A Dose of Cath

I never want to ever explain myself for anything I do because I believe that I don't owe anyone anything for my own decision, but right now, I feel like I have to make this clear. 

I'm going to do something crazy right now. I am going to dive head first off the cliff by telling everyone a story that I have never ever told anyone before. You might've thought that just because I talk about sex and reproductive health all the time, there's pretty much nothing that I can't talk about, right? Well, this is going to feel like I ripped a page off of my diary. I'm going to tell you about my coming out story. It's not the kind of coming out that you're thinking about, but it's going to leave me naked and vulnerable just like an LGBT coming out. And at the end of this post, I'm sure I'll have people labeling me as a freak and stigmatizing me. I know the risks, but I'm doing this anyway.

“I heard she lost her virginity,” whispered the twelve-year-old me to half a dozen of my friends listening. We were in the sixth grade. Rumors were sparkling like fire about how one of our classmates had had sex with her boyfriend. It’s scary to think how a 12-year-old girl could be so influenced by social norms. It’s even scarier to think that it’s generally perceived that once a woman loses her virginity, she automatically is considered as a “bad” person. Seven years later, I’m lying on my bed, writing this article, wishing someone could have told the 12-year-old me what I’m about to tell you right now. It would’ve saved the poor girl that I trashed talk a lot of shame and hurt.