The Virginity Project

Close encounters with Rob Lowe....

So I’m hanging out at the RGS last week for Rob Lowe’s ‘In Conversation’ event and I decide to mix things up by giving him a copy of my book at his book signing event afterwards. He takes this pretty well and even looks quite pleased to receive it. (I can’t deny it’s also lovely to meet Sam Seaborn in the flesh).

A couple of days later, I am wondering if he’s actually had a peep at it – or did he just give it away the moment I was out of sight? Next thing you know, I’m on the internet. Who knows, he might have got papped later that night going out for dinner. Sure enough, as I type in the words, ‘Rob Lowe’ + ‘May 25^th’, the pictures pop up: Rob Lowe, leaving The Ivy that very night. I flick through the shots and there it is. To the left of the frame, held in Rob Lowe’s assistant’s hand. My book.

It’s the little things in life…

Can anyone ever enjoy their first time? This was the question posed by Vanessa Feltz when I appeared on her TV show, *live* last Thursday May 19th. It was my first ever television appearance to promote my book, ‘The First Time: True Tales of Virginity Lost & Found (including my own)’ and I managed to get through it without fluffing any lines or offending anyone. Unlike a member of the audience who, when asked what her own experience was like compared it to ‘a saveloy sausage trying to fit through a polo mint’. As we all resisted the urge to heave, time stood still for a moment…except for the frantically gesticulating arms of the studio manager. Classic.

But it’s an interesting question and it brings to mind the time one of my interviewees told me what a wonderful time she had had when she lost her virginity. She was a young woman in her late twenties and she almost bought our interview to a halt when she said 'losing my virginity was one of the best sexual moments of my life’. I was gob-smacked. In almost 50 interviews, no one had ever said anything close. Today’s story, co-incidentally is similar. It’s also unusual because it contains a comedy moment. I’ve often looked for this story, the kind that involves a bit of slapstick. As with most comedy moments, they probably weren’t that funny at the time but in retrospect….well, lets see…

‘Ms. Monro

Congratulations and the publication of your book! I have come to enjoy your blog and the stories contained therein to a degree I did not expect. Finding 'The Virginity Project' came as part of a therapeutic process in trying to understand what formed my sexual identity and mores beyond family and religion. My therapist says I have a very feminine and emotionally connected mind. This, as you may imagine is a strange light for a burly, bearded, balding construction worker and general outdoorsman to see himself in. As a Brit might say, I am of ‘the hairy chested sort’. My therapist gives me homework. I write about my various life experiences, he reads them and gives feedback. What follows, at least in part is a story that had him laughing aloud during one of our early sessions. Few of these stories involve a somewhat hilarious physical injury, but mine does.

Travis, Pennsylvania, USA, Born Mid-August 1981, lost virginity first week of August 1997, age not quite 16

When I was thirteen years old I was in an awkward phase. I had removed myself from a group of ‘friends’ and classmates whose physical and emotional abuse I would no longer take. I had found a love of writing, mountain biking and girl watching. Being of the nerdy, socially clumsy and bookish variety I was rather nervous about the prospect of even talking to girls other than a few in the neighborhood whom I had grown up with literally since infancy. I was by all accounts an outcast.

My daily routine after school involved biking a few miles to a nearby lake where, sheltered by the shade of a big old dogwood I would write down stories and poems in a large leather bound binder which I carried in a backpack. It was on one of these outings that I met Charlotte, who approached me while I was writing one afternoon. Believe it or not I was so flustered and shocked a girl was talking to me that I didn't initially notice how pretty she was. She was academically brilliant, just moved to the area, lived away from town and attended a private school. She had no preconceived notions about me. She was only six months older than me, but a grade ahead. We had similar interests and became fast friends. I don't remember meeting someone who I became so close to, so quickly. Suddenly I was no longer riding to the lake daily to get away from a painful childhood, but going because I wanted to spend time with Charlotte. We were in many ways each other’s salvation. I made a friend who wanted to know me for me and I was her shelter from a boring life away from her schoolmates and an adoptive home that was falling apart due to marital strains.

I had feelings for this girl as soon as I met her, but kept them under wraps for want of not ruining what had become the most important and formative friendship in my life. However my romantic intentions became rather overpowering and shortly after my fifteenth birthday I took the risk of confessing them. I can remember how utterly terrified I was at the time I told her. After I finally got my stuttering, nervous confession out, she kissed me and we were a couple from that point onward. The next six months were a joy and probably the most carefree and innocent days of my entire life.

Her aunt and uncle were having marital trouble and neither wanted to stay around the house, giving us quite a bit of time and privacy, during which we cultivated our relationship further. Not much changed between us other than we had become physical, making out frequently, caressing each other, although fully clothed. One day in late March, around her birthday, we were browsing a book shop together when she made me leave the store, coming out with a bag containing a large book, claiming she bought herself a birthday present but wouldn't let me see it.

About a week later we were cuddling on the couch in her living room, watching NYPD Blue on the television when she pulled out the book. It was a pictorial lovemaking manual of various techniques and positions whose entire title escapes me, but it was based on ‘The Perfumed Garden’. I was shocked that a generally proper girl bought such a book, but I knew little of women then. We started looking through the book, blushing at the pictures of various couples engaging each other in various positions, naughty thoughts running through our heads. We had never discussed how we would lose our virginity up to this point although I'm certain we both knew we would be each other’s first. We talked about this and although I regularly dreamed of having sex with her, I said I wasn't sure I was ready. She made me take the book home with me, where I read it in its entirety.

July had come to a close when she asked for the book back. She had gotten a birth control formula from the clinic she worked at and had been on the pill since shortly after buying the book! I still wasn't sure I was ready for sex but Charlotte had without a doubt become very eager, asking about it or alluding to the subject almost daily. Thinking back on it, I can't believe I didn't act sooner, but I had severe performance anxiety, I was worried about hurting her and all those first time jitters. How often is it that a perfectly average looking guy like me has his own personal living fantasy asking to have sex with him daily? It has certainly never happened to me since. Both her aunt and uncle would be out of state on the coming weekend on business and she declared her intentions to give me an early birthday present, asking if I could spend the entire weekend with her. I knew this would be it so I lied to my parents and told them I was going with a friend's family on a trip to New York City which they thought was a fantastic idea - museums, culture and such.

That Friday after work I met Charlotte at the house. We ate together, drank a bit of wine, watched TV, made out profusely and eventually ended up undressed on the couch. At first I was so nervous I couldn't keep an erection for more than a couple minutes. We lay together, cuddling in the nude for a while before trying again. Charlotte insisted I be on top. Now...this couch was a beige leather clad monstrosity that had a large glass topped coffee table positioned in front of it. I tried to penetrate her a couple times but she was very nervous now that the moment had come and not relaxed enough to allow more than about ¾ of my penis's head inside her despite being very moist. On what I think was our third try I got in a little deeper and was gently pushing against her hymen (I could feel even more resistance) when I could see her wincing in pain. I tried shifting my knee only to have it slip off the couch and as I attempted to catch myself before falling my left hand slipped off the edge of this somehow overly-complicated-to-make- love-on piece of furniture.

When my hand slipped, I fell sideways, banging the ole' family jewels on the edge uncovered by cushions and slashed my scalp open on the corner of the glass coffee table. At first I lay on the ground, one hand clutching my balls, the other clutching the top of my head. Charlotte peered over the edge of the couch, caught in uncontrollable laughter, which caused me to start laughing. It took me a minute or two to realize my head was bleeding quite a bit. Off to the local medical clinic we went, her driving much faster than the speed limit, me holding a kitchen towel to my head, both of us breaking out in fits of giggles. Overall the cut wasn't very bad, but nothing bleeds like a good clean head wound. It only required two stitches and we were back at her house within two hours. We cleaned up the blood on the floor and packed everything away, still occasionally laughing at my clumsy misfortune in lovemaking.

That night we slept together for the first time, partially clothed. We went to sleep after talking away the rest of the night, her head on my shoulder. Despite my sore scalp I was light headed and elated. When we woke in the morning we ate breakfast in our underwear and made jokes about the previous night. I decided I could use a good soak and she ran me a bath. I was in the tub no more than a few minutes, enjoying a steamy soak when Charlotte walked in, slowly undressed and climbed in the bath with me after scrubbing my back. We kissed a lot and washed each other slowly, exploring each other’s bodies fully in the hot water. We didn't get out until the water was getting too cold to enjoy. I will remember that as one of the sexiest, most sensual and enjoyable activities involved with lovemaking and have always requested this with later lovers.

We toweled each other off and moved to her bedroom where we continued our love play. ‘We need to be more comfortable’ was the theme and it was working well. Charlotte wanted her birth control pills to be our only contraceptive for our first time. We caressed and explored each other for what must have been another hour until it just seemed right. She wanted to be on top this time so she could have control over penetration. Here is where we found that slow and steady was the way to go and it was much easier this time but I could see that as we slowly got more and more of me inside her it was causing considerable pain. One last push and she gave a yelp that startled me, tears slowly filling her eyes. I remember being surprised at the fact that she wasn't simply warm inside, but hot. I pulled her to me and just held her there, kissing her shoulder and neck. I could feel her breathing, her every movement, every little shift in weight from inside her. It was the most magical series of sensations.

Despite the initial pain, she bled very little. We cleaned ourselves up, cuddled and when we tried again it was much, much easier. We tried several movements, her rocking back and forth, or me thrusting gently as I held her to me but neither of us came. We tried a few more positions, but always with generous foreplay beforehand. I still couldn't come until we ended up back in missionary, her legs wrapped around by back, moving with me. I will never forget my first climax inside her, her hips rising to meet me. After wards we lay in each others arms, her stroking my chest and belly, me running a hand around her right hip and the small of her back, whispering I love yous, talking, laughing. I can't imagine a better way to have lost my virginity. For once the reality was better than all the dreams and ways I had fantasized about the experience.

So many other people I knew said it was over so quick that it wasn't really enjoyable but our experience was anything but. Perhaps because my first experiences with sex were slow and very gentle but also very pleasurable and emotionally fulfilling, I have always preferred it that way. Perhaps this is why I don't lust after random women and try to get them into bed. In fact I probably wouldn't know how. I have always thought of sex not as something simply mechanical and lustful to reach an orgasm, but also something very emotionally fulfilling. Maybe it is because I have always sought out people in general but lovers in particular that made me feel wanted, welcome and accepted. In fact I would say I cannot have sex unless I feel I am wanted as a man.

The rest of the day was spent walking around the lake, talking under the old dogwood where we spent so much of our time together and simply enjoying being young and in love. We had another long lovemaking session the next day, trying a few different things and getting ideas on what we liked. We talked about how every little sensation felt and were completely open with each other. It was an amazing weekend during which I learned more about love and intimacy than I have in the almost 14 years since. I remember coming home and my mother asking me ‘so how was your weekend’ and declaring honestly that I had the best weekend of my entire life up to that point. I must have been beaming for ages afterward although I didn't feel demonstratively different.’

I got an email from a female reader this week that really delighted me. She mailed to tell me that her husband had just said ‘I really love that virginity book. And my husband is not a man given to expressing his feelings’ she continued. I was amazed. I thought this was a women’s book. What moved him to say this I asked? ‘The stories aren’t just about virginity’, he replied, ‘they are an insight into people’s lives’.

Indeed they are. This isn’t just a book about our first sexual encounters; it is a book about the ways in which our lives have changed over the last 80 years. It is also a book about the way that we really feel about our intimate lives, no holds barred and no attempts to big ourselves up. Everyone in this book had a pseudonym so they could say exactly what they wanted. I was only ever interested in the truth.

In the meantime, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that men like it as I communicate with them on a daily basis via my blog and the fabulous stories that they tell. I went to lengths to ensure that the book cover wasn’t exclusively ‘female’ too. Ok, so it has flowers on it but the first version had a pink background which I felt was misleading. The inky blue that you see below projects mystery and intrigue…much like virginity loss as it happens.

 

 

One does turn into something of a nutter once one’s book comes out. I can’t deny that I harbour thoughts of re-arranging the shelves of my local Waterstones and WH Smiths so that my book is always at the front of the selection. But I haven’t done it…yet. In other news, my book and me will be doing our first ever television appearance tomorrow on The Vanessa Show on Channel 5, which I am molto excited about. Not least because it also features the legendary Arlene Phillips…..I might just bust some moves whilst I am there.

What is it with the twists and the turns in the tales this week? After last week’s page turner, here’s another. I’ll try not to ruin the ending by telling you it before you’ve begun this time.

I read this story whilst en route to Chris Morgan Jones’s book launch in London’s Diagon Alley-esque Cecil Court. Very early on in my book publishing adventures, Chris’s lovely wife got me a meeting with the legendary Lennie Goodings of Virago Press. I had very little concept at the time of just how important this meeting was – or how important Lennie was in the world of British book publishing. Had I known, I probably would have been a nervous wreck. As somebody memorably said to me afterwards, 'most writers would crawl over broken glass to get a meeting with Lennie Goodings'....

As it happens, I never did quite ‘seal the deal’ with Lennie but the fact that she was prepared to sit and entertain me and my book idea for a good 45 minutes one winter’s afternoon in the offices of Virago Press meant the world to me. It gave my idea gravitas and more importantly, it gave me bags of confidence. Fast forward 5 years, 2 agents and all sorts of twists and turns in the world of publishing and Icon Books have published my book ‘The First Time: True Tales of Virginity Lost & Found (Including My Own). And I finally got to have my own book launch at Lutyens & Rubinstein Book Shop in Notting Hill:

Which was all a long way of telling you that my blackberry only allowed me to read half the story below before it truncated the message and I had to wait until the next day to find out the ending. Once again, still trying not to give it away….so here it is.

'I had been with Jonny 4 months, I was 18 and had waited to have sex as I truly wanted the experience to be special and with someone I loved. 

I had met Jonny a year before and at first did not take to him. It had been a night full of drinks and at the end of it; I had been talking to a friend, telling them my woes of the current man who was taking up the space within my head.  Jonny walked past us, turned, looked at me and said 'get over it, he obviously isn’t into you'. Of course my reaction was to wonder who was the arrogant conceited man who had just walked past and stuck his nose in for no reason other then to be spiteful.

A little time passed and I was working part time selling magazines door to door, the advantage being that I got a team of friends who would walk the streets together after Sixth Form College and try and sell these charity magazines.  One day Jonny turned up. I turned to my friend and said 'he's horrible, I don’t like him' to which my friend replied 'Ha I know him, actually he's a really good guy'.  That evening, once again, I was selling the magazines door to door and Jonny was placed on my team. There is little to say other than, I have not laughed like that in years, we immediately hit it off. Long story short, it took a year to become Jonny’s girlfriend as I was still holding out for the guy who I should 'get over'.

One day like a thunderbolt it hit me. Who made me laugh? Who did I fancy? Who was a friend? Who acted like they would treat me like a princess? The answer, Jonny.  So I became his girlfriend, four lovely months later and we were out on our usual Thursday night rock night at the local pub. I had by this point stressed to Jonny the importance of my virginity to me, I had stated that it need not be lost in a fairy tale romance but it should be lost in a sensitive and caring environment where I felt safe and loved.

I felt ready at four months but I was holding out for Jonny to do something special, candles maybe, music.  Just something to show he cared.  So back to the night out, I had drunk so much that I could hardly walk, Jonny was due to meet his friends at a club but I had to return home.  Jonny agreed to walk me home. The entire way I begged him not to leave to stay and be with me, but he wanted to go, there was no persuading him.  So eventually I turned and said 'if you stay I'll have sex with you'. He agreed and we returned to my home and with my mother upstairs we lay down on the living room floor and had short, painful sex.  It did not last long and my head was spinning, after an awkward ten minutes, Jonny withdrew and stood up, put his pants on and sat on the couch and fell asleep, I sat there naked wondering why I had just used my virginity as a bargaining tool and did I regret not holding out.  I was hurt by the lack of comfort, but in a way relieved that finally it had happened. 

Do I regret it, hmmm…No I don’t think I do, as it taught me a cold hard truth, sometimes things just don’t turn out the way you planned.  Me and Jonny split after 2 and half years, we remain in contact but loosely...'

The very marvelous Cindy Gallop gave me a big up on Facebook yesterday and sent this link out which was kind of her. In doing so, she also connected me to Rachel Rabbit White, a woman who recently posted a story entitled ‘Why do girls get more depressed after first time sex?' on her blog. And it’s an interesting question. I don’t think my story gathering technique is quantative enough to draw conclusions but broadly speaking, yes, women can feel very depressed after their first time experiences. But could it be that we are just better at talking about this? Perhaps men feel the same way but they don’t have the language or the opportunity with which to express themselves in the same way….I’m just throwing it out there.

Either way, in one of those strange ‘the universe must be reading my mind’ kind of moments, the following story popped into my inbox. Here is a perfectly visceral example of how rubbish a woman can feel after she has lost her virginity.

But check out the twist at the end the story. I was so NOT expecting that. In a heart stopping moment – and several years after the event - her boyfriend confesses that he thinks he might have raped her when they first had sex – though neither force nor violence was involved.

I have often written about the idea of coercion on my blog and I can only conclude by saying what I said in reply to this woman today. We have very few boundaries as young people (and I include men in this equation. I have all sorts of sad stories from men who feel they were pushed into things they didn’t want to do). It takes time to build boundaries and unfortunately, the only way to construct them is via experience and experimentation. Along the way, hopefully we begin to find confidence in our own feelings and most critically, learn to imbue those feelings with a sense of importance and gravitas.

Because growing up is about realizing that what we feel is ultimately more important than caretaking other people’s feelings. Does she think she was raped? And is it helpful to try and label things in this manner or define them? She must do what gives her peace of mind.

This is what is fascinating about the virginity loss story in general. This story will remain as it is until this woman’s dying day. You cannot change the facts and figures. They are carved into stone but we are not. We grow and change over the years and the way that we think grows and changes too. I hope that one day, this woman will look back and have the confidence to see that she was young and unformed when this incident took place. And that her boyfriend was a jerk. We’ve all been there - male and female. Dating a jerk is part and parcel of the growing up process. Lets not try and label it.

‘I am 23 years old, born in 1988, I live in the U.S.A. I lost my virginity September 17^th 2006, I was 18 years old.

I entered college my freshmen year with little to no experience with boyfriends.  At the time I desperately wanted to be in love. I wanted one of those classic, storybook first loves.

His name was Kevin.  I met him during the first weekend at school at the first college party I went to.  The first thing he said to me was, ‘You live in Stevenson (the dorm I lived in my freshmen year), right?’ After I confirmed that I did, he said three words that made my heart skip, ‘I noticed you.’  This cute boy had noticed me??!  I couldn’t believe it; he made me so anxious and uncomfortable.

After the party, I blew him off for a couple of weeks because of how nervous I was about spending time with him.  I feared that he would realize I was dull or boring and stop liking me.  My roommate at the time told me that Kevin would probably stop trying to see me if I continued to blow him off.  So I finally mustered up the courage to go spend a night with him.  We played pool with a group of his friends and then the two of us went back to his room and talked.  After that night, Kevin and I started seeing each other more often. 

The group of girls I became friends during my freshmen year all had serious boyfriend from home at the time.  One afternoon everyone started talking about their sex lives and I found out I was the only virgin in the group.  This environment was new to me; at least a few of my friends from high school were still virgins.  In college though, I felt like the outcast girl that couldn’t join the conversation.

On September 16^th, Kevin invited me to his room to watch a movie.  My heart was racing as we cuddled in his bed.  We started kissing and he asked if he could take my pants off.  I said that I didn’t know if I wanted him to.  The next thing I knew, we were trying to have sex.  Since I was a virgin, it took some effort.  Kevin only had one girlfriend before me, but she had not been a virgin – so he wasn’t being that gentle with me.  We eventually had sex, it only lasted for a short while and it only stopped because of how much pain I was in.

Afterwards, Kevin turned away from me and gave me the cold shoulder as I lay next to him in bed.  Confused by his behavior but too timid and not comfortable enough with him to ask about it, I looked over at the digital clock to check the time.  It was 1:00AM, September 17^th, this had not been a very pleasant way to lose my virginity but I still felt that I needed to know when it had happened.

Kevin and I dated for three years.  He was very controlling of how I spent my time, who I was hanging out with and where I was going.  I was blind to how dysfunctional our relationship was because I needed to make it work. He took my virginity and felt like I had a responsibility to stay with him forever because of it. 

Two years into our relationship Kevin and I talked about the night we first had sex.  I finally asked him why he turned away from me.  Out of nowhere, he started to cry.  He eventually told me that he felt that he had raped me that night.   Since then, I have always wondered if it was rape.  It wasn’t violent, it was with someone who I ended up dating for years and would even consider my first love, but was it rape?'

Thursday is the best day of the week...

Today is an auspicious day. It is the day that my book is officially published and I am off the scale excited. I haven’t quite worked out what the form is yet. Does one rush into one’s local book store, pick up a copy of one’s ‘baby’ and scream at the top of your lungs ‘I WROTE THIS!! To anyone who will listen? I feel inclined to do so but being British and all, I’ll try to hold myself back.

In the meantime, I would like to say a huge thank you to all the people who continue to write and tell me the most brilliant stories. You’re the best. Today’s story teller is no exception.

Born 1991, lost virginity aged 19

'There are two words that immediately come to mind when I think about my experience of losing my virginity. One is ‘awkward’ and the other is ‘perfect’.

My religious tradition definitely had an effect on my opinions, but not, most likely, in the way that would be expected. I grew up in the Unitarian Universalist church, which didn’t give any kind of moral position on the issue, but emphasized a personal search for the truths that resonate most with you in all areas of life.

So sometime around age fourteen, I sat down and thought about what virginity meant to me, and I came up with a few conclusions and rules for myself. Waiting until marriage didn’t hold any importance to me; I guess I’ve never been romantic about marriage, viewing it as a celebration and formalization of an existing commitment rather than something that should particularly change the nature of a relationship. What was important to me was not rushing into something I would regret later and making sure the time was right. I swore to myself that I would feel ready on my own and I would be in love before I would even think about having sex. I took one of the virginity pledge cards in the they handed out in sex ed my Freshman year of high school - not because I bought into the ideology behind them but as a personal reminder of my promise to myself not to rush into something before I was ready.

In retrospect, I think it may have been a bit naïve to bank on concepts as subjective as being ‘ready’ and ‘in love’, just assuming I would recognize them when I experienced them. At the time, I just knew I definitely didn’t meet either condition yet. And I continued to go on as such for quite some time. I had my first relationship at sixteen, which took several months to get to kissing and never progressed much further. I was intensely ‘in like’ and loved him as friend, but it took eight months before I ever thought of myself as being in love with him. Around eight months I also started thinking I could see the possibility of having sex with him at some point, but not anytime soon. A month later, we broke up.

My next relationship didn’t go nearly that far, as it died almost as soon as it began due to my not really being over the previous one. I knew plenty of people my age who were getting it on, but the majority of my close friends were also virgins, and quite proud of it between ourselves.

In the meantime, I maintained my resolve with a lot of masturbation and becoming intimately acquainted with fantasy. I delved into the internet’s supply of erotic fiction, and started writing my own. I found out what turned me on and what didn’t, and had the time to get comfortable with things that initially seemed a little too much (the concept of giving blowjobs, for instance: intimidating as hell at sixteen or seventeen; hot as hell a few years later). I was excited about the prospect of having sex someday, but I knew I wasn’t nearly ready yet for that day to come.

And then about halfway through my Freshman year of college, I pretty much woke up one day from a really hot dream and realized I was ready. My previous methods of staving off frustration were no longer sufficient, and I was a little bit scared by the strength of my libido. I pretty much expected I would have sex in my next relationship, and I reasoned that it was okay if I wasn’t actually in love as long as I was in a reasonably committed relationship, but at the same time I was a little disturbed at the weakening of that condition. The thing was, at that point I’d been single for nearly two years, and I didn’t see any prospect of a relationship happening any time soon.

Until, that Spring, I fell hard for one of my best friends. And, although I’m still at a loss as to why, the feelings were mutual. Quite apart from my general horniness and the circumstances seeming right, right from the start it became clearer and clearer to me that this was the boy I wanted to be my first. He was sweet, and caring, and had a good sense of humour – which in some ways I found one of the most important traits; a laughing, ‘Biology is awkward,’ became somewhat of a catchphrase between us during our early explorations of each others’ bodies – and I felt comfortable talking about absolutely anything with him. He was also a fellow virgin, which was a bit of a surprise considering he was a year older than me and had a considerably longer dating history, and somewhat of a disappointment to me, as I’d always kind of hoped to have someone more experienced to guide me, but I dismissed that as an insignificant detail.

We progressed to increasingly heavier petting fairly rapidly, and as the first full month of our relationship and my nineteenth birthday approached, I shyly brought up that I would be interested in having sex with him at some indistinct time in the relatively near future.

He said he wasn’t ready. I said okay and didn’t bring it up again. We continued at about the same intensity of fooling around as we had been, ramping up maybe a little bit slower than before. Two months passed, and summer break began, turning our relationship long-distance (and I’m talking 4000 miles apart long-distance).

And about two weeks into the three month break, during one of our daily long phone calls, he told me he loved me for the first time and that he’d changed his mind and wanted to have sex with me when we got to see each other again. Anticipation made it an extremely long summer.

I got on birth control pills as soon as I got back on campus and impatiently waited the two weeks for the protection to be active while we wrestled with the logistics of a living situation that made it much harder to find privacy than it had been the previous year until my roommate took pity on me and arranged to be elsewhere for a night.

I had no illusions about expecting fireworks or anything from the first time; I was expecting a good experience. And I pretty much got what I expected. There was some pain at first, but it wasn’t a lot and it faded quickly, and I bled just a little bit. There were a whole lot of awkward little mishaps, from struggling to get the condom on to him banging his head on the upper bunk while getting in bed and me accidentally putting my panties on inside out afterwards, but there was also a whole lot of laughter. I admit to feeling a bit, ‘That was it? That’s what all the fuss is about?’ In the immediate aftermath, but I ended up somehow feeling closer to him all the same. We made another go of it later that night and got things going a lot more smoothly, and since then it’s only gotten better.'