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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

I bet you're not even a virgin anymore!

88 replies

DontKnowWhatToThink7 · 12/11/2021 15:06

Grew up with an abusive dad.
My mum, I guess, was a bit of an enabler although I didn't realise that at the time. We were quite close actually.

I've just had a memory pop into my head of my mum screaming at me "I bet you're not even a virgin" to me when I was about 14 or 15 years old. I was going through some challenging behaviours at the time, due to being treated like shit by my dad my whole life, being depressed and just being a teenager.

Is this something that you would say to your child in anger? Or is it completely inappropriate?

I have a daughter now and I would never dream of saying something like that to her, even is I was angry.

Any thoughts?

OP posts:
Original poster
DontKnowWhatToThink7 · 12/11/2021 15:34

@iwishiwasafish

Awful.

I can relate. I have horrible memories of my mum doing similar. About the same age (13 or maybe 14) and she used to routinely go through my room. She found the album insert to a record I had bought - I think it was Bon Jovi (1980s). I got home from school and my heat sank to see it was on the dining room table. She started yelling at me about how awful the lyrics were, and finished off with “and I bet you are promiscuous too!”.

I didn’t even know what it meant. I had to look it up in the dictionary in the school library (pre internet).

It was only about 30 years later, when she started opening up to me as an adult, that I realised it was because she had been promiscuous as a teenager, and she felt ashamed of it, and projected that on to me.

Sorry that you went through that.

My parents would also go through my room. My dad threw out all the photos I had taken with my friends because he hated me having friends.

OP posts:
Frogsonglue · 12/11/2021 15:35

OP I'm so sorry. That sounds like a horrible and sad way to grow up. I hope you have healthy loving relationships in your life now.

Vapeyvapevape · 12/11/2021 15:36

But I would definitely challenge and discourage/stop her from hanging out with boys or dating behind my back

That’s a sure fire way of exactly that happening. You have obviously had some rotten treatment from your parents, which is awful- try and talk openly with your daughter, she’s far more likely to be honest with you than if you just try and stop her seeing boys.

JennyDune · 12/11/2021 15:36

@Owambe2021 and @Frogsonglue

Thanks for your input, sometimes I do feel conflicted about certain things/values. There's what was pressured on me, what I personally think, and what wider society thinks.

Tbh both my kids are young, so haven't had to cross these bridges yet. I guess I can only try my best and find a compromise/balance point.

Frogsonglue · 12/11/2021 15:43

I also just wanted to add Jenny that I had brilliant friendships with several boys as a teen and young adult, that were in no way sexual. Please don't discourage your daughter from hanging out with boys, but instead help her to understand which boys have positive and respectful motivations towards her (whether it's friendship or a potential relationship). She'll be far more able to form healthy connections that way.

StickersStickers · 12/11/2021 15:49

My mother never said that exactly but every now and again she’d get angry with me over something and she’d shout anything and everything at me. She’d be in such a temper she wouldn’t even believe what she was saying, just throwing stuff out to try and get to me (She’d get angry over things like me wanting to go to the cinema - she had depression and anxiety, and couldn’t deal with me growing up at all)

MrsAJCrowley · 12/11/2021 15:50

I had similar OP, but from my dad. I remember vividly it being spat at me during an argument about something completely unrelated. I was actively accused of ‘sleeping around’.

I was a terrified teen who was crippled by anxiety. I barely left the house and barely had any friends, let alone boy friends.
My father is long dead and I still remember occasionally and it still stings.

EdgeOfTheSky · 12/11/2021 15:51

@JennyDune : even if the argument was about relationships with boys, shouting in an aggressive accusatory time would not have been the way to deal with it. The mother is, in essence, saying ‘I think you are now of less worth and deserve my contempt and fury as a result.

Encouraging a young person to refrain from sex involves supporting their decision making, supporting their self confidence etc. Not hurling accusations which are dissing the young person for their presumed sexual activity.

TableTopTennis · 12/11/2021 15:52

Agreed, hence why I wanted to establish the context. If it was random, then yea, its not appropriate at all. For example, my parents used to really shout at me for getting B's and A's in class/exams. They used to make me feel like crap for not getting A. They even used to call me an alcoholic / low life for just drinking spirits with friends at parties, when I was 19/20. But it wasnt the end of the world. Actually.. after typing the above....Im thinking about it now....is this sort of parenting behaviour normal or have my parents just made me think this is normal? (Im nothing like them btw, im more laid back) (Im Asian if it makes any difference.)*

I don't think being Asian means being spoken to like that is ok, no. Though I am not surprised you are from an Asian background given what some of the Asian girls at my school went through with their families. I thought you might be Asian or from a strict Evangelical Christian background from your first posts, some sort of strict cultural background anyway.

noirchatsdeux · 12/11/2021 15:54

My Catholic mother threw that exact same sentence at me...when I was 21, and just about to get married. For some reason I can't remember, she'd made me try on my wedding dress...I must have made some comment she didn't like, next thing I'm being told I'm a hypocrite for getting married at all, and next thing out of her mouth was that sentence. She then stormed out of the house and left me stuck in the fucking wedding dress she'd forced me to buy on my store credit (this was the late 80s, it had buttons all down the back from the neck and you basically had to be a contortionist to get out of it on your own).

I felt like yelling "Of course I'm not a fucking virgin, I haven't been for 10 years since I was groomed by Dad's friend you stupid cow"

My father left her 3 days after my wedding for OW. Turned out she'd been living with my father for 6 months and was pregnant with my older brother when she married ... but I was the hypocrite?

Polmuggle · 12/11/2021 15:55

Tbh, its quite common among Asian and Christian culture (church going)

Not in any church I've been part of it isn't!

EdgeOfTheSky · 12/11/2021 15:56

@JennyDune My sensitive conscious Ds has close friends who are girls. When asked / teased about them being girlfriends said ‘of course not, it would be like going out with my sister’.

Some of those friendships have involved him being supportive / confidante over MH issues caused by restrictive parents who did not respect their DD’s enough to trust them and poured hatred and scorn on them for supposedly putting themselves at risk every time they stepped out of the house.

OpalFruits84 · 12/11/2021 16:17

I can remember my mother going crazy after she found condoms in my sister’s room. She would’ve been around 15 at the time. She went on to have her first child at the age of 18…

I’ve always wondered about if she had provided a more supportive environment to talk about sex, rather than just getting angry, then my sister might not have ended up pregnant so young.

Original poster
DontKnowWhatToThink7 · 12/11/2021 16:19

So sorry that other people have experienced the same thing from their parents.

My mum isn't religious but my dad had a Greek orthodox background, so his mum and family were religious but he wasn't iyswim

I think my mum took on a lot of my dad's behaviours over time and acted in a similar way to him and would defend a lot of his actions. I was punched in the face by him and when I told my mum she responded by saying 'It wasn't a punch, it was a back hand'

OP posts:
BodgertheJogger · 12/11/2021 16:21

OP, that's the kind of thing my narcissist mother would say.
I'm in my early 30s and on the cusp of realising that my dysfunctional sexually abusive upbringing was weird.
It sounds narcissistic to me.

BodgertheJogger · 12/11/2021 16:23

@noirchatsdeux

My Catholic mother threw that exact same sentence at me...when I was 21, and just about to get married. For some reason I can't remember, she'd made me try on my wedding dress...I must have made some comment she didn't like, next thing I'm being told I'm a hypocrite for getting married at all, and next thing out of her mouth was that sentence. She then stormed out of the house and left me stuck in the fucking wedding dress she'd forced me to buy on my store credit (this was the late 80s, it had buttons all down the back from the neck and you basically had to be a contortionist to get out of it on your own).

I felt like yelling "Of course I'm not a fucking virgin, I haven't been for 10 years since I was groomed by Dad's friend you stupid cow"

My father left her 3 days after my wedding for OW. Turned out she'd been living with my father for 6 months and was pregnant with my older brother when she married ... but I was the hypocrite?

I'm so sorry, that's awful. Often people like our mothers see a mirror of their own behaviour in others making them intensely hypocritical.
lunarlandscape · 12/11/2021 16:27

@JennyDune - I hope you can see that would not be the way to handle the issue you raised. No parent will help or support a young teen by screaming that at them.

OP it was wholly unsupportive and inappropriate. She wasn't behaving like an adult, let alone a loving parent.

Brainwave89 · 12/11/2021 16:29

No it is not right. Fourteen/fifteen are massively difficult years for girls and this was inappropriate in the extreme.

Brainwave89 · 12/11/2021 16:32

@Polmuggle

Tbh, its quite common among Asian and Christian culture (church going)

Not in any church I've been part of it isn't!

As an Asian I disagree, and your huge generalization is an inappropriate stereotype.
Redburnett · 12/11/2021 16:35

Totally outrageous thing to say to a young teen, especially by their mother.
Sorry you had to experience this.

CaputApriDefero · 12/11/2021 16:35

I have a 14 year old daughter. I'd never even dream of saying such shit to her. I don't want her having sex at her age because I don't want her being talked badly about or exploited. Not because sex and virginity are sacred concepts that you should feel scared about. I wouldn't be disappointed in her, just worried for her. I always feel sad about my Dad basically slut shaming me when I was 16. My boyfriend at the time was lovely, so my Dad decided I was the instigator and a "little tart" that had basically pressured him into sex and lost no time telling everyone so. Even claiming that I had had multiple partners beforehand. I'd never do that to her.

vivariumvivariumsvivaria · 12/11/2021 16:40

If it's any consolation, Don'tKnow there is a lot of discussion about how silly virginity is as a concept.

The insertion of a penis into a woman's body does not fundamentally change her value as a human being. Sex happens without penises all the time - ask any lesbian who has had oodles of partners and never been with a man, is she a virgin?

It is a harmful, misogynistic trope designed to shame and control women. Who knows how many of us have been killed or harmed because of this nonsensical social construct over the last 3000 years or so?

I'm sorry it was used to shame and control you and the others on this thread. The adults around you should have done better by you.

Tilltheend99 · 12/11/2021 16:40

It’s not appropriate and was clearly upsetting Flowers My dad used to drink a lot and he once called me a dildo Hmm my little bro found it hilarious me not so much. Parents can be dicks.

Branleuse · 12/11/2021 16:51

Its a completely inappropriate thing to say, although I expect it was a lot to do with the fact she was in a relationship with someone who was awful and abusive, and then when you started having behavioural issues, it was probably easier for her to blame/attack you than check out the root cause.
Im sorry you had a difficult upbringing

silverbubbles · 12/11/2021 17:00

My mum was an enabler.
I also have memories of her behaviour which was basically to ignore or minimise our fathers bullying which sickens me now. Why didn't she stand up for her children?

What angers me more, is that now, years after their divorce she still fails to pull him up on his bullshit. It makes me really despise her.