Lost my virginity on a road trip

Dear Pastor, I am 16 years old, and I am having a problem. I am living with my parents, but they are treating me as a child. I am not allowed to go anywhere, not even with my friends.

The way they are treating me has caused me to do bad things. I almost got killed on the road one day when I should have been in school.

I have a boyfriend. He is 26, and my parents don’t know about him. He does deliveries in the country, so I promised him that I would go with him one day because I don’t know many places.

I packed two pieces of clothes and kept them in the bottom of my school bag, and I left home pretending that I was going to school. I met my boyfriend at a certain place, and we headed out of town.

I really enjoyed myself with him. We drove from Kingston and stopped in St Elizabeth, and we also went to the beach.

I had sex with my boyfriend for the first time. I almost got into trouble because the van broke down and by the time he got help with it, it was too late. I got home a few minutes before my father came home, and I had to lie to my mother Dear L.L. Your parents might be overprotective, but that is better than to allow you to do whatever you wish without guidance. Parents have the right to know where their children are going and with whom and when are they going to return home. Take a good look at yourself. You could have got yourself into an accident while you were with this young man, or something could have happened that could have caused a great embarrassment to your parents. But you didn’t see it that way; you just wanted to be with this man. Have you considered that this man could have got you pregnant or that he could have passed on some STI to you? You say that it was the first time that you had sex. How do you think that this guy looks at you now? He is not going to respect you highly anymore. He may consider you cheap. about coming home late.

This was not the way I wanted to lose my virginity, but when my boyfriend and I started to play, I felt funny, and didn’t know how to control myself, so I had sex.

I love my boyfriend even more now since he ‘popped my cherry’. I don’t think that I can do without him.

Sometimes when I am talking to my boyfriend on the phone, my mother wants to know who I am talking to for so long, but I tell her that I am talking to my school friends.

I only had sex with him that one time, but sometimes I feel for it. Do you think that I am a bad girl for wanting to have sex?

L.L.

I know that you’re a teenager. You will experience sexual urges. That is natural, but you will have to learn to control these urges. You will not die if you do not have sex.

You should learn to say no to this man or any other man who may invite you to go out with him, especially if you know that he will want to be intimate with you.

Don’t take the risk of going with this man to rural Jamaica or any place where both of you will be alone and you will have the temptation to have sex with him.

Sometimes girls in your age group like to brag with their colleagues about what they have done with men.

A girl who has not indulged in sexual acts might feel that she is the odd one out, but it is better to be laughed at than to make yourself common.

Peer pressure can cause a girl to do many things. So, I beg you, leave sex alone. Concentrate on your schoolwork.

This man is much older than you, and he will try to inveigle you into doing things that are wrong.

I hope that you are not angry with me for telling you the truth. I look forward to hearing from you again.

Pastor