What happens in between the sheets stays in between the sheets, or so I used to think. Although sex has never been a taboo topic among my close friends and family, how uncomfortable would it have been to let them into the most intimate moments of my life? I trusted my former sexual partners, who were more experienced than I and must have known what they were doing, even when the gut instinct told me something was off in the way they treated me.

As I began to explore my sexuality, I was undergoing the secondary effects of puberty and deemed myself unworthy of male attention. So, once boys started noticing me, I swallowed my pride and accepted what was being done to me without the slightest objection. “No” wasn’t an option. For in my experience, it has always brought about negative consequences.

Who wants to engage in an unwarranted sexual intercourse? I never wanted to, yet I did comply to avoid heated disputes, breakup threats, face slaps or beatings. One guy beat all records. Since I wasn’t ready to go farther than making out that night, he kicked me out. Even though we were at his countryside chalet, where public transport was no longer available and my phone had no signal. But the truly shocking part of the story is that I used to side with my abusers and blamed myself for being wicked.

Animated by bad erotic movies and novels written by some sexually frustrated woman in her late fifties who surrounded herself with cats — as I now like to picture the author, — my imagination birthed scenarios where women were intrinsically subjected to male domination. For in this type of cinema and literature, female characters were always supple, obedient, and — needless to emphasize — voluptuous. These qualities constituted the unquestionable prerequisites for being desired.

Until recently, I came across the comic “It’s not ideal, but…” by a French author Emma, which explains the foundations of rape culture. And what I took out of it was that my former sexual partners had repeatedly maltreated and disrespected me. In a fit of embarrassment provoked by this revelation, I picked up my phone… only to put it back down. An angry call delivered long after wrongdoings were committed wasn’t going to avenge me. And, after all, were they the only ones to blame? As much as it was their fault, so was it one of the society that raised them.

Emma argues that rape culture isn’t just a stranger creeping in dark desert alleys. Rape culture is boys taught that pulling hair and beating girls they like is normal, — when I was in primary school, my grandmother would affirm that “abuse is a sign of love” in response to my complaints about some boy who hit me, — it is men convinced that scantily clad women are asking for it, or expecting their partner to always give them what they want whenever they want it.

The truth is: nobody ever accustomed me to the rules of fair play. For a long time, I was unable to distinguish between what was right for a man to do to or demand from a woman and what was over the line. Perhaps, that’s because in the 21st century, the idea of verbalizing sexual etiquette still weirds us out. The least thing sex education programs held at schools need to explain is how to put on a condom — we have learned it years ago from the Internet. What truly matters is to teach students proper sexual conduct.

The men who hurt me in the past were unlearned in the topic. They wronged me unknowingly. And therefore, I forgive them.