Francesca

For as long as I can recall, I’ve never been a virgin. In my teen years, when my peers were proud of their virginity, I hoped that no one would ask me whether I was still virgin. I’m not sure if I would have been honest. I remember being grateful that it was not part of my culture to be tested for virginity because I would have had to explain myself and disgrace my family. So I hid my virginity status and, since I’m an introvert, most people assumed I was one.

The question came up with my boyfriend years later, though, and I couldn’t run away from it this time. He got me to the point one evening where my mind and body were begging him to enter me. Unlike the other times, I let him go all the way. Suddenly he was huge on top of me, heavy; I disconnected. I opened my eyes and looked at him, no longer feeling the pleasure of the thrust, gentle as he was, but instead the terror of being pressed down. Moans of pleasure turned into winces of pain and panic.

There was something painfully familiar with this picture. Me vulnerable. Him powerful. Me the victim, he the perpetrator. He was my unknowing rapist. He was enjoying a moment that brought me pain, fear, vulnerability and hatred. I willed him to stop, my mind screamed, but my mouth did not cooperate. Here I was again, helpless, pressed down, small. The object of this man’s pleasure.

He must have felt the disconnection, because he stopped and pulled away slightly. I took a deep quivering breath. At the moment he was that perpetrator and I hated him. He looked at me. “Are you okay?” he asked and hugged me tightly. I cried in his arms, realising our special moment had been haunted. He asked much later in our lives, “When we made love for the first time, was it your first time?” I responded, “Voluntarily, yes…” My first time, and second, and third, and fourth…were in fact at the age of five with a sixteen-year-old uncle.

I’m not fond of sharing stories about my first time, as it was anything but special and loving. Every day is yet another struggle to lock it away into the deepest part of my unconscious mind.

Francesca (not her real name) is a researcher and humanist who believes in the inherent goodness of people.