God forbid women initiated sex. The first time I initiated sex with the guy I was hooking up with he shut me down so badly that I questioned my own worth.

2019 was an especially brutal winter for me. My best friend had recently overdosed and died. I didn't tell anyone, but I stopped drinking. I decided to stop drinking because things were getting out of hand. I would drink before classes to get me through the day, and I hit rock bottom when I got into a fight outside my college bar.

I had recently turned 21, and the wine bottles were piling up. That winter I was also training for the Norwegian 18 mile foot march, so the workouts kept me busy. I'm really thankful for that team, because it was the only thing keeping me from not drinking. We had Saturday workouts and practices at 4 am during single digit Chicago weather. The guy I was hooking up with thought I didn't like him because I wouldn't go out to drink with him and his friends. I understand how he thought that, but the truth is that after rucking 13 miles on a Friday morning, I could barely even walk. I wanted to go out with him, but I was so scared that I would get drunk and start thinking about Grace, and be that girl at the bar crying.

I'm so used to holding everything in and making it seem like I'm okay, especially when I am not, so I just continued to do what I always did. Then, it worsened. He would go out, wake me up around 3 am when he was done drinking, we would fuck and go to sleep. This happened every Thursday through Sunday, and I just thought it was how it was supposed to be. Then Marissa's birthday came around and we were going to this EDM concert thing, and I stopped crying, started drinking and pretended that I was fine for 6 hours.

At the pregame before the pregame, I started to get horny, and guess who decided to stay in and have a chill night? Let's call this guy Illinois. So Illinois was asking me to stay in and flag and go chill with him, which I honestly considered. But I hadn't been out in months, and I really liked hanging with the girls so I just told him that we'd fuck when I the concert was over.

And.

He

Got.

So

Mad.

He stopped texting me and pretended to be asleep, and I was livid. Did he just fucking reject me? So now that the roles are reversed and I'm going out and he's staying in, he's mad at me for wanting to have sex? What the actual fuck?

The next day he said some dumb shit, like ops I fell asleep. Knowing deep inside me that was a lie, I told him he was annoying me and he admitted that he stopped responding to me and went to sleep because he didn't like me using such vulgar language, and it made him feel like a body. Um, wait what? You're joking right?

The thing is, shit started to hit the fan. Here I was trying to be cool and accepting his behavior. I allowed him to wake me up at 3 am on Saturday's when I had to be up by 8 am to go ruck 10 miles in the fucking snow. I let him. Over. And over. And over again. He may not have called it "f*cking", but that's what we were doing. The saddest part, is that I didn't really mind, I liked him, so I thought it was okay. But the second I treated him the same way he was treating me, he shamed me. He made me feel disgusting for wanting to have sex with him.

And I think I almost lost myself, when I realized that this was a one way relationship. I was only there to please him. It didn't matter what needs I had, or when I wanted to have sex, because it was on his time. It took me a while to realize it though. I was just acting out and acting crazy, I know I should feel ashamed or say how I'm supposed to be sorry for being immature and toxic, but I'm not. Because the moment I started dating the next guy and was treated entirely better, I knew I wasn't the problem.

I'm sorry if I get a little defensive when people try to say that women and men are equal, because I know for a damn fact that guys are glorified for initiating sex.

DePaul University

Contributors

SUGGESTED COMMUNITIES

Facebook Comments