Lentekriebels MyO21 beach masturbation event

«I still can’t quite believe I was actually there.

It was late April 2021, still deep in lockdown. School had been screens for months. Nobody was touching anybody. My friends and I were all teens and climbing the walls. Then the messages started: MyO21, this special Lentekriebels day on the closed beach at Breskens. Official education event for teen girls only. ID checks at the gate, fenced-off section of sand, workshops about bodies and consent. Sponsored by some toy company. Sounded almost normal.

We took the train anyway. Walked the long way along the dunes until we found the temporary fencing. There were already holes cut in two places. A group of girls in hoodies and bikini tops were slipping through one of them, so we followed. No one stopped us. The official entrance had security and people checking IDs, but by the time we got inside it was obvious the numbers had already exploded.

There must have been close to a thousand of us. Almost every girl no more than 15, Dutch, most of us in bikinis or just underwear because the sun was out and nobody cared anymore. The official workshop mats were still set up in one corner with a few educators looking completely overwhelmed, but everywhere else had turned into something else.

Bright turquoise plastic groundsheets covered huge stretches of sand. On them were boxes and boxes of sex toys – still sealed or already torn open. Vibrators in neon pink and purple and turquoise, thick dildos, little bullet ones, some weird clear educational models. Girls were just grabbing them. I watched a girl two metres away rip open a packaging with her teeth, switch on a bright pink rabbit vibrator, and sit straight down on the sheet with her legs open. She didn’t look around first. Within minutes the air was full of that low electric buzz mixed with wet sounds and soft, startled moans. Some of these girls hadn't even grown pubic hair yet

I kept walking because I didn’t know what else to do. Further up the beach there was a white tent near the café. Someone had run garden hosepipes from the outdoor taps. The tent was packed. Girls were kneeling or lying on their backs, tops off or pushed up, holding the nozzles between their legs. The water pressure wasn’t gentle. You could see it – the way their hips jerked when the stream hit the right spot, the way their thighs shook. One girl had the nozzle pressed flat against herself and was making these short, high sounds every time the water pulsed. Another was on all fours with the hose in one hand, water running down her legs onto the sand. Phones were out even though they weren’t supposed to be. I saw at least ten screens recording the same view: bare chests, wet skin, hands adjusting the nozzles.

Outside it felt even stranger. There was this tall sculpture they called the GiantMan water tower with water pouring down the sides and a figure at the top spraying more water over anyone underneath. Girls were standing under it in just bottoms, faces tilted up, glitter already stuck to their wet skin. In the paint-and-glitter section there was a blue climbing frame. Girls in clear plastic wrap were climbing it, paint and glitter all over their hands and xxxxxs and stomachs, the plastic sticking to them in the heat. The groundsheets underneath were covered in glitter and footprints.

The sound was constant. Buzzing toys, water spraying, the wet slap of skin, and girls not even trying to stay quiet. Most of it was solo. Almost no one was touching anyone else. It was just hundreds of girls getting themselves off in full view of each other, over and over. I saw one girl come so hard she dropped the vibrator and just lay there shaking, mouth open, while two others next to her kept going without even looking up. Another girl had two different toys going at once and was laughing between gasps like she couldn’t believe it was happening either.

I ended up on one of the turquoise sheets because standing still felt worse. I grabbed a thick purple vibrator that was still in its packaging. My hands were shaking when I opened it. I sat down, looked around once more – bare breasts, open legs, glitter, water, the same shocked-excited faces everywhere – and switched it on. The first time it touched me I jumped. It was stronger than anything I’d ever used at home. I kept it there anyway. Every time I opened my eyes there were more people watching or doing the same thing. The girl on my left had a hose nozzle and was biting her lip so hard it was white. The one on my right came with a loud, broken sound and then immediately started again with a different toy.

I came three times before I even realised how long I’d been sitting there. Each time it felt bigger than the last because I could hear everyone else at the same time. The air smelled like salt water, plastic, and sex. Used toys and torn packaging were everywhere. Glitter stuck to wet skin and groundsheets. No one was embarrassed anymore. We were all just… doing it in front of each other like it was the most normal thing in the world, even though none of us had ever done anything like this before.

By late afternoon the official educators had given up trying to run workshops. Security had stopped checking the fence. People started drifting back through the same holes once the sun dropped. I walked out with glitter still on my stomach and the feeling that something irreversible had happened. I had never seen that many girls come in one place. I had never heard that many of them at the same time. I still think about the sound of the water and the buzzing more than anything else.

It was supposed to be education. It turned into the most shocking, free afternoon of my life.»