People made it their duty to hate on her in revenge for what had been done to me. I haven’t had the guts to talk to her and apologize for what happened.

Hi, my name is Katherine, I am 15 and from Canada. I’d like to start by thanking you, Miss Lindin, for everything you are doing for us and for creating this ‘community’ for girls and sometimes even boys, like us, where we can share and understand each other’s experiences and learn for them, and to finally be able to speak about it. Before reading The UnSlut Project I had never really given a thought to the concept of slut shaming. I don’t think I had ever heard of it either. It made me think twice about what I said to others, especially girls, who are most affected by this. As our body changes we sometimes feel vulnerable or powerless towards what happens to us, and a lot of times our confidences decreases immensely and self-consciousness takes over our lives. I had never been a target for bullies. If you would’ve told me last year that I would get bullied I would not have believed you. I had the reputation of a person not to be messed with, but not in a bad way. I just did not let people screw with me or my life and I wasn’t shy to tell you if you did something wrong or if I disagreed with you and if you stepped over the line you would earn a very polite version of go to hell, I do not need people like you in my life. I was very proud of that reputation. Last February, I had my first boyfriend ever. I had never been kissed and the most intimate thing I had ever done with a boy was hold hands… in kindergarten. I did have a couple of friends that were boys though and they were a funny bunch.  Back to the point, I had my first boyfriend, and he was wonderful. Very romantic and funny and kind.  I think I really did love him.  The only thing I did not like was that he smoked pot. Don’t get me wrong I’m not against it; it’s just that I’d rather he did not smoke. The first weeks were wonderful. We shared half of our second semester classes, which is how we met, so we spent almost all day together. Now fast forward to the middle of March. I was leaving on a trip to Scotland and then England, which I had signed up for the year before with a few of my friends. 40 students were selected to go, accompanied by 5 teachers and we were to leave 2 days before March break and come back 2 days before school started again. The trip was to last 9 days. Before I left, I went to say goodbye to my boyfriend, let’s call him Alex, and left for the airport. He promised me he would Skype with me every night and every morning, which he did. The trip was wonderful, it had been my dream to go since I loved and still love English history. But although I was living my dream all I could think about was my boyfriend at home, whom I missed a whole lot. Boy, was I happy to come home. I saw him at school that Monday and I couldn’t have been happier. Only that happiness did not last. The next day I learned that the day before I came back he had slept with some other girl, whom everyone considered the school whore. Honestly, I had talked to her a few times and she was really nice. Only she was very open about what she liked in bed, but who cares. Anyways I learned from my friends, who had been told by the girl in question that I had been cheated on. I was heartbroken and I felt sick. Alex wasn’t saying anything and I couldn’t believe it. I felt like my whole world came crashing down on me faster than I could get cover. The next day, I heard tons of people whispering about what happened and some people even came to me and told me to not worry because ‘they were on my side’. What did that mean? There were sides? The whole situation went out of control and very soon the girl Alex had slept with started getting bullied. ‘Slut’. ‘Whore’. ‘Bitch’. You name it they were all thrown her way.  People made it their duty to hate on her in revenge for what had been done to me. I did not like it and honestly, she had and still has the right to do whatever the hell she wants with her body and even if she went and f**cked with a thousand men that wouldn’t have been anybody’s goddamn business. After about a week, of which that girl was absent for half because of the situation, she changed schools because the bullies were too much. Now she is happy and she has a girlfriend and they’re really cute together. I haven’t had the guts to talk to her and apologize for what happened, but that doesn’t matter now.  She is happy. The bullying might have stopped there for her, but it only started for me. I tried to remain friends with my ex; that’s what we were before dating and it was good. At the end of March I met my current boyfriend and we started dating at the end of April. Alex got a girlfriend too. Everything was fine and we still talked until the end of school. One teacher asked me on the last day if I knew how to reach him so he could come by and do some make-up project so he wouldn’t fail his English class. When I texted him he started calling me a dumb bitch and annoying and other things which kinda hurt. He’d never really talked to me that way before. My boyfriend, Ben, saw that I was upset about it and asked Alex why he did this. That’s when Alex started saying I was a whore and a slut and a bunch of other mean things. He threatened to beat us up, me and Ben, if he ever saw us in town. The whole summer went by with no word of them which we were really happy about. Until school started this September. The first incident was when Alex’s girlfriend, Mary, tried to push him into me in the hall. I didn’t think much of it; it was just some stupid thing.  Then on the second day as they walked past my locker I heard them say: ‘Oh, look! There’s the ugly fat bitch.’ For the rest of the week every time I happened to cross them in the hall, which is very easy because our school is shaped like a square, the called out insults at me. ‘Bitch’. ‘Fat f**k’. ‘Whore’. The next week I got an appointment with the principal. She told me she would talk about it with the educators, but they didn’t do anything. I told my parents and they said it was really not okay. That same night Alex texted me I was a ‘F**king bitch go check yourself at the veterinary’ or something like that. My parents then texted him and told him they would press charges. I don’t where you’re from, but here that kind of bullying is considered harassment and it is NOT okay! To this day they haven’t dared to talk to me. I know that probably some of you have gone through worse, but what happened to me still hurt. I just want to say that I love every one of you who wrote their story on here and have given me the courage to share mine. Thank you. Stay golden, my friends. - Katherine Roy