WARNING: This article is part of Today’s Teen “Backroom” section. Only read this content if you have parental permission. Parents should be monitoring all internet access, we are not responsible for content viewed if parents do not take an active role in censoring what they wish for their child to see and not to see.

There I was sitting on the sofa between my mother and my boyfriend having, what I would later refer to as The Sexual Panic Attack of 2007.

I didn’t know how he was standing it. My mother was staring at us like we were two wild animals, recently released from their life-long iron oppression; feral—lost.

We had just revealed that we were sexually activated—preheated–the car was in drive. And my mother had just suggested to my boyfriend the most preposterous thing I’d ever heard.

“You need to go with her to the gynecologist to get birth control.”

The gynecologist? I thought, my palms a puddle against the leather sofa. The place where I kick my legs up in stirrups and ogle pregnant women in the waiting room? You want to bring the guy I just lost my virginity to there?

I could not imagine anything more awkward or terrifying. He had already met my mother, what further horrors did I have to subject him to?

“I’m not bringing him there!” I said.

And then my boyfriend must have lost his god damn mind because he said, “No, she’s right.”

Looking back on it now, I can see that this was an incredibly mature observation, but a week later as we drove to my doctor I was feeling more nauseated and less grateful.

Mostly I had questions. Like: What happens if we get there and the waiting room is full of preggos and he gets freaked out? What if people give us dirty looks because they think I’m pregnant and my baby-daddy is wearing a t-shirt that says, “Just one more level, just one more level, just one more level.”

I remember that morning being so paralyzed with fear that I didn’t even want to get out of the car, but somehow I did and we found ourselves checking in. There was a pregnant woman there and she didn’t glare daggers at us for our sinful union. Still the question remained: Does he come in with me? Like when my feet are all up in the stirrups? When my name was called we both continued to sit like maybe if we waited five more seconds the pregnant woman next to me might spring up and say, OH! THAT’S ME! But of course, that didn’t happen. I quickly filled the nurse in on the situation and she recommended that my boyfriend stay behind and the doctor would call him in to the office after my exam.

My panic somewhat subsided with the popping of the nightmare that he might have to see me with my business all up in the air.

However, as soon as my feet swung down from the stirrups—my panic set in once again.

At seventeen, how exactly does one handle a casual conversation between their boyfriend and gynecologist?

Whatever my fears had been, whatever horrifying outcome I’d predicted, whatever looks of ultimate disgust that could appear on his face would have been—never happened.

What happened in that room still stays with me, to this day. The doctor, of course, said his peace on birth control, he told us what our options were and questioned us on our current use of protection.

And then, before I could jump in with my “Exactly how safe…” and “How long until this actually kicks in?” questions, I heard somebody else asking them for me.

I don’t know why this shocked me. I mean he was here. Of his own free will. With no shotgun to his head. And he had held my hand in the waiting room. And he wasn’t running away screaming. My boyfriend was taking an active role in our protection, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to be responsible.

In that moment I wanted to thank my mother for being all up in my ovaries, his mother for raising him not to be an incredible asshat, and whatever power in the universe that had so kindly helped me to be in this room with someone who actually cared what happened in the morning.

In the same moment, it made me sad because it seemed like such an auspicious occasion. I’d never heard of friends having their boyfriends accompany them to the gynecologist. More often, I heard of them dropping off their girlfriends in the parking lot of planned parenthood with promises to pick them up when things were taken care of.

In today’s society, to not even have the expectation of being united in an effort to have safe sex, is a huge wake up call.

I think that when you take on the practice of having sex—either once or continuously in a long-term relationship, you are taking on a greater responsibility. I mean, it’s not just going together to get birth control, but encouraging each other to engage in “layered” protection until your birth control is fully active.

Its standing in a Walgreens bathroom with a pregnancy test in your hand and coming out the door to land in someone else’s arms and cry because you are so relieved that everything is going to be okay this month!

No woman should have to experience these anxieties alone.

It’s always a choice when you’re having consensual sex to have it with someone who is going to be a sexual partner with you—in every aspect of your sexual life—panic attacks and all.