I was raped as a 17-year-old virgin. He thanked me afterwards. I didn't tell anyone.

I first heard the word "slut" when I was 8 and my father screamed it at my mother during a late night row. She worked part-time as a waitress and he was forever accusing her of cheating on him. So when, at 11, I was told off at school for sitting with my knees apart because "only sluts sit like that", I knew it was bad. They weren't far apart, and I was wearing tights, and I was in a girls-only school but it was apparently a crime worthy of punishment. That school also taught me that only sluts eat in public and shamed me as dirty for wearing knickers under my nightie (it was a boarding school). The rules are confusing. I grew boobs early and it turned out that made me a slut, too. The worst was when I invited a girl from school to stay over and she wasn't allowed to because her mother thought I was a slut because of the way my breasts looked in my school uniform. The T-shirts clung and the poorly designed blouses popped open if I forgot to safety pin them closed. Boys at school were not that unkind to me, to be honest. I got remarks on my breasts, mostly when I ran (so I stopped doing that). An uncle fondled my breasts when we were alone watching TV one night, on the pretext of petting the cat sitting on my lap. A male friend of my parents stuck his tongue in my mouth when kissing me for the New Year, then mocked me for not having experience. These things I understood were somehow my fault, and my shame. I did not flirt, I did not dress provocatively (I wore a gunmetal grey, drop-waist dress to a school dance for example. Basically a grey sack. I did not get asked to dance). I understood I MUST NOT LEAD BOYS ON or the consequences would be MY FAULT. But it didn't help: I was raped as a 17-year-old virgin. He thanked me afterwards. I didn't tell anyone. - Robyn