I’ve known I was a lesbian since I was 14. The summer when I was 17, I went to the beach with my family like I do every year. I had recently broken up with my girlfriend of over a year and was still feeling lost and confused about everything. One night, I went to the beach late at night with my younger sister and a friend, where we encountered a group of boys about our age. My sister and her friend went off with a couple of the boys, and one of the other boys asked me to sit with him on a different part of the beach. I don’t know why I said yes—maybe because some part of me wanted to experiment with boys. I told him that I wasn’t very experienced with boys. We started kissing, and it wasn’t terrible, but it didn’t feel right, like it did when I kissed girls. As it progressed, I started to get more uncomfortable and wanted to leave, but I wasn’t sure how. He asked me to give him a handjob. I said no, that I should go, but he kept asking. He said “please.” I didn’t know what to do. I said yes and he showed me how to give one, since I had never done it before. Again, it felt absolutely wrong. In the middle of it, he begged me to give me a blowjob and I said no. Thankfully, he didn’t push. Eventually he came and I felt like throwing up. He helped me clean off my hands and I walked home with my sister and friend, sobbing. I didn’t tell my sister what happened, but she was able to guess, and told me that sometimes boys just pressure girls, but that I couldn’t have known because I was gay. When I got home, I scrubbed my hands over and over again, trying to wipe away the dirty feeling that was filling my body. I cried myself to sleep and in the morning resolved to try to never think about the experience again.
I am a very open person and normally tell my friends everything, but I’ve only told two people about this; neither of them was my therapist. For a long time, I filed this memory away in a distant corner of my brain and whenever I thought of it, I immediately distracted myself from it. Today is one of the first days where I have thought extensively about that night. I’m not sure if what happened to me was assault. I irresponsibly entered a situation with someone I didn’t know, and I should have been aware of the potential consequences. I would not consider myself traumatized by this experience, and it hasn’t negatively affected my life in a huge way. But I still feel ashamed, I blame myself, and when I think back to that night I still feel dirty.
After I wrote this, I showed it to one of my best friends, and she told me to stop blaming myself, that that boy should have listened to me when I said no the first time. She told me that it wasn’t my fault, and I believed her. When she told me that I started crying because I finally felt like I could start healing.