And we are back to song titled posts again. It’s been a while. All it took was one mention of The Ramones to come up with the only Ramone’s song that I really know well - primarily because it was often used as a form of communication in a former job. As in, ‘Hey, ho, MONRO’ I digress...
I loved today’s story. I had a moment of total horror when I first opened the email, left it whilst I ran downstairs to fetch something and came back to find it gone. Nowhere to be found. This is my worst nightmare…losing a brilliant contribution. I briefly contemplated posting a request on my blog to the woman who had written from her ‘post break up death bed’ – what a fabulous phrase – and try to get her to send it again. However, the cat looked guilty and eventually I realized that he must have walked across the keyboard whilst I was out of the room and deleted it. I found it nestling in the 'trash' bin. THANK GOD.
What I like most about this story is the writer’s assertation that ‘it’s uncanny how your relationship with sex can be slightly fucked up, even when your parents were super cool about it’. You could use the phrase ‘fucked up’ but in the end, I don’t think it’s ‘fucked up’ so much as just not knowing how the hell you’re supposed to feel about your sex life when you’re young. Is there a benchmark for this? Not really. We’re all individuals and we all have to wind our way through a complicated labyrinth of thoughts, feelings and reactions to the opposite sex - or in the case of lots of young people - the same sex and hopefully come out the other side. It’s tricky.
We can read stuff and look on the internet, whilst simultaneously scaring the crap out of ourselves and feeling a strange thrill, after all, what are we going to learn from watching pornography? That women don’t have pubic hair and appear to climax with very little assistance or interest from the opposite, and incredibly well-endowed and rather oily sex? There’s a lot of information out there but not all of it is useful. Whilst we at The Virginity Project endeavor to give you as realistic a picture as possible about ‘the first time’, in the end, we are not going to be there with you when it happens. It is something that you will do by yourself and your instincts are your best guide. However, honing instincts takes time so ‘fucked up’ it is for the moment. At least until we find our feet and work out what it is that we really need from our intimate lives.
‘First of all I have to specify that I am writing this from my post break up death bed, which is a state that never fails to make me feel a bit nostalgic and prone to reminisce.
At 18 and a half I was the very last of my friends to become sexually active (or, as they say, to get rid of my virginity), and I am pretty proud of how I handled the situation. I was wise enough to not see it as something to give away: in my eyes it was simply a necessary awkward moment that would lead to a life time of enjoyable sex (oh, I was so naive in my teenaged wisdom). I was especially afraid of having sex once with somebody at a party and then never again for a long time, like so many of my friends had done. I wanted time to practice, because from what I knew about sex, I suspected it to be something that requires some time and dedication before it gets, ahem, good in that very special way. Especially if you are a girl, or maybe especially if you're me and lose five pounds before every first date.
But let's look back at my teen age years, that are not that far away but thankfully quite definitely gone. After three years of middle school spent watching other kids making out like it was a national sport from the corner where I was reading books written for an adult audience and watching similar movies, I knew too little and too much to feel confident enough to let those poor pubescent boys I started dating in high school kiss me. So basically I waited for the classic older, dangerous guy that gets you drunk and tries to have sex with you even though you made it quite clear that you'd rather just kiss some more and talk about astrology and childhood memories.
While his equally older friends take your friend's virginity in the next room, three of them in one night. A night that you will remember for quite some time and that will give you a hint of what is wrong in the world.
That night I was on my period and that tiny detail enabled me to keep my virginity (and gain a nice, fat, juicy trauma) for the next three and a half years. Three years in which I kissed three other guys (in the same month) and mostly removed sex from my preoccupations, although it was at the base of each and every single one of them. After a year spent in America in a Jewish private school being puzzled at the relationship between American teenagers and sex, I returned to my small island in Italy and eyed a seemingly innocuous nerdy guy with glasses and a beard that had just broken up with his first girlfriend (what can I say, I like my men vulnerable) and basically forced him to be my first boyfriend and after a couple of formative months, have sex with me.
The funny thing is; he really didn't want to. His previous girlfriend and he had had sex only a couple of awkward times but I was determined and in the end he wasn't that hard to convince. He played an uncool instrument in a band that was about to dissolve, and their very last concert was the very first one I witnessed. My life long fantasy of being with a boy in a band was finally fulfilled, although nothing was quite how I imagined.
That night, I asked my best friend for a condom and the poor boy and I went back to my house. My parents were away for the weekend because my mom was aware of my agenda and quite keen to let me finally have sex. She probably hoped that I would finally calm down and stop throwing chairs at her every other day, or maybe she was just doing exactly what her own mother would have never, ever done for her in the 60's.
The act itself wasn't that remarkable at all. I just remember the pain that was mainly caused by me being extremely nervous and then the surprise I felt when I realized I was actually doing it, having sex, feeling ok about having that kind of intimacy with somebody else. Enjoying that intimacy even (because I definitely wasn't enjoying the intercourse itself). It was the anniversary of our country's liberation from fascism, a beautiful spring night, and I was losing my virginity, in my own bed, with Paul Simonon and the four Ramones cheering from the walls.
It is uncanny how your relationship with sex can be slightly fucked up; even when your parents were super cool about it and nobody ever told you it was a sin or something wrong. Even when you know exactly how it works since you're about 8 years old and even when you have been raised by feminists that taught you to be empowered by your womanhood from an early age. Ok, maybe it's really not that surprising at all.’
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