When i was in year 9/10 people in my year would “date” (the stupid 10 yo version at least). This boy was “dating” one of the girls in the year. i was talking to him one day, when he described to me how he was planning to rape his girlfriend while she was sleeping. He was joking about this (as far as i know), but at the age of 10 I was still so shocked. I had only the slightest idea of what rape was at the time. It just goes to show how influenced children are by this toxic culture that surrounds us. That boy was also the first person to grope me without consent. At 13 an older boy raped me in my local park. I never told anyone and don't know how i didn't become pregnant. I felt awful and embarrassed about it for an extremely long time.

My first school was full of boys harassing girls, whether physically or verbally, including saying the most inappropriate, sexual things about them in front of them or behind their backs. I personally felt very uncomfortable around lots of the boys in our year once I reached puberty. It’s awful to think that this sort of behaviour was happening from the age of 9, but at the time it was completely accepted and laughed off by the girls. Education about this sort of harassment needs to happen earlier, as the mindset of being entitled to women’s bodies is ingrained in boys at such a young age. School never saw this behaviour as a problem or taught us anything meaningful about harassment and this probably contributed to the problem."