“We all got a bracelet… this is weird I just remembered that… we got a silver bracelet with a little pearl on it and that was representing our purity and so it was definitely like here is this gift that you have to give your husband someday and I remember wearing that bracelet for a little bit and then I remember some girls were like ‘well I’ve already had sex so I’m not going to wear this’ you know? So I remember that I was like well I don’t want to wear it either! Even though I hadn’t had sex yet I think it was something that I was very confused about at the time.”

It’s such a weird sad story…since I never learned about STDs or condoms or anything I really didn’t know how STDs worked or maybe when to use a condom I didn’t know anything like that and so my sophomore year I remember I exposed to things really quickly at TTT and I kinda got involved in the “wrong” crowd and so we like partied a lot and I remember there was this guy I had a huge crush on and so he we like stayed at his house one night I guess his parents were out of town and I think it was the summer between sophomore and junior year cause I remember that we could drive and so we like went to his house and I had not like even pecked a boy before like that was like all and I really liked this guy and I had drank a little bit so like he asked me if we could like… well actually… he kinda just started to like make out with me and I remember liking him a lot so I was like oh okay yay! This is fun right? And then like we ending up being like kind of its just kind of funny…because I told it recently to a friend and she was like, “this is so sad I can’t believe this happened to you” and then I remember thinking like wow it is really sad this happened… so anyways I really liked him and we were downstairs on his couch and he started kissing me and I was like thinking I really don’t know how I feel about this and then he asked me if I would give him a blow job and I said to him “I never have before” and then he was like, “that’s okay. Its really easy pretend like its your favorite popsicle or something” (laughs). Oh god, Ugh this sounds awful and so I did and I didn’t know like before that I didn’t even know how like how to do something like that. So that experience for me was really scarring and it was also like he got mad at me and it was awful I don’t know it was just so weird and…looking back I think like I didn’t know anything about like… like I knew he was like a “bad” kid and he probably did a lot of things with a lot of girls and looking back I think like why would I have ever done something like that? Like I didn’t know if he had STDs I didn’t even know you could get STDs from…anything other than intercourse with like 100 people (laughs). Yeah… that sounds awful well I think it sounds awful because I was so naïve… I struggled with eating disorders and I struggled with identity like self confidence issues so just receiving affirmation from guys was just like I would do anything for them, I feel like which can be a typical girl thing to do and so for me I felt like I didn’t really care what happened to me as long as he thought I was pretty or something. Which that’s why we need this kind of thing [education] so girls don’t ever have to deal with that kind of stuff, its awful. So but then he ended up really taking advantage of me and kind of… raping me… and I have never talked to him again actually. Like I would see him at school and run away actually. I was so mad at him it was awful. He went to my school but then he like got in trouble for the drugs so his parents decided to take him out of that school and put him in public school and so I didn’t have to deal with him anymore so after that there was like this whole idea of rape like I never really learned about rape, um, so I didn’t report it, I didn’t tell anyone, and I was like he’s my friend I don’t want to get him in trouble, hes a boy he didn’t mean to…”

I don’t think teaching abstinence-only sex education is the right thing because otherwise you leave education of those things up to whatever. The Internet, your friends, the boys or whatever. No one ever taught me to like even set boundaries for myself like don’t do anything and that was like also… I wish I would’ve been educated on like condoms and STDs and rape and honestly everything!… I think sex education is so important because sex is everywhere and you’re going to learn it whether you’re 10 or 20 and if you don’t learn it well then you are going to have… like I’m thankful I don’t have any STDs and I’m really thankful for that but I could and I just didn’t even know it was like an option and I just think education is super important. I think people are just afraid if we talk about sex then kids will have sex and that just not true, for my family or others. Cause not talking about [it] didn’t make it something that people didn’t do. If you don’t learn about it then you are going to find out about it anyway! We don’t live in a box; I think it’s just so good to talk about it!”