Can we really not differentiate between reel and real? Sex education is a taboo in our society and we often end up learning from porn which creates unrealistic demands and ideologies and we often forget the difference between reel life and real life. We spoke to one of our followers, who opened up to us about a time in her life when she thought she was in “love”.
"I was young and in love or at least I thought I was. That was my first time in a relationship and I didn’t know anything about love, intimacy and boundaries. I thought since he was my boyfriend I was obliged to give in to him. You know movies and porn depict this is how guys usually behave with their girlfriends and I let the same thing happen to me with my other boyfriends as well. I would indulge in physical activities with them not because I wanted to but because I did not know how they would react if I asked them to stop. I was scared of hurting their ego.
I was 13, when I was sexually assaulted by my first boyfriend and I still remember exactly how I felt when I was touched by him inappropriately. Despite me telling him that I didn't want to be touched like that, he couldn’t care less about my non-willingness about the same.
I knew I didn’t feel comfortable about that touch but initially I didn’t know how to accept the fact that whatever happened was wrong and should not have happened because I knew I resented it.
After months of that incident I confronted my then boyfriend and he explained that all of his knowledge of sex and sexual activity came from Porn. Porn educated him about continuing whatever he pleases to do with a girl despite her saying no, as long as he is enjoying it.
He was also 13-14 years old at that time, and had absolutely no knowledge of the crime that he was committing. Although I trusted him then, I could never look at him the same way. I said I’ll move past it and forgive him but I didn’t know it resulted in an internalized trauma. In fact I didn’t know I was traumatized until that incident started reflecting in relationships.
It’s been years now and I have been healing a little everyday and doing my best in life but that incident taught me how important sex education is for both girls and boys.
We as children or adults, are conditioned to believe from a very young age that merely thinking about intimacy or sex is not appropriate, which is why a conversation about such topics always becomes a taboo.
The inability to even start a conversation about sex and intimacy along with proper sex-ed in our country pushes the conversations that we should be having with our peers or parents to sources such as Porn, magazines or other sources that are unreal."
