I’m the Kind of Virgin That You Slap in the Face

NOVEMBER 4, 2022 

        When I was a freshman my virginity was the least of my problems. Catholic guilt was rampant and I was the heathen, the problem child; not the girl you consider losing your premarital virginity to. Besides, the Catholic kids thought that for sure I had already lost it.

        My grandmother believed the same. Halfway through the academic year, I received an email detailing a long list of my faults wrapped in her shame. She closed the letter, 

“I wish you would be raped so you’d stop acting so provocatively on the internet.
                           Love, Grammy.” 

        When I transferred to public school for my sophomore year, nobody had a clue who I was. For the first time in my life, I had no priors with my peers. The new girl—whose family net worth you could Google. That was all they needed to know. I thought I got off scot-free. From the shame, the humiliation, and the distorted perceptions of who I might be. I was hopeful about a fresh start, my chance to make up for the lost time I spent crying in the bathroom as a freshman. This was the high school experience I was promised and I had the benefits of my privilege to reap. Driving my Mercedes G-Wagon to school without a license, carrying my mother’s Amex in the pocket of my new Celine bag, and throwing weekly parties in my parents’ art studio for people who were more than willing to like me if it meant receiving an invite.

        Boys my age no longer felt embarrassed for wanting to have sex with me. The thrill of attention based on intrigue rather than disdain allowed for newfound confidence. The elusive character that was Bella M Lucio was still a virgin, and that virginity was now valuable. Every journal entry from my sophomore year starts with the name of a boy and the big question—who should I lose my virginity to?

        One of the first house parties I attended, with my “cool” new friends, was held in a little Victorian home by my Catholic middle school. I watched the host parade her boyfriend across sticky hardwood floors and I knew that he wouldn’t be her boyfriend for much longer.

        By the next weekend I was laying across the bed in my parents’ penthouse apartment in lacey blue underwear. He snapped photos of me on his old camera and looked at me with admiration, like I was a dream come true. Before Christmas break, we sat in his Honda CRV and talked about losing our virginities to each other. Then I went to Bali and he went back to his ex. When he told me that he lost his virginity to her, I slashed the tires of his Honda CRV during lunch. He was my first love.

        I wished it could have been him, and it should have been him, but it was a lanky, blond-haired, blue-eyed, boy who was as equally “sexual” as I. I lost my virginity on an air mattress, in the art studio. My parents thought it would be nice for my friends and I to have a place to do art and hang out, but here I was, losing my virginity next to the woodworking table. He knew it was my first time, but he perceived me as the “kinky type,” so he slapped me across the face, hard. And while I wasn’t yet clear on the schematics of sex, I knew that the boy from the house party, the boy with the CRV, would have never slapped me.

        I always had trouble with boys my age, mostly because of girls. Girls didn’t like the way I carried myself. My confidence, my overt sexual nature, and my knack for stealing their boyfriends. That is who I was and I wasn’t going to change so that I could have more girlfriends. I was willing to accept their jealousy and shaming if it meant receiving the male attention I felt I deserved. Now that I wasn’t a virgin I could be called a slut with meaning behind it, and that terrified me. It was a “rumor” I couldn’t denounce because everyone knew. But I wasn’t a virgin anymore, and because everyone knew, sex became a new tool in my arsenal.

        I had long been perceived as more sexual than I was. That is why the blond-haired, blue-eyed boy slapped me. That’s why the Catholic kids thought I had already lost it. Why my mom had to have the “bad touch” talk with me. Why my boss harassed me, why the dean accused me of dating my father, and why Grammy felt that rape was a fitting punishment for my provocative posts. 

        I was a sex symbol long before I had sex. I was the kind of virgin that you slap in the face. The efforts of fear, or “wearing more clothes,” or staying off of social media did not correlate to my fate as a young woman. Whether the number was 1 in 5, or 1 in 6, or 1 in 10, I was going to be a part of it. At the age of fourteen, I was a part of it. I was thankful it was just harassment, but I knew it was delusional to believe that was the first and last time a man would want to be alone with me, hoping there was room for complicity.

        I wish Grammy lived long enough to see that rape did not stop me from posting, it made me feel weak and angry, but it didn’t stop me from posting provocatively on the internet. If anything, it encouraged it. My only line of defense will always be my unabridged confidence, but “I’m not a slut, I’m a virgin” would no longer be my saving grace.