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.'

 

Comments

[Hinge Ming]

Cheers Kate,
for the first time!
P.S. I'm thinking ... pairing stories. "He said I was Ok" writes A. "I told her she was" writes B months later. Did you try to match them sometimes too ?

[Friendly Stranger]

First off congratulations on your book; second, thanks for keeping this project going - it's a great way to get some perspective on our personal experiences. I linked to your site on the Hey Foxy Blog - http://blog.heyfoxy.com/posts/the-first-time

[The Virginity Project]

I havent quite got into the matchmaking business yet Big Mick but it could be on the cards..

[The Virginity Project]

Hey, thanks for that, I really appreciate it. Very best London wishes to you!