Confessions of a Self-Proclaimed Slut: Pt 1

Hi! I'm a slut.

That first line is probably the last thing you would hear upon first meeting someone on the street. But, I'm not just anyone; I'm Katia Rose Braun, and I'm a slut. These are my confessions, and this is my story.

My story begins when I was ten years old. I had just started to explore my own body and discovered something that would change my life forever. I found my clit. I learned all about masturbation just simply by doing it, but as I got older, I was told by my religious parents about the "sinful nature" of masturbation, pornography, and sex before marriage.

I was completely confused and didn't know what to listen to anymore. Should I listen to my body's raging hormones screaming "YES!! THIS FEELS AMAZING! DO IT!" or my religious family and the church telling me I was going to go to Hell if I even thought about touching myself. One can only imagine the confusion and frustration I was feeling.

After a few weeks of fighting myself on this, I started sleeping in the living room on our old, cigarette burned couch that was upholstered with itchy, heavy and uncomfortable fabric. I thought that if I couldn't be comfortable, I wouldn't have those "impure" thoughts anymore. I would pray that God would "relieve me of this sinful burden" every night, but...he never did.

I remember approaching my mom in tears one night when my dad was out of town and started to ask her why I had all of these sexual thoughts. She immediately got upset with me, and sat me down for the dreaded "sex talk." I was terrified and thought I would be in trouble for the rest of my life. She took a deep breath and began her rant. She told me that "God created sex for the purpose of procreation", and "when you touch yourself, you are making God angry and inviting Satan into your body." I was horrified! She went on to explain that if I "gave someone my gift before marriage," I wouldn't be desirable anymore, and no one would want to marry me. I remember her using the tissue paper example. She explained that you wouldn't want to use a piece of crumpled tissue, but instead, a pristine and unused tissue. The crumpled tissue was to represent someone that had sex before marriage, and the clean one to represent someone who saved their virginity for marriage. I immediately began to sob in shame. She then asked me if I had anything to tell her, and I looked up and asked if touching yourself counted as "giving away your gift." I was hoping she would say no, but this wasn't the case. She sighed and told me that I had defiled my body, and needed to beg Christ for forgiveness, and for him to restore my purity.

The morning after I spoke to my mom, I woke up to her on the phone with our pastor's wife. She was describing the gory details of our conversation from the night before. Humiliated and scared that everyone in our church would find out, I raced up to my bedroom and slammed the door. I sat on the floor and sobbed for what felt like hours. Later that day, the pastor's wife, the pastor, and a few church elders came to my house. They all wanted to talk to me. Together. Openly. This was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. I mustered up the courage to head downstairs and calmly sat in the living room surrounded by the judging eyes of the clergy members and my parents. Everyone knew what I had done at that moment.

The pastor opened his beat up, leather-bound King James Bible and began reading a passage about saving yourself for marriage. He then went on to talk about how I had invited Satan into my soul, and now they had to pray for my purity to be restored. I sat in silence with tears rushing down my face, wishing I had never asked my mother about these feelings in the first place. I just wanted to be a good girl, but in that moment, I felt alienated and like I was some sort of evil monster all because I was curious about my own body.

After what seemed to be hours of preaching, the pastor instructed everyone (including my brothers, who had come home in the middle of all of this after a day with friends) to lay their hands on me and pray that God would take away the impure, sexual thoughts I had. Great. Now my own brothers knew about it. This couldn't get any worse.

Finally, everyone left. My mother sat me down at the kitchen table and told me that until I could stop violating myself, she would have to watch me shower, and I would have to sleep with my bedroom door completely open. I was wrong earlier. It got worse. I begged her to let me have my privacy, but she didn't waver. At that moment, I thought my life was over.

I was more determined than ever to stop my unclean behavior. I wanted my privacy back. I was almost 12 and wanted to just be left alone, instead of closely monitored by my parents at all times. Finally, for my 12th birthday, I got my privacy back. I was elated, and couldn't wait to run up to my bathroom and take the chair my mother sat on to watch me shower out and put it elsewhere. But, there was a catch. I had to attend counseling to make sure that I never commit sexual sin again. I immediately felt sad again. Sure, I had my privacy back, but now I had to meet a stranger every week and talk to her about my sexual thoughts.

After a few weeks of this "counseling", I noticed something a little weird. Before I was allowed to get up and leave, she would excuse herself to another room for about ten minutes and come back to tell me I could leave. I got up and pressed my ear against the door to see if I could hear what was going on in the sitting area. She was talking to my parents! About what I had just said!! I quickly walked back to my seat and waited. When she came back into the room to let me know our time was up, I told her that I knew what she was doing. She was nervous but said nothing. I went on to tell her that I knew she was talking to my parents about what was said during our sessions and that I would no longer speak during our sessions. I was determined to waste her time and my mother's money, just so my privacy wouldn't be invaded anymore. After standing up to her, I left as if nothing had happened.

Weeks turned into two months of wasted counseling sessions. My parents went as far as to sit in on a few sessions in order to pressure me into talking. I wouldn't budge. I wasn't going to let them invade my privacy anymore. I wanted them to just drop the whole situation because it was unfair. I felt like they only went to these lengths because I was a girl, and it wasn't considered "normal" for girls to be sexual. Finally, my parents took the hint and pulled me out of counseling. However, it didn't get much better as I got older. What happened next after turning 14 was something I never saw coming.