The Virginity Project

Man Up

One of the things I loved most about writing my book was the opportunity to talk to men. It will come as no surprise to learn that women are fairly well versed when it comes to the art of self expression. From the moment we are born, and right into adulthood, crying, talking about our feelings and expressing emotions are all acceptable (and frankly enjoyable) pastimes. Not so if you are a man. Men might embrace their feminine sides more than their grandfathers or their father’s generation did, (just check out my other blog) but in the end, men are still wedded to the idea of ‘being a man’ and all that this entails. I could write a thesis on the architecture of ‘being a man’ having interviewed so many of them for my book, and may well do at some point but for the moment, have a read of this. This story goes to show just how much men hold in – and therefore why my job was so easy. What’s the betting that if you met ‘Stuart' in regular life, you would never in a million years guess his secret?

It also brings home the idea that losing virginity is about so much more than just having sex for the first time. It’s about acceptance as a human being and an attractive one at that because if no one wants to have sex with you, what does that tell us? Of course, with hindsight, we know that it tells us bugger all. Life just isn’t that straightforward or simple but try telling that to a boy, or even a man, who has had very little close intimate contact with the opposite sex.

Warning: this story may break your heart a little bit.

‘To Kate

I came across your article in my brother's girlfriend’s magazine. (Reader, he means last month’s issue of Glamour). I suppose I shouldn't have been reading it, but a consequence of this was that I came across your project. When I hear or read about sex, I feel frustrated, sad and depressed as I have only had negative sexual experiences in the 10 years since I SHOULD  have lost my virginity at the age of 17. The sexualisation of women is a common issue raised in the news and media at the moment. One thing that is apparent to me is how people always discuss the effect this has on young women. Nobody ever considers what effect this has on young men. Here is my story on how I lost my virginity.

As a teenager I always enjoyed DJ’ing and listening to music. When I look back, I think music was my comfort zone, something I hid behind in order to avoid actual conversation with people. By the end of college at the age of 19, all of my friends had started to have sex and had girlfriends and I had not. I decided to try something completely different to my hobby of DJ’ing & music. I started a deck officer cadet-ship in the merchant navy. This lasted three years, I worked on oil rig supply ships in the stormy North Sea. I also sailed on a special underwater ops ship from Cape Town, across the Indian Ocean to my first transit of the Malacca strait (with me on Pirate watch!). This trip was concluded by a visit to the ‘Four Floors of Whores’ entertainment district, immediately on arrival at the Port of Singapore. This I didn't like. The idea of me, the western white man paying a less well off-in life Asian girl, who was only interested in me because I had money and the potential to get her out of her own country and life; quite a common thing to happen between western merchant seaman who can't get a western women. Not for me.

By the age of 22 and after much study in college, I finally passed my examination and gained my ‘Ticket’ the license required to work as a deck officer on board any merchant ship in the world, no matter what size or type. But I was still a virgin, still a boy doing a man's job.

I had kept in contact with the friends I had grown up with, so that summer, after passing my examination, I headed for Newquay where at least 15 of us partied hard for a week or so. Maybe I would meet a girl on this holiday, after all, all the friends around me (both males & female) including my younger brother had been sexually active for years. But it wasn't to be. The week ended with me feeling more frustrated than ever, particularly on that beach with all those half naked women walking about.

I went back to sea a few weeks later now wondering if I would ever have sex, yet now a 3rd officer, being left alone on the navigation bridge with sole responsibility of a multi-million pound vessel. Surely a girl would realize that I'm not a loser? I felt I had proven myself by getting my ticket - yet nobody apart from my parents seemed to realize what I had achieved.

The next year was spent working on a deep-water drilling rig out of Egypt, gaining promotion to second officer I navigated our vessel to Morocco, the Canary Islands, The Bahamas and in and around the Gulf of Mexico, working 6 weeks on 6 weeks off. The six weeks on was stressful, navigating across shipping lanes and dodging fishing vessels. My leave got even more frustrating, finding myself in the ‘negative cycle’ where ‘the more you think about sex, the less likely you are to have it’. 

Finally it was my 24th birthday and I had had enough. Desperate and despairing with life, I visited a prostitute in Amsterdam. She was very nice and professional considering I had had a few beers. She was tall and she had her hair in blond pigtails and she was about 35. I only managed penetration for about 20 seconds or so. I didn't really think of sex that much during the weeks following my loss of virginity, however on return back on leave when I'm surrounded by couples and sexy women walking down the street I certainly do. I'm now 27 and have yet again been rejected by another woman I met online and went on a date with last week (the 4th rejection in as many dates). I have enough sea time to go for my Chief Officer license, but do not see myself being able to pass it; my mind is elsewhere, frustrated and depressed. I'm living in a world where women rule, they decide who they want to sleep with not men. I fear for my future, why me? When I do go back to college I will be living in a city for a year and will not be at sea. Hopefully this will increase the chance of me meeting someone.’

Born March 1984 in Scotland.

The birds and the bees...

Ok, so it wasn’t Wayne Rooney that got accused of ‘kissing like a virgin’ recently but the sentiment is still the same. I don’t suppose it was meant to be a complement. It only serves to highlight the fact that being a virgin can be an alienating experience for your average young western person. And being a male virgin can be the pits. Not that I am taking sides. People have got quite impassioned about this at times on my blog, about whether or not virginity is a bigger burden for a girl or a boy…and I’m not going to take sides. It’s a different burden. Women undoubtedly have more choices when it comes to the loss of virginity. Whether or not woman want to take these choices is another matter but the fact remains that when push comes to shove (no pun intended) a woman can find a man to avail her of her virginity. We hold the cards.

In my forthcoming book, I use peacocks to make this point. Female peacocks don’t have beautiful plumage like the males do because they don’t need it. It is the female bird that gets to choose which male she will mate with. The boys just have to sit there and hope that they'll get picked. All this stuff about girls waiting to get chosen to dance at the school disco is a total fallacy. Most men will tell you that women have the power. We just don’t realize it is all!

Today’s young man feels the pressure in a big way. Lucky for him he has the brains to get off his backside and do something about it. As his last sentence attests…‘It is part of a past I am working through as I seek to find ways to express my sexuality in a healthy, positive manner.’

‘Dear Kate,

I recently stumbled upon your blog and feel compelled to share my story with you. I’m rather reserved, so such self-disclosure is pretty remarkable. So here it goes….

My name is Philip.  I was born in 1975, and I live in the USA. I lost my virginity when I was 22.

Growing up I was shy and found it more difficult to make friends than other kids. I was also raised in a Christian environment that frowned on any form of sex outside of marriage. I hit puberty and experienced the same flood of hormones any teenager does, yet I was extremely anxious around girls.  I didn’t date. When I finally was brave enough to ask a girl out as a senior in high school, she declined, battering what little self-confidence I possessed. In college, my shyness and social awkwardness continued to inhibit me. I rarely dated and never came remotely close to having sex. I did somehow manage to have a girlfriend for 6 months—she was the first girl I kissed—but we remained chaste. (She strongly believed in saving sex for marriage.) When she broke up with me, I was devastated.

I was conflicted in college. I was still a Christian, as were most of my friends. I believed in the sinfulness of extramarital sex. Yet I found myself in an environment where most of my peers were having lots of sex. When combined with the cultural expectation that a guy my age should have lost his virginity by this time, I felt inadequate. My strong sex drive didn’t make matters easier. I looked at pornography and masturbated almost daily.

During my senior year of college, the thought first entered my mind of visiting a call girl. At first I brushed it aside, thinking that I could never go through with it. But the urge to do so kept reappearing. One Saturday night I was by myself in my apartment, depressed and lonely. And really horny. I decided to go through with it. I checked into a hotel room and called an escort service.

The lady on the phone recommended a strawberry blonde ‘with porcelain skin’ in her 20s. While I waited for her to arrive, simultaneously excited and petrified, I opened the nightstand drawer and reached for the Gideon’s Bible. Seriously. I was skimming through the Bible as I prepared to lose my virginity to a prostitute. After what felt like an eternity, I heard a knock on the door. I opened it and saw an attractive young woman. She had a very pretty smile. As I greeted her, I remember thinking in my mind, ‘I’m going to have sex with her in a few minutes.’ After some pleasantries, we sat down next to each other on a couch. She was dressed nicely and professionally, as if she was on her way to a job in a bank. She must have sensed I was terrified, so she started a conversation that put me a little more at ease. (Needless to say, she did most of the talking.) She told me about her life. I still, years later, remember and appreciate her friendliness and kindness.

After about 10 or 15 minutes, she leaned in close to me and asked what I wanted to do. I stammered and mumbled some evasive reply. She said, ‘You can ask me anything.’ I leaned over to whisper in her ear and blurted out, ‘I want to have sex with you.’ I leaned in to kiss her, but she slid back and gently told me, ‘Escorts don’t kiss.’ She sensed my dismay and, smiling, reassured me, ‘I’m a very sexual person. We’ll have fun.’

Soon I was fumblingly attempting to undress her. At some point I confessed, ‘I’ve never really done this before.’ After we undressed and got on the bed, she started caressing me and nibbling on my ear. ‘You’re a cute thing,’ she said. As I was lying on my back, she placed her body on top of mine and…

I ejaculated on her leg.

I was mortified. She told me, ‘It’s okay,’ and went to the bathroom to clean herself. Once she returned to the bed, we talked for a while. It didn’t take me long to get aroused again, and I started to explore her body. I spent time rubbing and kissing her breasts. She laid me on my back, moved her head over my crotch and started to give me a blowjob. I watched with fascination as her mouth slid up-and-down the shaft of my penis. After going down on me for a few minutes, she asked, ‘What do you want to do now?’

‘Let’s f**k.’

She put a condom on me, lay on her back, and guided me inside her. I don’t remember much about the physical act itself, only the thought in my head, I’m inside a woman. I’m finally fucking a girl.

I climaxed and she cleaned me up with a washcloth. We then both sat on the edge of the bed. Instead of being relieved at losing my virginity, I started to feel very depressed. She noticed me looking forlorn and tried to cheer me up. ‘Don’t look so sad.’ She smiled at me, gave me a kiss on my cheek and said, ‘You’re a really nice guy.’ She dressed and I accompanied her toward the door. As she exited, she smiled again and wished me good night.

I spent the next couple of days in bed, paralyzed by guilt. Despite the positive qualities of the escort I hired, the encounter left me feeling empty and sad. I had violated my moral beliefs. For a few days, I felt ashamed to face my female friends and classmates.

But it wasn’t enough to stop me from doing it again. Since my first time, I have visited more than 90 call girls, and, outside of a couple of affairs with older women, my sexual experiences have been exclusively with prostitutes. My attempts at forming relationships have been a mess. I just started therapy for sexual addiction and depression.  Oddly, though, my regret at losing my virginity to a prostitute isn’t as deep as you might imagine. I suspect that even if I hadn’t called that escort service, I would have found some way to lose my virginity. And my sexual compulsivity probably would have eventually led me to pay for sex anyway. Nonetheless, it still isn’t a happy memory. It is part of a past I am working through as I seek to find ways to express my sexuality in a healthy, positive manner.'

 

Mr Mojo risin'...

This is quite simply one of the best stories I have ever been told. I am happy to be able to re-tell it to you now. Society celebrates sexuality. More specifically, society celebrates sexuality for the able bodied. I’ve repeated the following anecdote many times on this blog and I’ll repeat it again. The first time that I interviewed a man with a physical disability, I fully expected him to tell me a crap story.  I expected the story to be as limited as the length of Charlie Thomas’s arms, shortened as they sadly had been by a drug called Thalidomide. On the contrary, Charlie Thomas told me one of the finest virginity loss stories I had ever heard. More fool me.

Today’s story is a bit different because Ash’s disability is such that there is little he can do without some assistance, hence the help needed – and provided - by his faithful assistant in order to hit the jackpot so to speak. His assistant is not the only guardian angel in this scenario. Ruby, the woman who helped usher Ash into so called ‘man hood’ also brings to light another uncomfortable truth. Sex workers do some incredibly valuable work. You will only need to read the first few paragraphs of this story to understand how and why this is.

Quite apart from anything else, this story is a sobering reminder of how much most of us have to be thankful for. The ability to get around and about is not a god given right but it is something that most of us take for granted. Virginity has always been a difficult thing to dispense with - for a whole host of different reasons, some of them physical and some of them mental – but most of us do at least possess the ability to walk into a room and lie down on a bed. (Or perhaps even a garage floor… as in the owner of last week’s story). Arise Mr Mojo.

Ash. British, early thirties. Lost his virginity last week.

‘This is the story of how I, a severely disabled man in my thirties, recently came to lose my virginity to a sex-worker.

Having had a neuromuscular disability from birth, my life has taken a different path to most able-bodied people.  I have a graduate degree and an ongoing professional career, and given the debilitating nature of my disability this is a decent achievement.  I am also well liked by most people that meet me.  However, I am somehow in the situation where I only have a few friends, none of whom are particularly close, and a poor social life.  I have also never had any positive attention from the opposite sex that would suggest that I was fanciable, despite getting on with girls when I am in their company and making them laugh.  Any time I have found the confidence to make my interest in a girl known to them, I have been met with polite rejection.

Over the past few years, the gradual deterioration in my physical abilities has accelerated.  Abilities such as moving my hand across a short distance has become more difficult and in some cases impossible.  I often lose my balance and flop over to one side of my wheelchair.  Eating, even breathing, is a struggle.  As bit by bit I lose each of those skills, I face up to the fact that in all probability I am in the final few years of my life.  I do not fear death itself, and I have never expected to live to a ripe old age.  But I feel incomplete and lonely, and that is not how I want to be when I die.  In recent months I have found myself trying to troubleshoot this problem, and have come to the conclusion that before I can succeed in forming a connection with another person I need to find a way to better connect with my own humanity.  To do that I need to embrace myself as a sexual person; not the unattractive, defective lump I usually identify with, but as a unique and desirable individual.  My virginity was making this impossible to do – without a sexual or sensual experience to draw upon I wouldn’t be able to move forward with this plan.

After much deliberation and research, I decided to pay an escort to help me with this.  I emailed a girl called Ruby to introduce myself and received a very positive response. Over the next few days I thought about it further and considered the practicality and even the morality of this decision. I plucked up the courage to speak to my personal assistant, Sam, whose support and understanding I would need.  This I got.  I phoned Ruby to confirm a date and time a few days ahead. Fast-forward through the excruciatingly anxious intervening period to the big day...

I was sitting on my bed waiting when I heard the doorbell ring.  The anxiety turned to nervous excitement.  She was here, and moments from now I would get my chance to experience being with a woman.  And I knew that within the hour, assuming my body didn’t fail me yet again, I could stop identifying as a ‘virgin’.

Sam ushered her into the living room and asked her to wait while he checked on me.  He came to me, smiled wryly and commented that she looked very nice, and made sure I was ready to receive her.  After maybe 30 seconds that seemed like an eternity, Ruby popped her head through my bedroom door, smiled and came in closing the door behind her.  She was wearing a pretty black dress and came in laughing because Sam had told her: ‘He’s all yours!’  She gave me a brief kiss on the lips to start with and from that point on I was completely ready for anything – as that kiss was the most intimate moment I’d had in my life up to that point.  I remember thinking how moist her lips were and how they just slipped and slid over mine.  It felt so pleasant and natural; the sensation was unique.

I asked her how she was (just small talk) and directed her to the envelope of cash on my desk which she promptly opened and quickly counted.  I was a bit surprised.  I thought she would make some excuse about needing to freshen up in the bathroom, as a ruse to count the money in the private.  That’s what escorts do on TV anyway!  It felt slightly weird, but it only lasted a few seconds so I didn’t have time to dwell on it.

After talking for a few moments and breaking the ice she said I would probably want her to get out of her dress so I could see the goods.  And with a sexy little shake and a smile she slipped out of her dress to reveal her lingerie underneath.  I was really enjoying this, albeit with the slightest frustration that because I was lying almost flat on my back on the bed and she was stood just off to one side my view wasn’t perfect to fully admire every detail.

She then started to unbutton my shirt and, with a bit of instruction from me as to how to move my arms, she took it off.  I thought this would be more difficult and had intended that I would keep my shirt on, just unbuttoned so she could caress my chest.  But I was glad it was off.  She then slid down my trousers which I had deliberately not had fully pulled up when I was getting dressed for her.  When they were off I was pretty pleased with myself for having chosen my clothes successfully for ease of removal!  I was now completely naked, and loved this.  It’s not like I haven’t been naked in front of women before, but they’ve all been nurses or carers, or my mum.  This time it was different.  I was naked to receive pleasure.

Ruby then began to get out of her lingerie.

First she removed her bra, revealing beautiful round breasts and pert pink nipples.  I mean, they try to teach you as part of sex education on TV that a ‘real woman’s’ breasts are not like you see in porn, symmetrical and firm with small and perfectly round areola.  Well, Ruby’s breasts were exactly like that.  Just like in my fantasies.  She brought one of her nipples towards my mouth and I rolled my lips and my tongue over it.  Then she did the same with the other nipple.  I had thought that breasts would be softer, spongier, but they felt very firm to my tongue.  The skin was so smooth and tight, and other than the nipple itself I remember feeling no little bumps.  I also remember there was no discernible taste to her nipples, which I found slightly disappointing even though I had no idea of what I thought nipples should taste like.

Next she slipped out of her briefs, exposing her Brazilian-cropped vagina.  As she ran her fingers across it she commented how it was already so wet, which I took as encouragement that she was enjoying this experience too (as much as she could, this being what it was).  She separated her labia and introduced me to her clitoris.  I mean to say she actually, verbally announced it to me – ‘and here is my clit’!  That was another strange moment. It was like I was getting a commentary.  Once again I missed having a perfect view, but I wanted my time with her to keep developing and didn’t want to pause for a freeze-frame.

Back on the bed, she picked up my hands and guided them over her body.  It was so lovely to feel her, yet so frustrating to not have the motor control to do this myself, or the strength to squeeze her and pull on her like every instinct I had was commanding me to do.  She started to stroke my chest again and asked me ‘are you a leg man or a breast man?’ to which I replied ‘I think I’m more of a pussy man actually’.  At that moment I wondered if my remark had sounded particularly crass, but she smiled at me.  She took my hand and pressed it up against her vagina, then put two of my fingers inside her.  In their natural position, my hands make a loosely clenched fist, and if you try to straighten out my fingers then very soon they start to close up again.  So it took some concentration on my part to keep my fingers straight inside her as she slid them deeper within.  

 She was right when she said she was wet, and it was like my fingers were travelling through warm jelly.  In fact when I was thinking about this later on, I remembered the movie ‘American Pie’ which I had seen years ago and only now did it make perfect sense! I tried to press my fingertips against the sides, and generally just feel and explore as much as I could before my fingers curled up again.  I had literally a few seconds to enjoy this but it really was magical for me.  She brought my fingers towards my nose and told me to smell them, so I breathed in.  I was taken aback by the odour, at how pungent it was.  It was kind of unpleasant initially, but in another way it was very satisfying that it was so intense and like nothing I had smelt before.  The strangest thing was that I continued to smell this odour for almost two days, despite the fact that I had thoroughly washed my hands and showered.  I am sure that nobody else smelt it; it’s as if it was infused into my nostrils, or maybe into my brain.  It was like an extension of the experience, inspiring happy memories while it lasted.

Ruby asked me if there was anything I particularly wanted to do.  I told her that I really wanted to taste her.  So she climbed onto the bed and squatted, lowering her vagina onto my lips.  I was able to manage the slightest movement of my head, enough to try and trap parts of her labia between my lips.  And I even surprised myself that I was able to reach out with my tongue enough to lick her.  My disability prevents me from being able to stick my tongue out very far at all, and I had wondered on occasions over the years how I might cope with this very activity.  Well I managed better than I expected to.  Even Ruby commented ‘you’re pretty good at that for your first time’!  I guessed she was probably just saying that to give me a boost, but it felt good to hear all the same.

After a couple of minutes she shuffled down the bed and began to kiss me again.  She worked her way down my neck and on to my chest, as I started to breathe more deeply in an effort to open myself up to the pleasure.  She gently sucked on my nipples with her moist lips, which was something I enjoyed the sensation of more than I would have anticipated.  She climbed off the bed again and continued downward...

Now it’s probably quite hard to imagine how I wasn’t already hard by this point.  I’m sure that had this been a year or two earlier it would have been; in fact I’d have probably blown my load by now.  But I had been feeling depressed and hollow and hadn’t had an erection in ages, not even the slightest ‘stirring’.  Even watching porn on the computer hadn’t been making anything happen.  It had started to feel like nothing was working down there anymore.  I used to think it would be a blessing if my erections would stop, after all what use were they to me?  It’s not like I could see myself ever having the fortune to be in a sexual situation (other than one I had paid for).  I can’t masturbate to get any enjoyment out of it because my hands don’t work properly.  All that would happen is I would have occasional wet dreams with all the embarrassment and inconvenience they entail.  So erections and any sexual urges whatsoever just felt like the bane of my life.  However in recent weeks I had come to realise that without those urges, that stirring, I was not ‘me’ anymore.  I had no smile and no spark.  As Austin Powers would say, I had lost my ‘mojo’ and I needed to get it back.  That is basically why Ruby was here right now.  I needed to test if it had gone forever so that I would know what I was dealing with.

She locked her lips around my cock and got to work on it, and unsurprisingly it felt very nice.  I was very nervous about whether it would have the desired effect, and perhaps I was a little panicky and impatient because it did take some time to begin to grow.  It might sound cheesy to say it, but it felt as if she was literally breathing new life into me.  She mumbled that people had told her that she gave really good blow-jobs, and of course I showed my agreement, even though I would have liked for her to take my cock in further and tighter.  Then I experienced what was quite possibly the most pleasurable act of the evening, and obviously therefore of my life, when she sucked on my balls.  I had always wondered if I would enjoy that, ever since I watched this sex therapy TV show some years earlier in which a so-called expert advised to a woman to suck her husband’s balls only for the husband to report back that he absolutely hated it!  Well now I knew, and it was ecstasy for me.  Like most things it only lasted for moments, and I regret not asking Ruby to do that for longer.  It was like it had started everything within me whirring into action.  I think I was worried that it was feeling too good and that I would cum too soon, so I suppose it was the right choice.

So that was the warm-up complete, and now it was time for the main act.  She asked me rhetorically if I wanted to be inside her, and I smiled and nodded.  She took a condom out of her handbag and put it on me.  I was in two minds about how to feel; despite the overwhelming desire for pure and unobstructed flesh-to-flesh contact, I knew a condom was essential and in a way I was excited to have the opportunity to wear one.  I think the only previous time I had seen a condom in real life was back in my university days when they were being given out free, and I put one over my knob for fun (my wheelchair joystick knob I mean!) She climbed back on to my bed, and briefly stood upright before the inevitable comedy moment when she almost lost her footing and had to scramble to avoid falling off!  But she was fine and she sat down on me, facing me, and with her arms stretched out behind and her hands pressed flat on the bed.  She gently rocked her pelvis, but I was disappointed that I was just not feeling very much at all.  I had wanted to have intercourse ever since I stumbled across its definition in a dictionary at primary school!  And I had questioned for so long if it would even be practically possible for me to achieve.  Well it had gotten off to an inauspicious start.  I then asked the question that, as soon as the words came out of my mouth, sounded like another of those embarrassing things I was sure I’d heard before on the TV: ‘is it in?’ Three tiny words, but if I could have bashed my head against a wall I would have done. 

She confirmed that it was, and suggested it might just be the condom dulling the sensation.  That was a very good point, not that there was anything that could be done about it.  But I realised the bigger problem was that my bed was not completely flat – it is adjustable and I had the backrest raised slightly from the start to improve my view.  I figured that if it was flatter, I could get deeper inside her.  Ruby grabbed the controller and pressed the button to lower the backrest... NO! PLEASE NOT NOW!  My bed has been very temperamental, and every now and again the controller stops working, and of all the times it has failed me this was by far the most inconvenient!  Sam can usually fix the problem quite quickly by unplugging the controller, jiggling the connections, and reconnecting it.  I asked Ruby to try this so she got off me, found the plug and tried to pull it out but it was fitted just too tight.  Seriously, it is only as I am writing this that I see the irony of the problem.  There was only one thing for it.  Ruby pulled the blanket up over me, slipped back into her dress and, slightly embarrassingly left the room to summon Sam.  While she was spending a few minutes in the bathroom, Sam entered with a peculiar grin and I told him the problem.  He fixed it, lowered the bed flat, and left.  Ruby returned to continue from where we left off but in the time that had elapsed, my erection had started to fade and the condom felt a little loose.  She removed the condom and set about restoring me to my former glory with her mouth.  It only took a few moments, but this time I knew I just couldn’t contain it any longer.  ‘I think I’m going to cum’ I told her.  I felt that amazing burning sensation that I don’t get to experience nearly often enough as I ejaculated hard and for the first time in months.  I managed two respectable bursts and Ruby exclaimed: ‘That’s a lot of cum!’ I told her I wasn’t surprised considering how long I’d had to wait for this release. I added that I thought I could go again, perhaps more in hope than expectation because I still desperately wanted to experience ejaculation during intercourse.  ‘You’re still hard! How’s that?!’ she said enquired with some surprise, and I was quite impressed with myself!  I really believed I was going to get my wish, but as the seconds passed I knew it’s just wasn’t to be.  Once again my erection faded, I knew I had less than 10 minutes of my hour with Ruby remaining and that wouldn’t be nearly long enough to recharge.

What happens now? I wondered if Ruby would just excuse herself and leave. What was the usual protocol? I hadn’t really given this any thought.  She sat on the edge of my bed again, moved in closer to me, and just talked to me.  I can’t remember what we talked about exactly.  She told me a little bit about her life in London, her close friends that knew about her life as an escort, and her own difficulties in starting a relationship over the past few years.  I told her some stories about my own heartbreaks, and about the love I have inside me that I don’t know what to do with.  In truth, it didn’t really matter what we were speaking about.  It was just beautifully intimate to be naked and to look into her eyes and to see her looking into mine, and to sense that she actually did care about what I was saying.  It was unforced, affectionate and rounded off our encounter nicely; and it helped to convince me that sex with a prostitute doesn’t have to be a clinical and soulless.

And sadly that was that; my hour was up and Ruby told me she had to go now.  She covered me up and got dressed again.  We thanked each other and I asked her to tell Sam to give me a few minutes to myself.  And with that she was gone.

I had Sam give me a shower a short while after Ruby left, during which time I tried not to give too much away except that it had been a good experience.  I wasn’t beaming from ear to ear, but I had a thoughtful and satisfied smile.  Afterwards I went to sleep, wondering how I would feel in the morning leaving home for the first time as a non-virgin.  I slept well.

The following morning I sent Ruby an email to thank her for her affection, and over the coming days, Ruby and I exchanged a few more messages.  It was very uplifting for me to read what she had to say, in particular that she had enjoyed my sexual curiosity and how I had wanted to touch her and taste her.  She also admitted to me that she occasionally had doubts about her decision to be a sex worker, but that after meeting me those doubts had gone and she felt this was a gift I had given her.  That was a lovely and unexpected thing to read, because at best I hoped that her professionalism would help her to tolerate being with me physically, and I seemed to have made a better impression on her than I imagined I was capable of.

That was my virginity-loss experience.  I am proud of myself that I was able to engineer an opportunity to explore myself sexually, however brief it might have been.  I think I did it with dignity and maturity, and I have no regrets.  Obviously this is not how I would have planned to lose my virginity; I will always yearn for a deep sexual connection with a partner in a loving relationship.  But time is running out for me, the likelihood of that happening is remote, and it was up to me to make something happen sooner than later.  I am relieved that I succeeded, and hope I will be able to find the strength from this adventure to continue my journey of self-discovery and ultimately find contentment.’

 

To pro or not to pro..

I took part in this show last night on the BBC World Service. Asides from the thrill of going to Bush House – it’s very grand – it was an interesting experience because it raised that old chestnut again…the very modern phenomenon of auctioning one’s virginity, in this case, on a reality TV show. Although as I write this, I am wondering, is the auctioning of one’s virginity really such a modern concept? After all, patriarchal societies, of which we were one until quite recently, have been auctioning off women’s virginities for years. Word has it that even Lady Diana Spencer was tested for the presence of virginity before she married Prince Charles despite the fact that as any sane person knows, there is no definitive test for the presence of virginity. I digress. None of this will do anything to soothe the jangled nerves of any of the people who phoned in to give Justin Sisley, the maker of this show/documentary and one of his participants, Mark, a 23 year old gay man a bit of stick.

And I hear them, I really do. One woman phoned in to say that she has a young daughter and that she hoped that she never ever got to see a show where young men and women are auctioning off their virginity. I concur, from that point of view; it is indeed a revolting concept (although personally speaking, I find reality shows offensive before we even get to the auction part of the equation).

What makes me laugh is the assumption that the filmmaker is doing this in an effort to get famous/make money/exploit people. I don’t know Justin Sisley. He sounded like an intelligent man to me and perhaps he does want to have his five minutes in the sun but either way, it is highly unlikely that he has the ability to force people to auction off their virginity on a live TV show against their will. Do we want to watch them do it? Thats another question and in answer, I can’t help thinking that what Justin is proposing - above and beyond the whole tedious reality show concept and the questionable selling of first sexual experiences - is interesting and I’ll tell you why….

I have interviewed a lot of people about virginity loss for my book. I also receive a lot of stories on my blog. The age range of these people has been from 13, all the way up to 101 years old. To put that into context, the stories run from 1927 up to the present day. To say that these stories differ in content is an understatement but one thing does not change. No matter how sexualised our society has become or how inured we may have become to it, we do not value our intimate encounters, particularly our first ones, any the less. Even if you are not tied to the idea of virginity being that special, once only, I have to save it for the ‘right one’ type of experience, or even if it is something that you intend to dispense with in a practical, I need to get rid of this quickly type manner, it still doesn’t mean that you want to share this experience with the rest of world. Of all the people that I ever interviewed, only one of them wanted to be identified by her real name. Most of my blog correspondents write to me under assumed names. It doesn’t matter how you view your virginity, it’s too tender, it’s too vulnerable, in short, it’s your first sexual step into the adult world and as such, most of us want to take that step without the addition of a camera crew. For this reason, I will be fascinated to see if Justin’s participants are prepared to go through with an experience that mostly happens behind very closed doors. As far as I am concerned, this is where the heart of this story lies...it’s not about prostitution or the potential exploitation of people who may not know any better, at least not to me. It’s about privacy, vulnerability and intimacy...or the lack of it.

To the lady who doesn’t want her daughter to see this show, I still hear you but I also think that we need to credit young people with more intelligence. This show is not going to encourage young people to sell their virginity. If anything, it’s going to put them off losing it altogether.

Finally, and for some reason, I couldn’t really say why, as I sat firmly within the beating heart of British broadcasting yesterday, the news went rippling through the news room that Gordon Brown, our prime minister, was about to resign. Our transmission came to an abrupt end as we arrived, metaphorically speaking, on the doorstep of Ten Downing Street. Love him or hate him, I liked Gordon Brown’s departing speech, but what was most intriguing, amongst all this discussion of patriarchy, prostitution and tradition, was his assertion that he was about to give up his ‘second most important job’, that’s the one that comes after his first most important job - husband and father to his wife and children respectively. Gordon Brown, unwittingly or not, ended up making the last, and most modern statement of the day.

He's got a ticket to ride...

I’ve told this story before but I’ll tell it again. I searched high and low for the prostitute virginity loss story for my book. I phoned a friend – or ten – I practically advertised on the Internet at one point until I realized that it might look a bit iffy. No story, asides from my endless (and unrequited) search for the Muslim story has taken me on so many twisty turny paths as my search for the prostitute story. And then one day they started rolling in. For no reason. Just like buses. It’s all true what they say about buses. None come for days and then there’s a ten-car pile-up. At one point I had three separate email conversations on the go at the same time, via my blog, from three different young men who were in the process of planning the simultaneous popping of their cherries with a visit to a sex worker. (Quick deviation…does my life ever seem a bit weird to you?)

Then I couldn’t quite decide how to introduce this story to you. I was going to tell you about the time, years ago, when, sitting around a table late at night with a bunch of work colleagues, well after the aforementioned last bus had gone home and deep into several bottles of red wine, someone piped up with a line that you don’t hear very often, ‘so who here, sitting at this table, has paid for sex?’

Imagine our surprise when two people said yes. One of them was a gay guy and the other was a woman. Guess who’s story we were more interested in. But then I thought that the telling of this particular tale was a bit misleading, after all,  this was a story about men, virginity loss and prostitutes, not a story about the small percentage of women who have paid for sex. (For the record, the lady in question visited a female escort with her boyfriend because she wanted to know what it would be like to have sex with a woman. The most memorable part of this story was the candour and pride with which she told us this story. She wasn’t in the least bit embarrassed about it).

And then I thought I might finish up by telling you that on the whole, I get far more tormented emails from men about virginity loss than I do from women. Despite the fact that women have been castigated, terrorised and judged – and continue to be – for centuries when it comes to virginity loss, they do have something over men. Generally speaking, and as the law decrees it, the buck stops with women when it comes to sex, i.e. – and this is a very debatable point - women get to control when they lose their virginity in a way that men do not. Let me explain.  Assuming that I still had virginity to lose, if I stepped out of my house this evening and took a walk to a local bar, the chances are that if I asked around, I would probably find someone who was willing to avail me of my virginity. Can you imagine the same thing happening to a man? I don’t think so.

Women are generally pickier than men. Women are also anatomically and emotionally different.  Any decent sexual experience begins in the head for a woman and as such, we require some degree of sexual chemistry to be present. A man requires an erection. Several more reasons why more men are likely to lose their virginity to a sex worker than a woman.

Either way, here is another one to add to the collection. As per usual, this one came in right underneath the radar and from the most unexpected source; from someone that I have known for some time, from someone who suddenly decided to write down his story for me one day, or, ‘tippy tapping’ as he calls it, which sounds a bit gay but reader, I can assure you that he is not.

Charlie. Lost virginity April 1997 aged 16

‘Get the violins out. I was the last of my group of friends to lose my virginity. I know. In the world of the teenage boy there can be nothing worse. I watched all those cherries drop around me as mine was growing fatter, juicier and all the more ready to burst. My problem wasn’t aesthetic, I may not have been Johnny Depp but I wasn’t exactly Andrew Lloyd Webber either! I was always the ‘safe’ one. The funny one. The one girls would tell their problems too. That’s right, I was the ‘we’re such good friends’ guy. I swear if the wind had blown the other way, I would have been gay but alas, despite the rumours and an unhealthy obsession with show tunes, I wasn’t.

There were occasions when being charming, funny and polite got me somewhere, but it was never far enough. In fact once at a party, the girl everyone - in particular me - had a crush on got quite drunk and said she wanted to sleep with me. We kissed and canoodled a bit (yes I did just say canoodled!) but when it came down to it, all we did was sleep. She had a boyfriend who was a shit. They kept breaking up and getting back together and I didn’t want her to get any more confused with things so we talked and I stroked her hair until she went to sleep. In the morning she blanked me. At college she ignored me. The tea and jaffa cake conversations disappeared and I didn’t know why. I thought I’d done the right thing. This kind of thing kept happening. Maybe the ‘right thing’ didn’t work. Then and there on a cold North Yorkshire morning the ‘right thing’ ceased to be the thing I wanted to do.

What better thing to do for a sixteen year old with a tsunami of lust washing over him than to go away from his small town and small life? This is precisely what I did. I went to the big city to stay with my big brother. I had to undertake two weeks work experience for my college course and blagged my way into a production company in Manchester. Ok, it was only two weeks but those two weeks or rather one weekend smack in the middle changed me – more than I realised at the time as what happened would have an effect on every relationship I would have from then on.

My brother is dodgy. No two ways about it. He hangs out with dodgy people and does dodgy things. We say that he is the rough diamond and I am the polished set in a ring one. It’s actually more a case that I can get away with things easier and don’t seem to get caught as much. It’d be easy to say he corrupted me during my two week stay but truth is; any corruption was more than encouraged by his saintly little brother.

Having dabbled with speed and weed, I was keen to try some ‘city stuff.’ After much arm twisting we scored some party powder from a guy who only the previous night had stabbed someone in the neck over a debt, in a crowded bar and continued drinking as nobody said anything. He was a good friend of my brothers and I only found out his previous night story when he went to the loo and my brother suggested I stop taking the piss out of the guy’s hat.

Anyway, this was Saturday afternoon. We hung out in cool bars, met new people, chatted up girls, drank, ate, party powdered the day away. It was cool. The sun went down and the music got louder. What to do next. My brother’s axis of evil stretched to the door staff at a very well known Manchester club which is no longer with us. On the night in question some soap actor was having his birthday there and so the question my brother posed was: ‘Do you want to go hang out with wotzisname or do you want to go somewhere and pop your cherry?’ He didn’t need to ask twice.

Armed with a pocket full of cash we made our way to a delightful establishment that offered massage, sauna and steam. After we were buzzed in we walked up the dark stairs with an aroma of damp around us. We entered the ‘reception’ where there was a tiny middle aged, sweet looking woman with glasses. She greeted us and told us that her name was Pam. She then asked us what we wanted. I didn’t know! ‘It’s £35 for massage and full personal service,’ she smilingly told me. ‘Personal service?’ I asked. ‘Look love we’re a brothel!’ she answered.

Two girls appeared wearing sexy underwear. One looked like a Page 3 model and the other was amazing! Long dark curly hair cascaded down her body. Full pouting lips, gorgeous green eyes and perfectly formed breasts. It’s like someone had reached into my head, pulled out some instructions and given them to someone who’d made this fantasy come to life. She was my bespoke bird!

I pathetically handed over my money, hands trembling and said ‘I’ll go with Beck if that’s alright.’ Of course it was. They weren’t there to tell me what a good friend I was. Becky wasn’t there to ignore me. She didn’t care that I was funny, charming and polite.

Becky took me by the hand and led me into a back room. It has a massage table in it and for one moment I thought I was actually going to get a massaged and nothing else. I was actually relieved. Then Becky told me to strip and lie face down on the table. She unclipped her bra and removed all of her underwear. I didn’t know where to look…actually I did and I probably stared for too long.

I did as Becky said and lay down on my front. She started to massage my back; she rubbed her breasts over my back, kissed down my spine and cheekily bit my bum. She asked me how old I was. ‘16,’ I said ‘and a half.’ She said I was cute and had a good body for my age. Then she told me to turn over.

She slowly caressed and kissed her way to my crotch and still to this day I’ve never seen anyone put a condom on the way she did.

She climbed on top of me and eased me into her. Thoughts swirled in my head. ‘Don’t cum too soon.’ ‘What do they do in porn?’ ‘How do these places get away with it?’ ‘Is £35 a fair price?’ ‘WHAT DO THEY DO IN PORN?’

Half an hour later we were done and getting dressed. ‘You’re a sweet guy, you should get a girlfriend,’ was Becky’s parting shot before kissing me on the cheek and patting me on the lower one.

I went back into the reception area where Pam and my brother were finishing off the party powder. We said our goodbyes and went home to bed.

The rest of the two weeks wasn’t as eventful but returning home, people knew something was different, something had changed.

I still think of Becky, she was gorgeous but unlike the old Hollywood legend, she didn’t give me a second time for free.

That one night opened a floodgate – I was the original rampant rabbit. The sex just kept coming (no pun intended). I got a girlfriend, got another one, got another one, got caught, got another one.

I’m not a bad person but I do bad things. I’m very sexually active and often blur the lines of what’s right and wrong. I don’t think being faithful is in my programming, my make-up. For me there is no such thing as too much sex. I get it where and when I can at the risk of relationships and such. Why? I don’t know. Is it because I was the last to do the deed and am still making up for it in my head? Is it because I paid for my first time and see sex as a transaction? Or is it because I’m a greedy bastard?

I’ll never know if I would have turned out the same or different depending on that ‘first time’ experience. I didn’t give it away to someone I was in a relationship with. I didn’t develop a style or technique over a period of time with someone. That all came later. Maybe I did it so I could practice so that I would get it right and be good at it by the time I got into a relationship. The fact that I actually made the decision to lose my cherry in this way surely says that I would always have been a horny up for anything kind of person because I wanted to do something, so I did it. I still do.'

Manhattan Transfer....

When I received this story, I wasn’t sure what I was more excited about. The hark back to an era of history when men mostly looked like Al Pacino’s ‘Serpico’, i.e. hot, beardy and pounding the 1970’s streets of New York in a febrile sweat, or the story itself, a wonderful little slice of a boys life. Boys to Men actually, and that age-old story of travel. The journey from childhood to man hood with the assistance of Times Square’s finest, the helpful hooker.

Someone asked me an interesting question recently. ‘What is it that you’re trying to achieve?’ They said. ‘Did you have an awful virginity loss experience that you’re trying to make up for somehow?’

On the contrary, my experience was no more boring, interesting, good, bad or mad than anyone else’s but the question did make me think. In the first instance, I am motivated by the same desire as anyone else. I like to read about other people’s experiences so that I can compare them to my own. It is this need to know that we share our frailties with other human beings that motivates us all. But it is also something more than that for me: I love stories.

And what story is more evocative than the one in which we ‘come of age’, becoming a woman, becoming a man, becoming whatever it is that we are shooting for at such a tender age that we are unlikely ever to forget. You don’t have to dig too deep to write a decent story about virginity loss, even if the moment itself was nothing to write home about. There is always a rich picture behind it. A cast of characters, a plotline, a series of events that gets us from a to b. And it is this detail that propels the story through to fruition so to speak that really gets me going. The cultural detail is the icing on the cake. And this story is chock full of cultural detail. The Italian, the hooker, Times Square in the 1970s. It’s all there. There is a reason that people make films full of these cultural references and that’s because they really do exist.

Perhaps that is what I am. A frustrated filmmaker. Maybe one day all these stories will get regurgitated into a rather strange film. Or maybe I will leave that to Quentin Tarantino. But for today, keep sending those stories, and don’t forget the sub plot, the cinematography and the script.

Gabe*. Born 1962. Lost virginity aged 14. 

I just found your site and read the story ‘Hair today, gone tomorrow’.  Like him, I lost my virginity to a prostitute.  I was born in Upstate New York and every year, my high school organized a two-day trip to New York City.  On the trip, we would attend a Broadway play and a baseball game.  We could tour the city using the subways during free time.  I was a freshman in high school at the time and my best friend *Alan and myself decided that we wanted to tour Times Square. 

Times Square back then is not the Times Square today.  Today, it is up-scale stores and restaurants.  Back then it was adult bookstores, XXX-Rated Theaters and whore houses.  We walked around in amazement.  We were two naive boys from a small town.  The two of us worked up the nerve to go to an XXX-Rated theater.  We each paid $5, no questions asked.  We spent two hours watching people fucking on film.  Afterwards, we decided it about time to get back to the hotel and left.

Before we walked out, we looked around to be sure there was no one watching that we knew.  We walked about ten feet and this Italian guy grabbed us and said ‘You two want to go upstairs? Don't worry’, he said, ‘you'll be safe.  There are girls up there for you.’ 

We looked at each other and we were both shaking.  The guy looked at us and said, ‘You're both virgins. Don't worry that's cool; we get a lot virgins your age, that's what were here for.’  He handed us both a card that said ‘Virgin discount’.  ‘Normally, we charge $20 for 20 minutes; with this card, we will give you special treatment. $20 for 30 minutes; show the lady the card upstairs.’ 

The two of us went upstairs still shaking and we handed the lady the card and $20.  She gave us the card back and said ‘Go in, find a girl and give her the card’.  We walked through the door and there was about eight to ten women standing naked and we could hear women screaming in the back room. 

We each went up to a girl and gave her the card.  Mine took me by the hand to a private room.  She asked me how old I was and I said ‘14’ and she just smiled.  She said, ‘I like virgins and I will take care of you, just relax’. 

She laid me down on the mattress and began to undress me.  She took a towel soaked in warm water and washed my dick.  She started to rub my chest and belly and said ‘Relax, I will show you a good time’.  I remember her staring at my hard-on with her mouth open and she proceeded to give me a blowjob.  Within two or three minutes, I blew my load in her mouth and she spat it out into a tissue papers.  She asked me to get off the mattress and she got on, spread her legs and said ‘You can have your way with me’.  

I then played with her breasts, fingered her and I got hard again real quickly.  After about ten minutes of this she said, ‘let's fuck’.  I quickly mounted her and we fucked away.  She was screaming and I was breathing hard and then I blew my load in her.  We cuddled for about five minutes with her rubbing my chest and belly.  Then she kissed me and said to me, ‘you will remember me until the day you die.’ 

I went back out and my buddy was waiting for me.  We went down and the Italian guy at the door patted us on the back and asked us how it was.  I remember saying ‘Fucking awesome’.  The guy said, ‘you went in there two boys and came out men.’  We thanked him and went on our way.  My buddy and I swore ourselves to secrecy.  The last thing we wanted was anyone else knowing about this because if the teacher heard this, we were afraid our parents would be told.

We took the subway back with a smile on our face.

*All names changed to protect identity.

 

Hair today, gone tomorrow...

This story was all over the web like a rash last week. In summary, Natalie Dylan, a 22-year-old student from San Diego, is auctioning her virginity off in order to pay for her master’s degree. Bids have apparently reached the 2.5 million pound mark. Her actions do not surprise me. Women fully comprehend their commoditized position in society today in a way that our grandparents did not. Nothing much has changed. In a bygone era, a father would have treated his daughter’s virginity in exactly the same manner. The only difference being that marriage would have been part of the package. Lucky for Natalie, this no longer applies.

Don’t think for a moment that I applaud her actions, but I am cogniscent of them. The part that I don’t get is that without the promise of marriage, what do the bidders actually think they are purchasing? What motivates a man to want to pay such a large sum of money to have sex with a girl, just once, that he will never see again? What deep, dark button is pushed inside a man that makes him think that this is a good use of his time? A woman would never think such a thing. Or so I thought…..until this little number arrived last week like a scene from a film script that I might get around to writing one day.

You could not make this up, but it’s true. And it just goes to show that men are not the only people to fetishsize something so intangible, so ephemeral that we barely even know that it exists. It literally lives inside our heads. And yet it changes lives forever. Read on and let me know what you think.

David. Born 1980. Lost virginity aged 13.

‘Kate,

I am twenty-eight and I live in the United States.  I lost my virginity when I was thirteen years old to a prostitute.  Most of my buddies were bragging about the sex they had and I did not know how to approach any of the girls I knew. 

One day, I worked up the nerve to approach a street whore for sex.  It cost me $40.  I was visibly nervous and she realized I was a virgin.  She told me everything would be ok and she took me back to the one room apartment she had.  She told me she loved having boys loose their virginity to her and she also told me about the number of thirteen and fourteen year old boys she experienced. 

She laid me down on the mattress and began to undress me.  I was literally scared stiff.  She pulled my pants off and and stared with amazement at my hard-on.  Before she put my dick her in her mouth, she said ‘you will remember me for the rest of your life’.  It was the most amazing experience of my life.  I remember cumming in her mouth and she swallowed.  She let me finger her and explore her body.  By the time I was done, I was hard again. When she saw this, she offered to fuck me on one condition and that was when we were done, she would get to shave my pubic hairs. 

She told me told me she keeps them as a trophy of her conquests and she showed me the pubic hairs of every boy whose ‘cherry she popped’ and she had the boys' names and dates when they lost their virginity.  She got on top of me and then fucked my brains outs.  I can remember the intensity in her body as she fucked me.  Her muscles were strained and the area between her breasts and neck were red with blood.  I remember her screaming when she had her orgasm.  I eventually blew my load in her.  She then got her razor out and shaved my dick completely bald and was laughing while she did it.  Stupidly, I gave her my name and she put my hairs into the envelope, which she then sealed.  I have wanted to tell this story, but not to anyone I knew.

Thanks...D’

3 guys, 3 stories, 1 week.....Part three...

Being the crack-berry addict that I have become, it’s all I can do not to email people back from wherever I am, at whatever time of the day or night. Mahesh was a case in point. But being as I was hosting my own Christmas party at the time and several sheets to the wind, on this occasion, I held back. Probably a good thing because a story like this requires the gentle touch and three vodka and sodas was not going to help me apply it effectively. (Please note: I am also the world’s worst lightweight). Here is what made me want to weep into my drink just a little bit that night….

‘Hi Kate,

I recently came across your blog and I find posts witty and informative. I am part of the few who make up the lowest rung of the social ladder. An outcast of Humanity, no friendships or relationships. An existence of Misery. You already know how I lost my virginity by now. Yeah, I paid a prostitute to have sex with and had my first kiss with her too. We were both twenty-two years old.

I was born in Nepal and when I was eleven we moved to UK to live with my father, who was then serving in the British Army. I struggled to fit in from the first day and in coming days & years spiraled into who I am now.

This may disgust you, but that's my reality & how it happened.

Regards

Mahesh.’

On the contrary and from the sober safety of a Sunday morning, I assured Mahesh that his story, and he himself, most certainly did not disgust me. Far from it. My only instinct was to try and bolster the confidence of someone who had clearly taken a brave step forwards. I have said this too many times - but life is too short to feel crap about stuff that can be changed. Might he feel the benefit of some talking therapy? It seems that I had hit the nail right on the head:

‘Hi Kate,

Thanks for your considerate reply.

Fortunately I did accept help a month ago and it has helped me in every way. I have grown more in a month than in all my life before. I only wish that I'd been there years before. Now I can see where and how I want to live my life, but when I see how far away I am, I get panic attacks and bouts of deep depression.

The woman I was with was respectful and considerate. She made me at ease and I enjoyed my time with her. She also completely changed my perceptions about sexual workers. She was a student in a local university, doing this of her own free will. I was surprised how pretty she was when I met her. I never imagined girls like her doing this. Intelligent, beautiful and from a ‘well-off’ background. Maybe I was extremely lucky finding her and her choosing me as I confessed I was a virgin and had never kissed a girl in an email. Rather than be repulsed, she wanted me!

The sex was just incredible. There is no other way to describe it. It was more than everything I had imagined. But I also want to make a point about how virginity isn't just a physical thing, I realised this after I lost it. Rather, the emotional aspect is as important and one that was completely missing during my first time. I feel that this emotional part can only come through a loving relationship. I have only begun to develop socially and emotionally but I am already reaping the rewards and later on in life, I know I will have good friendships and loving/rewarding relationships with women.

She was a step in me receiving help. So there you go, losing virginity gave me a new birth in life!! I am now a Virgin in Life.

Regards

Mahesh.’

Alls well, it seems, that ends well.

 

3 guys, 3 stories, 1 week.....Part two...

A couple of days ago, I promised to tell you a slightly longer story about a young man losing his virginity to a prostitute. If there were such a thing as a master class in how to lose your virginity to a sex worker, I have a sneaky suspicion that it might sound something like this:

Cody. Born in 1987. Lost virginity a couple of weeks ago.

‘Alright, here goes-

I'm twenty-one years old, from the USA and I recently lost my virginity to a Canadian prostitute. I'm sending you this because I hope it helps other people who were in situations like mine, and because writing it will help me collect my thoughts.

I originally got the idea from a close friend of mine. He saw my frustration as I went through all kinds of changes in life - not the least of which was choosing a different religious life than the one my family had. I grew up in 'a certain church' that is very strict and extremely sexually repressive. While it teaches some great things, sex outside of marriage is called ‘the sin next to murder’ and anything even remotely sexual is 'evil'.

I was also coming out of an 'awkward teenager' phase - I had been too religious to even swear. I was horribly overweight. My confidence was low, my social skills damaged by the religiosity, as well as by the many times my family had moved and by the isolation and 'sheltered' childhood I had had.

By the time I was a freshman in university, I was only ambivalent about having a sex life. I wasn't even sure that I wanted to lose my virginity until about the end of freshman year. Once I was sure that I wanted to lose it, it became a race against time. I was the only person in the whole world who had never had sex. I was missing out. This made me anxious, which of course made it impossible to lose it. I was trying to run before I could even walk, I was so far behind - I was worried about losing the v-card before I had ever even kissed a girl (first time: age twenty).

I tried to console myself by remembering that a lot of it wasn't 'my fault', but that didn't help much. Sometimes I was so down on myself - here were the greatest years of my life, slipping away before my eyes. I would die having wasted so much irreplaceable time. I was frantic. I sometimes even felt so frustrated and bitter that I questioned whether life was even worth continuing without something as basic as sex.

But I was also losing weight quickly, finally getting my act together socially, and making all sorts of small changes all the time. I was making progress, but it still couldn't come fast enough. I had a handful of 'close calls' but at the last minute someone would interfere and ruin it for me; also I was so afraid of screwing up such a rare opportunity that I of course screwed it up. Trying to lose my virginity was getting in the way of trying to lose my virginity.

‘Dude, just get a hooker’ a friend of mine called Tyler suggested.

‘What the hell are you talking about!? Some disease-ridden whore who I'd have to pay money for? What kind of loser do you take me for?’

Tyler was about to completely change my perception on prostitution.

‘Now hey - everyone has to pay for it. Think about it. You can spend hundreds of dollars on gifts and dinners on a girl, with no guarantee that you're gonna get laid, or you can spend a set amount of money with a guarantee. And hookers have to stay clean, otherwise they'd be out of a job.’

‘But it's... I dunno, there's no honor in that.’

‘You think it's 'honorable' to hook up with a drunk girl at a party? She's more likely to have an STD than a professional is, and if you mess up, what if she goes and tells all her friends how awkward it was? What if you knock her up? Paying for sex isn't degrading - if anything it's degrading to the person being paid. It's liberating to get rid of all the bullshit and stupid games people play and just have sex. It's just 'animal sex', not lovemaking, but at least with a hooker it's honest and straightforward unlike a lot of the 'dating' we see around here.’

The more I thought about it, the more I realized he was right. Losing it to a hooker wasn't ideal - I would have liked to have found a girlfriend - but I also realized I couldn't do it at the time. Prostitution was, when I was completely honest with myself, better than the usual drunken hookup that I observed at my university. So it was either pay for alcohol and hope to get laid, or pay a sex worker and be done with it.

I found out that some of history's greatest womanizers and powerful men - Kennedy, Gabrielle D'Annunzio, Napoleon Bonaparte (and in the original novels, even James Bond) - as well as several others had lost their virginity to prostitutes. I also found out that in some societies it has been (and in a few still is) customary for young men to lose it this way.

One thing led to another and before I knew it, I had bought a plane ticket and two nights in a nice hotel in Canada.

I had set up an appointment before leaving with an independent escort, but as I waited for her to arrive (nervously), she was late. After an hour had passed, I went and checked my email - she had had a family emergency and was unable to come that day, and wouldn't be working again until after I left. Damn.

I was nervous, terrified even. I went and took a long walk. I even thought about calling it off. But no, I would never be able to look Tyler in the face again if I backed out now. I had told my friends (the few who knew I was still a virgin) that I was going to lose it, I had told myself that it would be before the year's end (and I lost it with less than a month to go - but it's a New Year's resolution I'm glad I kept!), and I had put too much time and money into it.

I thought about what to do. After a few hours, I went to the phone book and looked up the name of an agency I had heard of before leaving. I called them up and explained my 'first-timer status' in the ambiguous terms Canadian law requires. ‘That's fine Sweety, I've got a few girls I think would be perfect’. After some discussion, a time was set and I took a shower. My virginity was about to be done away with forever. I was nervous, but the understanding tone of the woman on the phone made me feel better. ‘That's why a lot of these girls do what they do’ she said.

I got a call a while later telling me to go down to the lobby. She was blonde, wearing a black dress and carrying a bag. I went down and found her. She looked like a businesswoman almost, very classy. A little older than me, as I had requested. She was not trashy or wearing too much makeup, not drawing attention to herself, just a normal, pretty girl who happened to make a living by having sex.

We went up to my room and we started by having a drink together (her suggestion). ‘You'd be surprised at some of the people I see - I view myself almost like a therapist’ she explained. She and I talked and she put me at ease; she listened to me and catered to me perfectly.

I was in just my pajama pants at this point, stomach-down on my bed, and she straddled me and got some lotion on my back. After a few minutes, she got up and stood in front of me and said ‘Every woman is a little insecure about her appearance, even me. I still feel a little weird sometimes with men watching me strip’. And so she did.

All the reader needs to know is that she managed to make it (relatively) smooth and natural. She may not even have been enjoying herself, but if not, she did a damn good job pretending. She was all about making the client happy.

I got a sampler of all kinds of different things. She told me what to do, guided the whole thing. I was able to joke around with this girl and she made it feel like the natural, enjoyable thing it should be. I went into it extremely nervous but felt much better after a few minutes with her - and by the end I felt great.

When she left I had a big smile on my face, but I was surprised by how unglamorous and non-dramatic it was. Sex became something good, but not a life-and-death issue as it had been before. It became just another part of life, thrilling but not the most thrilling thing in the world. The mystery behind it was gone - sliding my fingers into a woman, feeling her different fleshy areas, having her ride me, touching and seeing every part of her body didn't feel so strange or mysterious. Still highly enjoyable, but I noticed that it was purely physical - as it should have been and as I had expected. The feelings I had had in the past, spending time with girls I felt affection for as people or a strong desire for, had been more intense in some ways, more intoxicating.

I realized how, even though people glorify and idolize sex, it is an overrated good thing. Most good things are overrated I guess - sex is no exception. The people who brag about it or take the bragging tone when they talk about it are usually compensating for something (not that I am entirely innocent in this department; I've had my immature moments).

I actually had some bad experiences - two independent escorts that I had lined up didn't work out (the one had had a family emergency, the other just didn't pick up her phone when I called to confirm), and the second one I hired wasn't very good. She wore too much makeup, and you could tell her heart wasn't in it. She was very 'pay me, fuck me and I'm on my way' without any regard to doing it right. There is an art to sex; a girl who leaves her chewing gum in the condom wrapper on your desk is not a very good artist.

But even this taught me something - after getting over the awkwardness, I was glad I didn't have to see her ever again, I could distinguish a little better between good and bad sex, and I knew that it was okay to be a little more choosy about who I sleep with in the future. If that girl had been someone I knew personally, it would have been far worse. I was glad I had gotten my first 'bad sex' out of the way with a woman I didn't need to worry about. It's perfectly okay to turn down or pass up a hot girl who's a pain in the ass as far as personality goes - looks aren't everything. This second one had some better physical features but a horrible personality; it turned out that feeling and technique is a more important part of sex than I thought.

I still get annoyed when I see an immature and maybe slightly effeminate guy, fresh out of high school, with a stunning girl. But the bitterness is mostly gone; in the back of my mind I know she may well be no better than jacking off. She may be worse. She may be great, but who knows and who cares? Sex is not such a big deal after all - but of course you can't know that until after you've had it.

Before I did this, people told me sex wasn't a big deal. But until I experienced it for myself, it was annoying - sometimes infuriating - to have people try to preach to me.

‘Dude, sex is no big deal, just relax. It'll come one day.’ It was irritating to have people talk and not listen, to ignore my needs, to pretend to understand when they had no idea what I was going through.

They tried to persuade me with reason and arguments, but - as a few exceptional friends like Tyler knew and understood - only when I experienced it for myself could I know this.

It's important to have a couple of friends you can trust with this; it's important to honestly not feel ashamed about it; and be ready for some awkward moments - but remember, they're only really awkward if you can't laugh about them. Have a good sense of humor about it, and enjoy the feeling of having your first 'sex stories' for those times when the guys get together.

I'm glad I lost it on my own terms at a time and place of my choosing instead of leaving it to chance. No awkward conversations or 'I have to see this person every day in class', no major risk of being backstabbed, no risk of being cheated on, minimal emotional vulnerability. In retrospect, I'm confident it was the right decision.’

3 guys, 3 stories, 1 week.....

Way back in the day when all this began, I was itching to get this story for my book. Seeing as it seemed pretty unlikely that I would ever find a woman who had lost her virginity to a prostitute, (I live in hope), I turned to the male of the species instead. There must be a man out there somewhere who had done this deed – and was prepared to talk to me about it.

I searched high and low. I made bizarre phone calls to male friends in the dead of the night. Even if one of them hadn’t actually done it themselves, one of their friends might have. Not that I have an issue with this mind. I must make this clear. Having spent three years interviewing people face to face about the loss of virginity and another two communicating with all sorts of people via this blog - frequently male virgins who are desperate to lose their virginity - I could never begrudge someone the opportunity to avail themselves of virginity in this manner.

You’ll soon see why when you read some of the stories I am going to publish this week. The cloak of virginity is a bloody hard thing to wear in this day and age. Sex is everywhere and you could be fooled into thinking that absolutely everyone is doing it at every available opportunity – except you.

Of course, I know the truth. So many times during the course of my book interviews, I have got the feeling that people have agreed to talk to me, not just because they want to tell me about virginity loss, but also because they want to plump me for information about other people’s sex lives. They want to know that what other people think and feel is in line with their own activities. They need to know that they are normal. This sort of anxiety does not end with the loss of virginity. We all want to know that what we do is just as good as what everyone else does.

To this end, young men everywhere are desperate to find out what the big deal is all about. In the words of one of my correspondents this week, they feel like ‘outcasts’, or even ‘non-members of society’. And as one of this weeks stories will explain, it doesn’t matter how many times you tell someone to chill out, not to worry, that sex isn’t that much of a big deal…..it’s very easy to say that when you have had sex and they haven’t.

Which is all a way of telling you that last week I received not one story from a young man who had lost his virginity to a sex worker, but three. Three in a week. That’s unprecedented. Three stories from three very different people, so I will start with the (very) short one today, the longest one later in the week and the saddest last – because I want the sad guy to read the other two people’s stories and see if it will cheer him up.

Today’s correspondent titled his story ‘My Blonde Ambition’.

Dear Kate,

I am Ben, born on 3 April 1990. I'm originally from Malaysia and now living in Great Britain for over eight years. I am a student with Asperger's syndrome.

Not until the 8 December, I had never had a girlfriend, never kissed a woman, never dated a woman and never been close to having sex.

That's because of my Asperger's Syndrome and having difficulties with my social skills.

Just few weeks before the 8th December, I considered booking an escort to lose my virginity and gain confidence with women before I go to college in September.

I used to pleasure myself by reading adult magazines, watching adult movies and looking at pictures of blonde women.

On that day, I met a 34-year-old blonde woman called Diana. I won't go to the details but my first sexual encounter was great and I feel fulfilled sexually. It was better than my imagination because I touched her intimate parts and she touched me in return and it was great.

Therefore, I advise desperate people like me to follow suit for a memorable sexual experience and I am happy that I am no longer a virgin anymore.

I will see two or four more blonde escorts in the future so I can gain experience and confidence before I get my new girlfriend.

I will never forget Diana for the rest of my life

Yours sincerely,

Ben, 18 years old from Great Britain