he loved this woman and he wanted to be with her?”
“He’s not old enough to know that.” My therapist smiles smugly and immediately I realize that I’ve been caught. We sit for a while in silence. I continue “I know what you’re trying to do but it’s a fact there’s something wrong with me. If the same bad things always happen to you it’s you not everyone else who has the problem. When bad things happen to you but good things happen to the friend that’s with it shows that’s something’s wrong with you.”
“I think the reason why you’re not proud of your accomplishments and why you’re not happy is because you’re ashamed of yourself. “You are a good and worthy and respectable person…”
I can’t help but smirk at this noble thought. My therapist suddenly stops and asks something totally unexpected. “Can I give you a hug?”
I fumble for words. “Sure, if you want.”
My therapist takes me in her arms and holds me tight. She tells me in my ear “I know it will take a long time for you to believe it yourself but one day you will.”
That day is today. It took a long time for me to acknowledge the deeply ingrained sense of inferiority and see that it is what drove my sexual activities and my relationships with men. I may have been able to lie to the medical personnel and to myself but I could not put one over on my subconscious, or my therapist, or the men in my life. They all were aware of my low self-esteem and knew that as long as I remained oblivious to it I would be subject to its control. Once I became conscious of what was going on I was able to take control. I now truly believe that I am greater than the sum total of my mistakes and know that I am worthy of healthy and respectful relationships with men. Because of my newfound strength I am able to reveal my sexual history unashamed.
You need to log in to urbis or create an urbis account to review this writing.
Reviews
Sort Reviews by Newest | Oldest | Highest Quality | Lowest Quality | Newest Comments |
Your note says you want specific notes on grammer and structure but that not really my thing so please forgive me. Instead I really want to commend you for your bravery. This piece brought tears to my eyes not only because i could relate to some of the issues of shame and blame that you bring up but more because I am in awe of your ability and willingness to write about these things. I have spent many years trying to figure out how to write about my life without exposing too much of myself or my family, trying to protect people who never did the same for me. And while I’m sure this was not easy to write, this piece is helping me realize that there is no shame in honesty. This is a powerful bit of writing!
- add/view comments (1)
Showing 1 - 1 of 1
Review item
Add to faves
GENERAL
REVIEW QUEUE
Ratings & Rankings
