I wouldn’t say no. but i wouldn’t say yes, either.

I wouldn’t say no. But I wouldn’t say yes, either. 

I wanted to be wanted. I wanted to kiss, I wanted someone to lay with. But when it came to sex, penetration that is, I didn’t want it. When it got to that point I just felt like it was owed.

For the most part I don’t hold it against any of those boys, for not asking for consent, for not noticing that I froze beneath them when they went inside of me. We were always drunk, and they were as new to it as I was. Really it wasn’t always fair to them either. Most of them were nice enough, good intentioned, and I’m sure would be shocked and uncomfortable to know I felt how I did. But I ache. I ache thinking about the pain I put myself through, doing what I thought I was supposed to in order to be the kind of girl those horribly average teenage boys wanted. I ache for my teenage self, how she was unable to see that that wasn’t sex, that that wasn’t right, that she didn’t owe anyone anything. The ache is hurt but it is also anger. Anger towards how long it took me to see those interactions for what they were, and to understand how deeply they seeped into my ideas of relationships, self worth, pleasure. Anger at how deeply they seeped. Like, how even as I started to know better, it felt impossible to pull sound from my mouth when I had the idea to speak up for myself and state my needs. Because I had spent so long telling myself I wasn’t supposed to. And while some of that anger is directed towards myself for not knowing better, it is really about the world that did not teach me it was wrong. The world that supported my ways of thinking that actively hurt me. There were times that were more complicated, times that were worse, but for the most part it was all pretty innocent- it wasn’t interpersonal violence. It was behaving according to the lessons we absorbed, not knowing that they weren’t all right. Not knowing ourselves, not knowing our bodies, not having the language we needed.

I was 15 or 16 when I had sex for the first time. I am 22 now. It has been 3 or so years since I really realized how much unlearning I had to do, and I have come so far. But that girl who feels she has to, the girl who freezes, the girl who wants to be wanted and thinks sex is the answer- she is still part of me. It is constant work. To remember how necessary it is to continue resisting those old lessons. To state my needs, to say no, to ask for consent, to demand consent be asked of me, to have confidence in my voice. To know I owe nothing of my body to anyone. To know I am whole and loved and desirable regardless of offering sex. To know I am whole and loved regardless of my “desirability.”  Sometimes I don’t feel capable of doing all that for myself in the moment. Of knowing all that, of believing it, even if I know it somewhere. But when I’m engaged with this conversation, even just with myself, I feel empowered to do it for the girl I was at 16, 17, 18. In some attempt at retrojected protection and guidance, to prove all of her self depreciation and justifications for submission wrong, to be a shield now for her soft soft body and heart. I am able to remember that I am not being bossy, or too emotional, or a tease, but that I am demanding space, autonomy, respect. From my partner and from myself and from the world that put me in the position of needing to demand in the first place. It can be bigger than me, bigger than the specific moment in question, I can be part of a resistance, a rewriting of the script. It is constant work. But in solidarity with my teenage self and everyone I’ve known who is fighting the same fight, I am trying. And I am practicing, practicing, practicing, building the knowledge, the language, the confidence, to do it just for myself, too. Right then in the moment, just for me.