During my adolescence I was forced to have sex and I have been hurted by men so many times I can’t count. At the beginning I thought that I was unworthy of love and tenderness, than I started to think that there was something wrong with me that made men violent. I discovered feminism and I realised that I wasn’t the wrong one, but that most of the men that I have met were complete assholes. Needing sex and physical intimacy, I decided that I could be like the men I know, I could use them, I could fuck them and then leave, I could control them with sex. They hurted my body and now I found that my body could be my weapon. I could do anything in bed just to please them, with the wrong believe that if I let them do those things to me because I wanted to then I was the one in control, that they could never force me to do something if I was the first that wanted it. I let them choke me, I let them fuck me when I was sick, I gave them blowjobs when I was on my period just to made them shut up, I let them beat me if they wanted to, I let them replicate with me the sick stuff they watched on porn. Some of them were not “bad men” but I learned that most men don’t respect women’s boundaries and believe that women own them sex. I lost faith in men but not trusting them made me strong. I thought that they could have my body but they will never rip my soul again, because if I don’t trust them they can’t betray me. Now I’m falling in love with a guy and for the first time in my life I like someone without having had sex with him. He makes me feel respected and safe, and even though we didn’t have sex yet, we slept together and no one before has been so gentle and kind and caring to me. I want to trust him with all my heart, but I’m terrified that if I let me love him, and trust him, at the end he will use me and hurt me like all the others. I’m 24 years old and I can’t experience intimacy with a guy because all the men I met abused me in some way. I think to all the women I know that had an experience similar to mine and I’m so angry. “Not all men”, but how the fuck I am supposed to love men if they never fail to let me know that I HAVE to consider all of them a threat otherwise they will disrespect me and betray me or hurt me? I’m tired