The Virginity Project had to take a little break to attend to domestic issues. Namely, a cat that has run up the largest veterinary bill in the history of cats. But he’s on the mend now so its back to business on a sunny Sunday afternoon and a day when I shall make a staggeringly large selection of generalizations about the human race.
From time to time, a ‘discussion’, lets say, has broken out on these very pages as to whether it is harder for men or women to lose virginity. Let’s break this down a bit. It really depends on which side of the fence you are sitting. In a boy’s mind, it will always be easier for a girl to lose her virginity because men are mostly game for sex. Ergo, a woman only has to say the word and it’s on a plate. This is where our paths divide.
On a plate is not always the most attractive thing to a woman. It is said that the brain is the largest sexual organ. I concur. Sexual attraction does not often begin in our nether regions (although sometimes it does!). It mostly begins in our heads.
A roll in the hay is far more desirable to us when it’s with someone that piques our interest, foxes us, beguiles us, makes us neeeeed to know what you look like in the buff like our life depends on it….because in the end, it is all about the chemistry that two people create together. This is what motivates a woman. This is our evolutionary approach to ‘pair bonding’. We crave mutual passion in every department, not just the bedroom.
So yes, if you want a straightforward answer, losing virginity probably is as easy as falling off a bicycle for most women, but only if you don’t care about quality control.
Men, on the other hand, are very different creatures. Without wanting to get all Charles Darwin on you, man needs to replicate himself as fast as he can because he believes that he might just be about to become extinct! Quality control is not such a big issue, (probably the largest generalization of them all), and it doesn’t matter much anyway because it all leads us to the same problem….
Lots of men who are itching to replicate themselves + lots of women who mostly have the luxury of being able to select the best mate possible. This equals disparity. And a lot of pissed off men.
It also explains the plethora of sad and frustrated stories that I get from men as compared to women. And that brings me to today’s story.
As if it weren’t hard enough for men to lose their virginity already, imagine what its like if you also have ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). This man speaks for so many young men when he describes the depths of loneliness and frustration that one can plumb in the search for love. Or even just plain old sex. He also shows that Craig’s List is useful for more than just flat shares and second hand bicycles.
‘Dear Kate,
Someone told me that I should value my virginity and it would make someone feel special. If I was tall, dark and handsome then maybe it would, but I am not. I also get told that I’m cute a lot but cute doesn’t mean that women want to jump my bones.
What’s more, all this only made me more determined to lose it in the most meaningless way possible just to spite people. After all, in the life spans of sexually active adults, everybody has a bad sexual experience. What difference does it make if it's the first, tenth, or hundredth?
I'm from the U.S. and I grew up and live in the suburbs of Chicago. I grew up in the typical suburban surroundings, with access to movie theaters and malls, and low crime and the occasional gathering of high school kids in the woods or some house whose owners are away while a party rages on. Oh, and I was born in January of 1981, so I'm now 28 years old. Oh, and I have ADD. I really do, believe me.
Anyways, I did make a few friends here and there. I got angry easily in grade school and got in a few fights. I calmed down a bit in middle school and adopted more geeky tendencies like indulging in sci-fi shows and movies, but I also took up the guitar and listened to a lot of metal and hard rock.
I never dated in high school. I absolutely hated the tacky, he said/she said culture that was practically parroted from ‘Saved by the Bell’ and ‘Dawson's Creek’, so I sort of had a stand-offish attitude and didn't go along with school spirit related activities. I didn't pick fights or anything. I just had an intense personality.
Eventually I went to the University of Illinois in Chicago. During this time, I made some more geeky friends who were computer savvy and could handle any tasteless joke you could throw at them. But they were all men and we didn't do anything that involved meeting women.
Eventually I cut these people out of my life because they didn't value my friendship beyond my being a butt of a joke and they only called to borrow my dad's minivan to move something.
Eventually, I made new friends through a girl I started talking to through the internet. She wasn't interested in me, but we became friends and I sort of asked if she could help set me up with someone. She sort of said she would, but she's so preoccupied with herself that she quickly forgot. She's one of those gothic Lolita girls obsessed with Japanese animation who thinks the world revolves around her. I dismissed her and her friends much the same way.
Oh, for what it's worth, by ‘dismiss’, I mean I stop talking to these people and cut them from my life. I didn't have to worry about them not calling me because, well, they didn't call me anyway.
In 2004, my dad is upset that I wasn't graduating yet. Being an ADD person, it's not like I can do college in the four year span that people expect. In fact, it's rare that people do, even more so for people like me. So he pushed the union of operating engineers on me and wouldn't shut up until I said I'd do it. Besides, a night job for $30 an hour didn't seem too bad.
In 2005, I briefly held a job in the union where I worked in a tall office building in the Chicago loop. My boss told me to take my lunches in the engineer's storage room on the roof of the building which was some 20 stories above street level.
There I was, with access to the roof, and by myself. Being alone, you tend to reflect and meditate a lot. Anyway, there I was, twenty-four years old, still a virgin, no real friends, stuck in a line of work I hated, and robbed of my dream of studying music and pursuing such a career. Now I know it's rough to make a career in music, but that's just who I am. I was only at this job for a little over a week, and if I stayed, I very probably would have jumped off the building and died a miserable, lonely virgin.
Anyways, I started talking to a girl online and the subject of my virginity came up. She convinced me to write an ad on Craig's List where I basically went for broke. I made it clear that I just wanted to lose my virginity and I was looking for someone to show me what I should know at that point in my life. I also made it clear that I was a real person with interests and goals.
Four girls replied to my ad, and only one of those four was a legitimate reply. The other three were narrow-minded morons who were more interested in studying the strange, peculiar weirdo that is the 24 year old virgin. I felt like I was being interviewed to be a guest on Oprah.
But I got a legitimate reply. The woman was six years older than me, but I didn't care. I exchanged a couple e-mails with this woman and I even started talking to her on the phone. We talked a lot about music and my playing guitar and so on. She was more or less testing me to see if I was a sicko or the genuine article.
We arranged to meet on June 12, 2005. I dressed well, wore cologne, and she poured wine and had the place candle-lit. I awkwardly tried to shake her hand, but she corrected this gesture and moved in for a kiss.
During my first few years of college, I might have an hour in between classes where I just sat in the computer lab and tried to amuse myself with the internet. In this way, I came to be rather knowledgeable about beer, how to put together a computer, and the ways of a woman's body. Where that elusive g-spot is, what to do when I find it and other erogenous zones. So, when I finally met up with my new friend, I was encouraged to try some of this out.
After a few words, she leads me to her bedroom. I take off my pants and shirt and I slowly climbed on top of her, making out. She provided a condom and I put it on easily enough. It wasn't too different from a rubber glove like the ones doctors and nurses wear. She guided my penis into her and I felt something I never dreamed about before. It was a little scary at first, but not enough for me to back away. Having wine beforehand helped a lot in the way of relaxing. After a couple of pushes and pulls (slow thrusts, if you will), I started to get comfortable with it. She also told me to lick and suck her nipples, and from that point on, I used my mouth more than my nether regions
I performed oral sex and she loved it. I let my mind wander and allowed my awkwardness and other thoughts distract me enough so I didn't come too quickly. And when I felt I made her cum enough times, I decided to keep at it until I came myself.
So, finally, I did it! I know what it feels like! I've never felt so close to a woman before. To put it in perspective, before that night, the touch of a woman was so foreign to me that I felt as if I was touching a Van Gogh painting. Like it was forbidden. I felt mature, like I finally grew up. And I had that going for a few days. I admit I should have talked to the girl in the meantime, but I wasn't used to being with a woman.
On Wednesday, June 15th (the day Batman Begins opened), we were doing some spring cleaning with the hotel I was working at. We were repainting the utility entrance where the dumpster and valet car elevator were found. The dumpster was wheeled out to be emptied, so we moved to that wall to paint. Being the apprentice, I had to climb a ladder and paint the wall with a hand brush and cup of paint. Before going on, I should explain that this hotel shared the dumpster with a neighboring hotel, so it had to be a big one. One that's wheeled on iron rails, like train tracks.
So, I was climbing the ladder, painting an area on the wall, climbing down, moving over, and repeating. Eventually I had to move the ladder by the swinging door that led to the other hotel. I was satisfied that the ladder was clear from the doors, so I planted it, went up, and resumed my task.
But the hotel had hired the services of a landscaping company. And one of their employees was tossing out a heavy piece of equipment about the size of a sewing machine. What's more, he decided to play EMT and burst through the swinging doors with the cart, noticing my ladder all too late. He couldn't stop the cart in time and it hit my ladder. The ladder shook and fell over and I free fell some twelve feet, landing on my right elbow, right onto the metal rail screwed in the concrete.
To make a long story short, I went into shock, and my arm broke something fierce. Even from a distance, you could tell it didn't look right. But I was taken to the nearby hospital and they bandaged me up and took X-rays. I actually was doing fine and kept my sense of humor until the doctor came back with the results and said it was one of the worst injuries he'd ever seen and that I'd have permanent damage. He said my arm exploded. My ulna was fractured in four spots and my radius lost the last two inches to the joint, which were reduced to shrapnel.
Now, at some point, while I was waiting for him to come back, my cell phone rings. It's that girl I met up with on the 12th. She was being relatively chatty, and I'm sure wondering why I hadn't called. Well, she basically asked how I was, and I casually told her I was having a bad day (let's face it, how often can you direct a conversation like this?). She asked what was wrong, thinking I got chewed out by my boss or something. No, I told her I got knocked off a ladder and broke my arm. I then asked her, out of politeness, how she was doing. She was shocked, to say the least. She did do her homework, and worked out that I was not far from her work place. So, she took it upon herself to visit me and see me in the hospital bed. And she became my first girlfriend. We're not a couple anymore, but we're still good friends.
So, that's my virginity story. I hope people read it and realize that losing it is no simple task for some.
All the best,
Me (please find a pseudonym for me)’
I have ADD, too -- unmedicated -- but I got my undergrad degree in four years and my grad degree in a year and half, both from a good school. It bugs me when people use ADD as a reason why they haven't accomplished (or even set) any of their goals. If we work hard and use our resources, ADD-ers can accomplish anything anyone else can. I know that's not super relevant to the story, but I had to say it.
Posted by: Brody | March 28, 2009 at 07:54 AM