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While working on her new memoir, Amy Schumer says she realized a haunting truth about her past – that her first sexual experience at 17 years old was not consensual.
“I didn’t think about it until I started reading my journal again,” the 35-year-old comedian and actress told Marie Clare in its August issue. “When it happened, I wrote about it almost like a throwaway. It was like, ‘And then I looked down and realized he was inside me.’ He was saying, ‘I’m so sorry’ and ‘I can’t believe I did this.'”
Schumer described that experience as “not a good one,” and said that the man is no longer in her life and she has no desire to punish him. “This was 17 years ago,” she explained. “There are just so many factors.”
That wasn’t the only time Schumer experienced sex without consent. The comedian also recalled being “ignored” by a then-boyfriend when she attempted to reject his sexual advances. “I was saying ‘No, stop’ and it was just completely ignored.”
Because of her sexual past, Schumer said she is acutely aware of society’s problem of victim-blaming.
“You know, with the rape survivor, it’s not just shaming, it’s fury,” she said. “It makes people so mad if you’re not a perfect victim.”
The New York native kept a journal between the ages of 12 and 23 and said reading the material again was “really painful.”
“I felt bad for myself. The ugliness, the embarrassing sh—t – it’s all there,” she said.
Schumer explained how she embraced herself as a sexual being while in college at Towson University near Baltimore – but didn’t necessarily always feel empowered by the choice.
“I decided I’m just going to f—k and not care,” she said. “Sophomore year, I went from having had sex with two guys to, all of the sudden, you’re up to 10. It was a dark time. I didn’t like these guys. I wanted them to like me though.”
She’s now in a happy relationship, with Chicago-based furniture designer Ben Hanisch, even calling him her first real boyfriend.
“I feel like Ben is the first guy who’s really been my boyfriend. There are guys who, if they heard me say that, would want to punch me in the face, but, yeah, it’s the truth,” she said.
“Being in love is the scariest thing in the world,” she continued. “You just want to f—king cry and scream. I can’t handle it. Every time we say goodbye, I think ‘This will have been a nice last week together.’ Or I tell myself nothing is real and he’s going to leave me and tell me he never loved me. I feel so bad for him. How exhausting it must be dating me.’
This article originally appeared on People.com
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