Dear Pastor,

I am 15 years old and I am attending high school. I love to read your column. When I don't have money to buy it, I ask friends to give me their Star after they have read it. It is because of your column why I am still a virgin. I have followed your advice to young people like myself. Some of my friends are no longer virgins. I almost lost my virginity to the brother of one of my schoolmates. She is my very good friend. Once, a group of us as girls planned to have a sleepover at her parents' home. Her parents gave us almost the entire place to study and to have fun. Her mother even cooked for us.

This girl and I almost broke friendship because I did not know that she was planning to have her brother spend time with me during the sleepover and that he would have sex with me. I knew that he liked me but I didn't like him that way. During the time at the house, he started touching me up and he tried to get me to move from the area where the other girls were to another place. I went briefly to one area and I then realised that what he wanted from me was sex. He touched my breasts and I told him that if he touched me that way again I would scream. He said he thought that was a part of the bargain. I asked him what bargain, but he didn't answer. I left and went to his sister and asked her what was going on and she told me that he liked me and that he wanted to have sex with me. I told her that I was going to go home, but she begged me not to go and also not to make the other girls know what was going on.

I have not told my parents about what happened because if I did, they would never let me go out and sleep over at anybody's house again. My girlfriend and I made up and we are best friends again. She told me she was sorry for what happened. This guy is a big man to me. He is 20 years old and he has his babymother. I know his babymother and I also know the baby. I would like to be a counsellor like you to help young people. Keep up the good work.

T.E.

Dear T.E.,

I am glad that you are a regular reader of the column and that you have enjoyed it and also that the column has been helpful to you. Evidently, you are doing well in school, so I am happy for that also. You are a very wise young woman with good morals. Your parents trust you and you are not prepared to let them down.

From time to time we all know that girls go to their friends' home to study and sleep over. We expect that when that happens, that there will be proper supervision. Evidently, her older brother had told her that he likes you and would want to have sex with you. She should have rebuked him and let him know that would not be possible and that she wouldn't encourage that. Instead, she tried to facilitate him. That is so unfortunate. You handled, the situation very well.

Here was a man who was trying to have sex with a girl who under the law could not consent. He was not hardly up for sex. He had his babymother and they were still having a relationship. What he was trying to do with the help of his sister was to get you to become sexually involved with him. I'm glad it did not happen. And although his sister has asked for your forgiveness, I hope you will never go to another sleepover at her house.

Pastor