My knuckles were white as I gripped the hospital bed rail.

Then tears slipped down my face as my best friend and a nurse held my legs apart, while another nurse inserted gauze into my vagina to try and stop the bleeding.

Everyone always says you’ll remember the first time you have sex, but I’d thought it would be because of how awkward it would be. My first time featured a blood-stained bed, carpet, bathtub and three different hospital rooms.

So after my disastrous first time, I want to make sure others don’t have to go through the same thing – and that starts with this cautionary tale and a call for better sex education for all.

I was in my late teens when I first had sex with a boy I was dating at the time.