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.'
