Your UnSlut Project

Submitted by Anonymous

So I guess it all really started when I hit the fifth grade. Every woman in my family has big breasts, and when I went into the fifth grade my body had developed faster than all the other girls' bodies. The summer before sixth grade I got my first real bra fitting and I was a 36D. The fitting lady had brought in some bras for me to try on, to see which one I liked the best, and I tried on a lacy pink one because I thought it was the prettiest. When I showed my mom, she made a face and told me that it was pretty but I wouldn't be allowed to wear it to school because if someone saw me wearing it when I was changing in the locker room they would think I was a "hoochie," which is basically another word for slut. Needless to say, I stuck with the much more conservative one and put the other one away.

That year and that summer were kind of a transitioning period for me. I got more womanly curves, and that year boys started to look at girls differently so I got a lot more male attention than I was used to. Nothing really sticks out to me from that year except me telling my older sister I liked like five guys (come on, I was 12) and her telling me that was a whorish thing to do (it's been five years and I still get nervous to have crushes on people).

Seventh grade was when a LOT of guys started taking notice of me, or more specifically my body. On a normal day, I would catch 3-5 guys staring down my shirt or making obscene gestures when I would walk past. I told my mom but she just told me that's what boys do, and I should cover up more. I didn't listen but I got used to the stares and giggles behind my back. I'm a dancer and of course there's that saying that dancers are great in bed, and I go to public school so people would make crass comments about that starting when I was 13.

At 13 I was gaining my independence so I started showing off a bit more skin. Nothing too crazy (not that there's anything wrong with that, but I was 13). Just V-necks and skinny jeans, and in the summer my shorts were getting a bit shorter. I was proud of how I looked, my body made me happy, but somewhere near the end of the summer before eighth grade, my family started to tell me that I was showing too much skin, and I was just asking to be looked at inappropriately and my older brother actually told me that he was sure I was going to be raped. So for six months all I wore were jeans and long pants. The year passed by pretty uneventfully.

I started fighting back against the guys who would harass me and I gained a back bone, something I wished I would've gotten sooner. The summer before high school I went to visit my dad, as per usual, and he started buying me clothes that my twin sister liked wearing. My sister was never affected by our family's words like I was and she liked wearing short shorts and flowing tank tops that scooped just a little too low to be considered "acceptable" by our mom. I hadn't worn denim shorts in over six months, but my sister lived in them. One day we went shopping, just me, my sister (let's call her Lucy), and my dad, and Lucy tried on like a million pairs of shorts. When my dad forced me into trying on, and then buying a pair, I fell in love. I loved the way they looked on me and made me feel. When I wasn't wearing them I longed to put them on again and look at myself in the mirror. The shorts were kind of short but I liked the way they framed my butt and gave just a little peek-a-boo when I bent over. And they made me feel confident, so I bought a few more pairs just like them.

When I went back to my mom's in my new shorts she was appalled. The first time she saw me in them she told me I shouldn't be dressing like a skank. I put the shorts away for a few weeks after that one. After that it seemed like no matter what I wore, it wasn't good enough for my mom. I got used to her telling me that I dressed like a slut or whore, and I started pulling my shorts up just a little bit more after that. The first day of my freshman year I wore a strapless dress with a cardigan over it. I felt a bit insecure in it, it had been my older sister's before and she always looked better in clothes than I did, but I was overall happy with what I looked like. When my mom picked me up from school that day she looked horrified. The first words she said to me were, "Please promise you will never wear that to school again, you look like a hooker." I had promised, wanting to please her, and it is still stashed away in the back of my closet. The weeks after that were better but not perfect. When I wore shorts around the house my mom would give me disapproving looks and if my brother's friends were coming over I would have to stay in my room or put long pants on.

It all went down hill three days ago actually, this is what pushed me to write this letter. I'm on my high school dance team and we had a football game on Saturday instead of our usual Friday schedule. We were required to get there by a certain time and be in clothes that we could easily take on and off. I decided to wear a white knitted sweater with a pair of comfy shorts that were admittedly on the short side. The sweater has holes in it (like any normal knitted sweater) and all I had on under it was my sports bra. I decided that it would be okay since I would be changing right away anyway, but my mom decided that it wasn't. She freaked out on me, telling me I wasn't allowed to wear it because I looked disgusting and no daughter of hers would go to the school looking like a slut and that she was sure I'm going to hell. I told her to kindly fuck off because I would be changing within ten minutes of getting there anyways and anyone who would see me in it has probably already seen me butter ball ass naked in the changing rooms anyway. I won that day but the argument wasn't over.

Exactly one hour ago as I'm typing this out and sending it, my mom and I got into yet another fight about my clothing choices. She told me that she was embarrassed by me looking like a hooker and she hoped that my dad would never see me dressed like that because he would have a heart attack (he actually wouldn't because I walked around in his house in my underwear until like noon everyday of the summer). She told me that she wanted to send me to live with my dad so she wouldn't have to worry about me getting pregnant. We got into a big argument about how she used the word like slut, hooker and whore and how they've affected my self confidence and I've come to a conclusion after typing all this out.

Ladies, you cannot make everyone happy ever. It's not physically possible. I've spent half of my life trying to live up to my mother's expectations and I always fall short. So be who you are and wear what makes you feel good about yourself. Embrace your sexuality (at a reasonable age) and don't be afraid to love your body because in the end it's going to be you who's stuck with your entire life.