He grabs hold of my face and forces me to look at my reflection. I try to divert my eyes. I try to look at everywhere else other than at the sight of myself naked. I stare at the walls, still slightly stained with blood. My blood. I glance down at my wrists and smile faintly at the fresh cuts, blood still oozing out of the wounds and onto the wooden floor. It hurts, I would not do it if it did not, but it is a familiar pain. A pain that makes everything clear again. A pain that calms my mind and grounds me. His hold on my face tightens slightly and I glance up at him in the mirror. There are tears rolling down his cheeks but he does not wipe them away. His hands slide down from my face and onto my shoulders. He grips them and finally I glance at myself. I am instantly revolted, images of what I should look like, what I used to look like flash into my mind and I shrug my shoulders out of his grip and snatch my towel from where it fell on the floor. He watches me silently as I wrap the towel tightly around myself.

He reaches for my arm and instinctively I move away from him, not wanting to be touched.

The silence is unbearable. It stretches between us. I am not able to stand it any longer and so I laugh. My empty laughter fills the silence, but that only seems to make the situation worse.

“I can’t fucking deal with this anymore.” He states over my laughter and I stop abruptly.

He stares at me expectantly and I realise that he is waiting for an answer. Not knowing what to say I shrug, my gaze not moving from the ground.

“Are you not even going to look at me?”

When I do not respond he snorts in disgust and begins to get dressed. My gaze finally shifts from the ground and I watch him as he moves around the room, gathering his things. I stare in bewilderment as every trace of him disappears from my room. His clothes, his shoes, gone in a split second. He is moving too quickly, everything is moving too quickly.

I feel his gaze on me as he lifts my face to his by my chin. He hesitates for a second, and I watch as tears gather in his green eyes. This time they do not have the chance to fall down his cheek as he brushes them away roughly with his sleeve. He presses his lips softly against mine and then rests his forehead on mine, his eyes closed. I can feel his breath against my face and I inhale deeply, a lump caught in my throat.

“I tried. I really tried.” He whispers and I nod knowing that he had.

The door slams shut behind him and I sigh in relief as the entire room stills. 

I can not breathe, all the air from the room seems to have left with him. 

He is gone.

My legs are not able to support me any longer. I sink to the floor. The room goes from light to dark as the sun sets and still, still I can not wrap my head around the idea that he is gone. So instead I wrap my arms around myself as tiredness seeps into my bones. I am too tired to move from my spot on the floor.  I finally give in to the darkness

overpowering my mind and vision. I succumb to it willingly and sigh as finally I am not able to feel anymore. 

Just don’t do it.

Seriously. Like, take my word for it, you’re an arsehole if you condone this.

First of all, a woman should not be condemned for being a sexual being. You shouldn’t be offended by it, because, frankly, it has fuck-all to do with you. The phrase ‘slut’ is thrown about as though it is an insult, as if the idea of a woman having multiple sexual encounters should be rebuked. I googled the synonyms for the word ‘slut’ and wow:’bitch’, ‘whore’, ‘ugly’ and ‘hot’ (quite contradicting, isn’t it?).

Now, this is the part where I bombard you with the very few sociological terms I remember from GCSEs. Women are still considered to be socially unequal to men. It is more socially acceptable for a male to have numerous casual sexual partners than it is for a woman. In fact, it’s a social norm. Apparently, one does not simply have a penis and not use it at every opportunity possible, it’s what comes with their masculinity, but woman are punished by society if they act the same way. I find it so frustrating that after decades of fighting for our rights, what we’re able to do and not do is still limited, especially in comparison to a male.

Oh, and what’s even more aggravating? That a female doesn’t even necessarily need to have sex to be called a slut. Not at all. That’s the great thing about that word, it’s versatile. It can also be used to describe the way that you dress and how you act and if you’re a bad person. Showing a bit of leg? Slut. Being a bit bitchy? Slut. Dancing in a provocative manner? Slut. Low-cut top? Well then, you definitely have had more than one sexual partner in your life time. Most females feel the need to make a conscience decision to hide the areas of their body that are considered to be sexual by society. Okay, true story, I once spent a lengthy amount of time trying to convince a male that the breasts are indeed not a sexual organ.

Back to slut-shaming.

Slut shaming needs to crawl off into a small corner somewhere and die. The end. 

No, Robin Thicke, you do not “know that I want it” because you have not yet asked me whether or not I do want ‘it’.In fact, for you to assume that I want ‘it’ and then to act upon that assumption, without my consent, would be considered sexual abuse.

There are no ‘blurred lines’ about it.

So, whilst we’re on the topic of sexual abuse, let’s discuss what actions in specific come under that category:

If I were somehow unable to give my consent to have sexual relations with you (e.g. if I were drunk, unconscious, etc.) and you were to touch me inappropriately.

If I were to feel pressured/obligated to have sexual relations with you.

If my body language were to evidently convey the fact that I want you nowhere near me, but you still did.

If you were to threaten me into having sexual relations with you.

Last, but certainly not least, you may be surprised to hear this, but ‘no’ means ‘no’. If I were to decline your offer to have sex with me and you were to still take that as an invitation- that is rape.

Some people see the word ‘no’ as a challenge; don’t be ‘some people’. Do the right thing and watch some Netflix instead. It’s still just as fun without the ‘chill’. If someone refuses to have sex with you firstly, they do not owe you anything, certainly not an explanation and secondly, you shouldn’t try to persuade that person to change their mind. It’s their body and it’s their right to have final say on what happens to it. It is not your place to even attempt to modify that decision. So don’t.

I’m trying to comprehend what’s so confusing about it. Even though sex is such a taboo subject in society I would still expect the concept of consent to be basic knowledge. Consent is understood in every other situation. For example, you would ask someone if you could borrow their pen before taking it, right? Even if they were unable to respond, you wouldn’t just take that pen, right? You would leave the pen alone until the person was in the right mindset to give it to you. You don’t assume that just because they let you burrow it for an hour yesterday that you have an instant claim on that pen because that’s a shitty thing to do.

I’m sure that if you were to have sex with somebody, you would want them to actually enjoy it (well, I hope that’s the case. If it’s not then you should probably seek help). Therefore be sure to ask. Don’t assume that if the other person doesn’t say ‘no’, it’s a yes by default. Silence is not an automatic acceptance.

Here’s a rhyme that could possibly help:

Anything other than a yes is less.

Or alternatively:

if they don’t say yes, STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM THEM. 

The next bus came in about 20 minutes; like hell she was going to miss this one; it was way too bloody dark. The doors to the bus were just closing when she finally reached it. She banged on the glass, her braids falling around her face, until the bus driver finally acknowledged her and begrudgingly opened the doors again. She probably-no, definitely- would have cried if the driver had decided to leave her. Aisha smiled gratefully at the driver as she tapped her pass and made her way upstairs still panting from the run.

Aisha slumped into her seat and packed her hair into a high ponytail before reaching into her pockets looking for her earphones. She paused when she realised that they were not in there and groaned when she fleetingly remembered dropping them when she had fallen down. The thought of spending a whole half an hour without any music seemed unbearable to Aisha.

Just then a boy about her age trudged up the stairs. With his music blaring from his bright green earphones, Aisha could honestly say that she heard him before she saw him. Having nothing better to do, Aisha studied him, without seeming as though she was staring of course. The unnamed boy folded his long body into the seat in front of her. The boy’s hair was the equivalent of a bird’s nest. The word unruly would definitely have been an understatement. With his ruby coloured hair (unquestionably the product of a bottle) you would undoubtedly have been able to spot him from a mile away. The edges of his hair brushed against the back of his neck. Aisha stared at the boy’s earphones in envy.

Aisha leaned forward hesitantly before beaming. She was certain that she could hear her favourite band blasting from the stranger’s earphones. Aisha tapped the boy on the shoulder. If there had been another person on the upper deck of the bus Aisha was sure that she would never have been able to talk to the fascinating stranger, but since they were alone there was no chance of anyone else being there to witness the humiliation Aisha was almost certain she was going to experience.

The boy pulled out his earphones as he turned around to flash a boyish smile at Aisha.

“Yes?”

Aisha was surprised to find that the boy was really attractive. Aisha was fascinated by his eyes. They were the prettiest eyes that Aisha had ever seen. His eyes were the colour of the churning, passionate green that the ocean turns during a storm. His eyes brought a familiar calmness to Aisha. They brought back memories of when she used to travel up to Seaham Harbour with her parents. She remembered how she and her father would watch the storms of the sea from the comfort and warmth of her bedroom with dark, rich, creamy hot chocolates that overflowed with marshmallows and heated their hands.

The memory brought tears to Aisha’s eyes, but she held them back. Instead she focused on the stranger’s plump lower lip and wondered how it would feel if they were pressed against hers.

Aisha’s train of thought was interrupted by the stranger clearing his throat. Realising that she was staring, Aisha quickly recovered and focused on his bright eyes. The stranger’s eyebrow were raised expectantly and Aisha smiled back at him.

"You're listening to my favourite song." Aisha remarked, offering to the stranger what she considered to be her most charming.

Grinning broadly, the stranger gestured to the seat beside him and offered her an earphone. 

I’m a very greedy person.

I don’t feel bad about it because there's no reason to do so.

Chances are you're greedy, too.

Don’t think that I can’t see you shaking your head, acting all defensive and whatnot. I know that you’re trying to justify your lack of greediness by thinking of all the times you’ve donated to charity, or the times you’ve struggled to balance your shopping bags on one arm, whilst with your other arm struggling to unzip your purse to give some spare change to that homeless dude always sat outside the shopping centre.

The definition of greed is the selfish desire for something, e.g. wealth, power, or food. You would be lying if you said that you’ve never stopped to think, shit, my life would be really amazing if I had loads of money to blow on whatever I wanted.

That’s what it all comes down to; want.

Sure, you may want to be rich so that you have the means to donate generously to charities, but that's to make yourself feel good. Every apparently selfless act has some aspect of selfishness behind it. No one needs wealth, no one needs power and although I’ve always tried to justify having that slice of chocolate cake by stating that I need it, that’s certainly not true. But let’s not deceive ourselves, greed is a brilliant thing.

The reason that we accomplish anything is because we are fuelled by our greed.