photograph: PINTEREST

I was bullied throughout elementary and middle school for being opinionated, weird, and to the boys… disgusting. 

In middle school, there was a game the boys used to play where they would dare each other to ask out the most undesirable people in the classroom. It's fair to say because of this game, I got fake asked out many times. It happened so often that when I was finally asked out for real I thought it was a joke. I kept telling the guy he could just tell his friends he did the dare and to stop with the act.

Being either ignored or made fun of by tween/teenage boys did a number on my psyche. I still find behaviors and thought patterns of mine today, concerning the way I see myself and relationships with men, that are rooted in the way those boys treated me.

It wasn't until high school that I got any kind of positive male attention. All women and AFAB (assigned female at birth) people get taught by our society – including our peers or family members – that male validation is “the thing” you need to succeed, and I was no exception. 

When boys started to see me as sexually attractive I became enamored of their attention. A lot of the hookups that I started having in high school were simply done to boost my ego and, upon further reflection, it was honestly a form of self-harm. I say self-harm because I let many of these boys use me as a sexual object more than being an active participant in my pleasure.

At this time, I only cared about quantity when I should’ve always cared about quality. My attitude towards anything sexual and the actions I engaged in was beyond degrading (not in a fun, kinky way) to myself. I was using these hookups as a way to cope with and mask so many of the insecurities, anxieties, and other traumas I’ve struggled with in my life. 

Not to mention, I felt so behind because it felt as though everyone I knew had already gone through most of the bases or had already had sex. It was like there was this sexual pop quiz that I would have to pass but I had none of the study material. I rushed through many sexual acts in such a short amount of time, it soon became meaningless to me who I was sharing that part of myself with because I was simply trying to “get it over with”.

While I dropped the desire to crave male attention as much, the need to be desired sexually was so strong for me because, for most of my life, my peers deemed me as “unfuckable.” I thought I was gaining power and control by hooking up with boys in high school that never would’ve given middle school me a chance, but really I was giving my power and control away. 

Self-confidence has the word self in it for a reason. It comes from truly owning and loving every part of you. The second that I relied on any boy to define my self-worth I became worthless, and if I was rejected or embarrassed by them it started this vicious cycle of constantly needing more. 

After I lost my virginity my senior year of high school, I went on a sex spiral that went on throughout the entirety of my freshman year of college with so many random people from dating apps just to feel more of that supposed self-worth. Having that many partners brought a lot of good and bad into my life and it was the hands-on sexual experience that high school me always longed for desperately. 

That sex spiral altered my perception of sex completely. 

I was using sex as a form of escapism from parts of my life I didn’t want to confront. There was an aspect of shame that came after where I was disgusted with letting certain people at that time have access to me in that way. Part of that shame was thinking about how my body count had grown so quickly and for a short while I was a little insecure that a potential serious partner would think less of me for it (which is ludicrous. so please stop seeing people that make that a big deal, they’re the truly insecure ones).

While I eventually discovered having sex as a way for me to actually connect with partners, I saw it mostly as a purely physical act where all parties involved were just trying to orgasm. I remember the first time I “made love” to my ex instead of just fucking him, it completely drained me, body and soul– as if I had given every ounce of myself to him. I further learned and felt how sex can be this powerful energy exchange, but before it was just a way for me to get experience. 

I still have this need to try everything I want to experience sexually at least once. There is a part of me that feels as though I will deeply regret it or be unfulfilled if I don’t. It’s also why having a long-term monogamous partner is a tad scary for me at this time in my life because I want to do as much (with as many people) as possible while I’m young. 

There’s this sex bucket list in my head and I’ve gotten most of what I want to do checked off, but I think I’ll always wonder about what those experiences would’ve been like.

The difference now is that I try to be more picky with who I let into my sex life, mostly because the kinks or experiences I try and want to try require a level of trust, connection, and communication. 

There is still much that I need to work on and reflect on when it comes to how I see myself and sex but acknowledging where my bad behaviors or habits are coming from is one of the first steps in breaking them. 

Sometimes Always love,

Brooke