Once again, The Virginity Project has been a busy bee. Dating, pitching, writing, early morning trips to the swimming pool in the dark British gloom, life never stops here in the Big Smoke.
In amongst all this, I am happy that all sorts of folk still find the time to send me a story. I particularly like this one from Cheryl in Manchester. She raises a pertinent question: does virginity loss only happen once? Or could it be something that we ‘grow into’? A process instead of one single isolated incident?
I like this point of view. This is what virginity loss is all about. In the end, its never going to be the greatest experience of your life is it? I could count the people on one finger who told me their stories were the fairy tale they imagined – and upon reflection even that person had changed her mind by the time she had finished telling me her story. (Please note, I am not factoring in the one about the lesbian who told me that losing her virginity was one of the greatest sexual experiences of her life – I am saving that one for the book!)
But losing virginity is a beginning. It’s the first step at the start of a journey. You don’t expect to drive a car well the first time that you try. But with practice and patience, you might become a world-class driver. We all have to start somewhere and the first time you have sex with someone that actually means something is much more likely to be the ‘first time’ that you really remember.
The only comment I can make about this is based around an incident that occurred in the bath with my first proper boyfriend when we were about seventeen years old. I shan’t go into the details but it was the first sexual experience that really knocked my socks off - not that I was wearing any of course. But it certainly wasn’t the first time I had had sex. And as Cheryl says, if we can keep on losing our virginity in that manner, for the love of god, lets hope it keeps on going for a very long time….
Cheryl. Born 1984, lost virginity aged 16.
Losing my virginity? I don't even know when it was. I know I was sixteen when I definitely, 100%, had penetration. When I was thirteen I had a drunken fumble with a boy in the year above me. I don't think I lost my virginity then though. When I was fourteen, after a huge party in the woods I woke up and found condom wrappers near by. I don't think I lost my virginity then either. But it was certainly a start...
No one I know lost their virginity in some whirlwind of romance or love - or anything even resembling it. I can't help but think that 'losing your virginity' is something you should grow into; not something which is over in a split second amidst pain or embarrassment. The first time for a girl and probably the second, third, fourth and fifth are quite uncomfortable experiences. Uncomfortable doesn't even do it justice. It hurts, it bleeds, it confuses and worries... And that's what all the fuss is about?
I was seventeen when I had my first sexually active relationship. I had never orgasmed before other than on my own. After a few months of sleeping with my boyfriend, I started to feel the twinges of a possible orgasm. Even those vague sensations changed my outlook on sex. All of a sudden it seemed that it might, just might be possible for my boyfriend to make me come. And then he made me come. That's when I really started to lose my virginity...
Surely if losing your virginity is meant to be so monumental then the point when it should be recognized is the point that deserves such recognition? The intimacy, the exhilaration – the awakening and acknowledgement of every part of your body when an orgasm ripples, when someone else makes that orgasm ripple through you and your bare flesh is touching bare flesh; when you cannot get any closer to that other person - that's monumental.
But on the other hand, if that's the time to acknowledge losing your virginity then 'losing' is surely not the right word for such an incredible feeling and experience. I didn't ever lose my virginity; I grew out of it, shedding it like a caterpillar sheds its cocoon, to stretch its wings as a butterfly and all of a sudden see the world from a completely different point of view.
I hope I never stop losing my virginity.
Comments