Education For Choice guest blog by Zoe, who has bi-polar disorder, reflecting on the recent case of ‘SB’, a woman who was eventually granted permission to end her pregnancy by UK courts.

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One of our bloggers responds to this news story about the age of consent…

I was 13 (now 19) when I first lost my virginity and he (who I will refer to as ‘Sam’) was 19. Now I see the control and abuse that was there. ‘Sam’ would comment on my clothes and how I generally looked, he never actually asked for my consent when we did sleep together, he manipulated my emotions and told me often how he would die for me and that he couldn’t wait for me to be pregnant. 

‘Sam’ never actually hurt me physically but  he made me lie to my mother as she ‘wouldn’t understand’ and to his parents as they wouldn’t understand either, and when I met them I had to pretend to be 16. I was 13 and I believed this was love as he wanted us to be together forever.

‘Sam’ also took opportunity about things that were happening in my life and he played upon those. My dad had come and gone 3 times and my mother was busy fighting him over the divorce, us, money, the house etc. which meant that I didn’t want to be in the house and would take any excuse to leave. I was also 13 when I first got drunk on alcohol that ‘Sam’ had bought me as a way to help me to ‘relax’. He enjoyed me drunk as I became a ‘slut’ and ‘eager to please’ but all I can remember is him telling me that I owed him for the alcohol, again at 13 I thought that was true. 

Now I wish that what happened didn’t happen. At the time I felt I was old enough to consent but what happened wasn’t actually consent.

There were times when I broke down in tears and I could never work out why, I now believe it’s because somewhere I knew what was happening was wrong. I finally ended it with ‘Sam’ when I was with him at a friend’s house and broke down in tears again. I confided in my friend some of the things that had happened although I still didn’t completely understand why they were so wrong. I asked ‘Sam’ to leave and go back to his and he told me that his life wasn’t worth living without me but it was my friend that made him leave in the end. Months after that I received countless phone calls and texts but talking to my friend’s mum made me stay away from him.

I can vividly remember the first time I slept with someone after ‘Sam’ and he asked for my consent and the shock that I felt and still feel from such a simple question is another reason I felt that I had to write this.

Recent comments that have been made about lowering the age of consent are making me question my ability to have made those life decisions that actually a 13 year old can’t make. I now understand that although I agreed to sleep with ‘Sam’ the decision wasn’t all together mine.

I recognise that a lot of teenagers have sex before 16, I did after ‘Sam’ but it was completely different circumstances and I was by no means made to feel like I should sleep with him. The legal age of consent is there to protect the people who need protecting and if what happened to me became legal I fear a lot more girls and boys would be left with the same scars that time is still to heal for me.

Better sex education is also needed in the UK to actually cover consent, domestic abuse and rape, none of which were taught to me in school but learnt the hard way and self taught through movements such as feminism. Improved sex education could have taught me what I experienced was wrong and maybe taught ‘Sam’ that what he thought was right was wrong.