Your UnSlut Project

Submitted by Anonymous

"Slut" shaming is... Rude. Even if you're just joking around with friends, just don't do it.

I was a pretty average tomboy. I would hang out with all the boys and play with bugs and play soccer. In grade two a girl moved in next to me and we became immediate friends. She was two years older than me but we still hit it off well. Let's call her "Mackenzie." Every day after school Mackenzie and I would walk home together and hang out after school, like normal kids.

Fast forward to when I was in grade four. I had a friend, let's call him "Josh," and he was pretty cute. I had minor crushes on him for a bit and we became very close friends. Mackenzie stopped hanging out with me but when she did, her brother was always around. I didn't like him. Mackenzie would start to cry every time her brother touched her legs and she would run away.

One afternoon, Mackenzie was getting sandwiches for us and her bother and I were playing truth or dare in my backyard. I chose dare, being the little dare devil I was. He told me to close my eyes and rock my head back and forth for a minute with my mouth open. I was young and didn't know what he was talking about so I just said "no." He started calling me a chicken and such a wimp. Finally, Mackenzie came back and he dared her to do the same. She did do it. I watched in horror as one of my good friends gave a blow-job to her own brother. She didn't mean to, either. She didn't know any better. After that incident, she stopped talking to me. Months after, she moved away.

I was in grade six at this time and my friend Josh from earlier became a total douche bag. He started to "slut" shame me (I told him what had happened), and told his friends I would give a blow-job to anyone. This left me to cry myself to sleep some nights because of their terrible idea of a "sick joke." I started to cut at this point because of the "slut" shaming.

In grade seven, I came out as openly gay and some people were happy for me whilst others turned into complete homophobes. One of those homophobes was Josh. He would call me a "dyke" and a "world class slut," making me spiral into a deep depression.

Grade eight rolled around and I was just average. I got B's and A's in every class, I wasn't depressed anymore, and I had a normal group of friends. I met the most wonderful girl and then there was the lousy homophobe, Josh. He picked on me. Every day. I finally learned to brush him off and I'm doing just fine today in grade 10.

I looked up "Mackenzie" again and she is doing better, too. The girl of my dreams came out as bisexual and we've been dating ever since. To this day, I feel really bad about Mackenzie. I know I could have done something but I didn't. Oh, I also found out her brother got arrested for sexual assault three times. And if you know someone getting sexually abused or abused at all - tell someone.