Throughout the months of September and October, HuffPost Teen is highlighting the way teens think and feel about sex through anecdotes written for our series, "Teen Sex: It's Complicated." All of the authors are teenagers who have agreed to be published anonymously. If you want to share your thoughts, join the conversation here.
By Amy, 17
To me, the word "sex" means…. personal. There are people I know who have had sex with complete strangers, are engaged at seventeen and who have never had sex, like me.
On the topic of sexting, it has happened to me. One day, a boy that used to be my friend asked me to "talk dirty" to him. What the hell did that mean? Was I supposed to say, "You have dirt all over you, so therefore you are dirty?" After a few messages, he sent me a picture.
I have to tell you, it ruined my childhood. I couldn't look at anything the same anymore, and still can't. Months and months went with him asking me to send pictures, saying disgusting things to me and asking get me on Skype with him (he was in Maine while is was in Colorado). Finally, it was time to block his number and Facebook account. He still found a way to talk to me, threatening to take his life (twice) if I stopped talking to him completely. I don't talk to him anymore, and he didn't take his life.
In eighth grade I signed a contract sealing the deal for my celibacy. I bet you at least half of the class has broken that contract, especially since we are all in our last year of high school.
I think movies have overdramatized sex. No one labels you as a modern day Hester Prynne (to all those "Easy A" fans, don't worry, that is one of my favorite movies), and no one parts like the Red Sea when you pass in the halls. In truth, I don't know how many people have had sex, unless they tell me. It does put a barrier between me and my friends who have had sex.
When one of my friends was telling me about how she had the best sex of her life with someone she barely knew, I told her that I was waiting until marriage. She looked at me as if I was high -- and not on the good stuff. But you know what? I didn't even feel embarrassed. I read somewhere that sex is the most intimate action between human beings. Don't you want to do that with someone you have known for a long time? I couldn't imagine having someone I hardly knew literally inside of me.
I'm not religious. I'm not a prude. But I am human. If I could make it without sex for seventeen years, I can do it for seventeen more.
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