Am I a victim or a slut?

You are neither a victim nor a slut OP - you are you - a human being, a woman, and an individual - you don’t need a label.

You may well have had agency as a 15 year old, but you were not an adult - thus you were not able to consent to relationships with men - so by having relationships with you they were abusing you.

I really think you need to arrange some counselling to work through what happened and to reframe how you think about yourself - and take back your power. You could give Women’s Aid a ring for some pointers.

Along the way you might want to take a look at your relationship - it not acceptable that your partner took to blaming you.

My first serious relationship, which was controlling and abusive, had a 9 year age gap.

When I got into that relationship, I was 20. After I got out of it, aged 27, I went on a few dates with a man who was 24. The difference in life experience and maturity amazed me. It really made me re-evaluate what kind of man my ex was to be nearly 30 and picking up (totally naive) undergraduate women.

OP - I'd suggest you speak to some 15-year olds (male and female), or just find some teen influencers on Instagram/you tube and watch a few videos. I would be very surprised if, within a few minutes, you are not thinking something like "My God, this person is a child!"

As teenagers, we often feel like we are adults - and want to be treated like adults. Which makes it hard for us to recognise how much "growing up" we still have to do, and how much our outlook and attitudes change as a result of that.

There's a movie called "The Tale," that explores some of these ideas - a woman gradually realising that a relationship she had always characterised as a relationship with an older boyfriend was in fact abuse by a predatory paedophile. It's a very tough watch, but it might help you start a conversation with your boyfriend about agency and power. This article / interview with the director, who based it on her own experience, is also really good:
www.google.com/amp/s/www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-features/is-the-tale-hbos-most-controversial-movie-ever-630017/amp/

My darling for whatever reasons, you were vulnerable to predators who were able to smell you like a shark can smell a drop of blood for miles in the ocean. You’re still here to ask this question, but you’re neither of those things. You are a human being and you are a survivor. I’m so proud of you!

At 15 I chased a man in his twenties and "went out" with him for a few weeks.
He dumped me because he couldn't get past how young I was.
He had only kissed me at this point and wanted a relationship where he wouldn't feel like a "paedo" (his word) for doing more with his girlfriend.
At the time I was sad and hurt, felt very rejected. Now I think Thank God one of us had sense and unsurprisingly it was the adult.
I had many other interactions with men his age and older who didn't seem to have his scruples at all, but I didn't fancy them so they never got further than groping and attempting to kiss me.
Not trying to minimise that but it was such a normal experience for me and my friends that it wasn't shocking at the time.
If you want a label get yourself a survivor badge, you've earned it

Erase the word slut from your vocabulary. You were taken advantage of as a girl. I am sorry this happened to you. You should have been protected by the adults in your life as a teen.

You were 15, and dealing with the world as you knew it then.

Don't fall into the Madonna/whore binary trap (or the victim mentality trap). Just you, interacting with a flawed world. You were taken advantage of, if adults slept with you at 15, but that is not to say you had no agency. What you did with that agency is neither morally good nor bad, it just is what it is.

Very similar things happened to me, and I blamed myself right up until my therapist asked me how I'd feel about my daughters (teens at the time) if they were in that situation. It honestly took that to make me see myself as victim/survivor of predatory men. Therapist also helped me see that I was groomed in later relationships too, despite being over the age of consent, due to trauma of early CSA. Basically it felt normal to me.
My best wishes to you x

I have similar stories. I ‘had sex’ at 15 with much older men. I don’t know, it was really normal at the time and I didn’t think of it as a particularly huge deal but as I’ve got older I’ve seen it differently. I don’t think I was a victim and I certainly don’t use the word slut. I think it was wrong and those men were wrong but I don’t think I’ve ‘survived’ anything (not in these instances but yes in others) nor feel that I was groomed, coerced or abused either. But if I heard of another 15 year old these days having sex with a 25 year old for example, I’d absolutely think of it as coercive, abusive and statutory rape - which it is.

It’s very hard to unpick when it comes to my own experiences though.

I feel girls growing up in the 80s and 90s were sold a lie, we were led to believe we were the ones in charge when really we were totally socialised into thinking sexual promiscuity at 15 was empowering and a good thing.

I could have written this myself, and convinced for years that I was a slut. I remember ringing childline, and telling this to the lady I spoke to..she said that she was disgusted with the men who were doing this, bit I honestly couldn't see it until recently

@Sstrongtn I'm so sorry, I'm sorry for any woman or girl who has been violated. It makes me feel sick and enraged every time I hear it and even when we don't as we know it happens all the time.

OP, you were a child, you are a survivor and I hope in coming days or weeks you consider getting some therapy, if that is at all possible.

I can only imagine how reading some comments here is reframing what happened to you and I know from reading other stories that the realisation that you were a victim and not in control, not able to choose, is a huge shock. It wasn't your fault, it never is. I would be so bold to say that your formative years and early experience of sex being rape and abuse have perhaps affected all that followed. I'm worried for you because of your partner's response too.

I don't suggest you Google it right now but Jenna Jameson, a very famous porn 'actress' has spoken out about how she was coerced and controlled and that this was and is abuse.

I really, really hope you can get some help. I hope this thread helps.

I was 15 and was ‘dating’ a 27 year old. At the time I thought I was so mature but now I look back and think WTF, not least for the fact that he viciously raped me when I broke up with him.

I was not a slut (revolting word), I was a child. I have a 14 year old daughter and if anyone above the age of 15 (and that’s pushing it) came anywhere near her wanting to date her I’d tell them to get to fuck.

What sort of grown man has sex with a 15 or 16 year old?u

When I was 18 I met a fellow uni student who had had a relationship with her 30-year-old teacher when she was 15. He had introduced her to all sorts of things, including anal sex.

At 18, although the rest of us uni students knew it was wrong for a teacher to sleep with a pupil, we all still thought it was quite impressive that she had snagged a teacher. We still took the view that it was a cool, edgy and completely consensual relationship (albeit illicit).

Now in my 30s I look back with horror on that relationship. It was clearly completely wrong, coercive (even if at the time my friend didn't think it was) and I strongly suspect my friend wasn't the only pupil that teacher was shagging.

As we get older and wiser, we do look back at things and see them differently. Even at 18 I wasn't old enough to have perspective on the issue.

I'm quite worried about your dh's attitude, to be honest.

OP, I am a teacher and, when I read stories of teachers having relationships with students, it fills me with two overwhelming things. The first is disgust for the predatory adult and the second is confusion because I just don’t understand how anyone can see that student as anything other than a child! I don’t see anything close to sexual when I look at the children I teach. Ever!

The fathers of the children you babysat were repulsive, manipulative predators and rapists. Being 15, you couldn’t consent so it was rape. I don’t care if you physically stripped yourself naked and told them to hop on. They should never have gone near (or even wanted to go near) a 15yo!!!

As for your partner, I’d tell him to get his victim-blaming, misogyny the fuck away from me!

They should have known better and should have politely declined. But they didn’t and will blame you if they are ever called to account.

A lot of us have been there at 15, thinking we were so grown up and could have sex with whoever we wanted. We rejected those adults who told us we’d regret it.

That’s why it’s so hard 😞 I understand you, in that we did feel in control and it felt exciting and
transgressive.

I still don’t know what to think about it.

You were a young person. Older more experienced people know this was not the right thing to do - you were not on an equal level playing field with them so they were taking advantage. It's not your fault and I'm sorry these adults didn't protect you.

I don’t think you were either. As Dh someone else who also had relationships with men at 15 and can still remember what it’s like. I don’t regret them. I wasn’t coerced, I wasn’t raped, I actually had a lot of fun and remember them positively. If you don’t then my guess is something was probably wrong.

Are those the only two choices? And why does it have to be an either or question?

We use labels as shorthand but, as shorthand, they do not give the full story.

You were a child so the men’s actions were certainly illegal. I’d describe them, label them, as predators. Does that automatically make you a victim or a slut? No.

I would recommend you find a therapist to talk to about this to try to avoid labels and explore the whole situation.

You were 15, they were adults. Come on. You know what the answer is. I'm so sorry your current partner is not getting it.

It shouldn't matter if you were wearing skimpy clothes emblazoned with "Get it here" in large letters. At 15 you are not deemed old enough to give informed consent so this cannot be your fault. A fact that some police forces in towns such as Rotherham would do well to remember.

Taken advantage of. I felt mature at 15, and compared to many of my peers, I was, due to family responsibilities (ill parent) and so on. But the differences between 15 year old me and 30 year old me are stark.

Here's a question. If you had 15 year old boy babysitting your kids, can you imagine for a moment seeing him as anything other than a child?