Your UnSlut Project

Submitted by @clockwork_unicorn13

I was eleven in sixth grade and twelve in seventh grade. I had kinda been trying to fit in with the different groups of girls there, wanting to be friends with everyone but obviously that doesn't happen.

In my school the terms "slut" or "hoe" were thrown around as some of those words that no one thought were a big deal. The girls would talk about you behind your back but just loud enough for you to hear, the guys would have competitions to see who could date a girl first. The usual immature middle school drama.

I've been on both sides of the shaming. As the bully - which I wouldn't admit at the time - I would see something I or my "friends" thought was slutty and we would gossip about it. I guess it made me feel better because I didn't quite do the things the so-called "sluts" did, and that made me feel like a better person.

That all changed the week I got a reality check. I had posted something on Facebook, something I thought and saw as perfectly innocent (I still don't know what it was about that post to this day) and after a couple days, my grandparents confronted me about it. At first I had no idea what they were talking about until they specified which post they were talking about.

They seemed to be ashamed of what the rest of the people in the small town thought of it and my Grandpa even asked me this: "Do you know what one of the people in this town asked me?" Obviously I asked what, and now I wished I hadn't. "They asked if it was my granddaughter that posted that slutty thing in Facebook."

Even though I was upset people thought I was a slut, I was more mad about the fact that full-grown people were talking about me behind my back. I finally had had enough, and talked about it with my mom, who also didn't see what was so terribly wrong with the post.

She told me not to worry about it to much, or I could also delete my Facebook account and create one with only my friends, and not condescending, judgmental, pry-into-someone-else's-business grown-ups of the town. I didn't delete my account but I deleted the post.

I decided to let it all blow over and eventually it did, but I realized how much it hurt to be on the other end of the shaming.

@clockwork_unicorn13 (Lilli) is 13 and the oldest of six kids.