< Translator’s note: The original formatting of the stories has been preserved. The translations aim to remain as close as possible to each author's original wording and expression.

 

I’ll start with a less painful story — and one that isn’t quite about violence. But it’s a story I want as many girls as possible to know about. And though we rarely learn from other people’s mistakes, maybe it will save someone… My first boyfriend (sexual partner), with whom I was in a long-term relationship, convinced me within a few weeks to have sex without condoms. I was a student, and he was a year older. I was green and naive, and I believed him when he said he’d recently been tested and was clean. About a year later, during a routine annual gynaecological check-up, tests came back positive for two STIs: mycoplasma and HPV (human papillomavirus) of an oncogenic type. This virus, like all viruses, cannot be fully cured — it stays in the body forever. A vaccine exists, but it only works before possible infection. After that, only the associated symptoms are treated, and you rely on your immune system…

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Unfortunately, my immune system is not very strong. And even if general immunity is fine, there is also local vaginal immunity to contend with. So, unfortunately, every two to three years, I am dealing with pre-cancerous conditions — sometimes already with despair.

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How exhausting this is, and how much money it takes…

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“That’s the deal, kids.” I don’t know whether he lied to me about “being tested” or whether he was already cheating on me in that first year. I ended up leaving him because of sexual infidelity, which I discovered by accident: I opened a folder on his computer, and instead of the film he’d recommended, I found pornographic photos of another girl in his bed, together with him. During the — longer for me than for men — treatment period that followed.

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Unfortunately, in Ukraine there is still no mandatory vaccination of teenagers against HPV at the official level, unlike in the US or European countries.

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I should also mention that at the time I categorically did not drink alcohol, because of my father’s alcoholism: he drank beer every day with his friends, and it was exhausting for me, especially around the New Year. I found it hard to say so directly, so I used what I knew from psychology and wrote him a letter. I spent New Year’s Eve at home while he was with his friends — because that was his choice. On International Women’s Day, I was also alone, because that day happened to be the birthday of one of his acquaintances.

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Anonymous author; story shared in 2023 as part of the “16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence” campaign