Do you think that when Marvin Gaye wrote Sexual Healing, that perhaps he might have been thinking about today’s story? I think so.

It never ceases to amaze me just how much one person can right someone else’s wrongs through the power of sexual experience alone. Today’s story is a lovely example of that. It reminded me of a man I interviewed many years ago. It was by accident really because I had just interviewed his wife for my book. Afterwards, he started quizzing me about other people I had interviewed. Had I had any ‘difficult’ stories he wanted to know? No, as it happens, I hadn’t at that stage.

At which point, he offered up his own.

Suffice it to say that as he sat and told me a story that involved teenage sexual abuse, I felt a renewed sense of urgency to finish my book. That I was onto something important because people carry some huge stories around inside themselves.  This man had never let his out. Why would he? He felt ashamed of it even though it hadn’t been his fault. I knew that other people might benefit from hearing it. But what I really remember about that day is the unexpected ending. His first marriage finished in failure because he couldn’t get over the past, until, in his thirties, he met someone who redressed the balance.

‘Jane was a really gentle, simple soul but she was absolutely fantastic with people. She was brilliant with social relationships. I was with her for four years and she slowly taught me what women are all about. She literally took me by the hand and guided me very gently.

That was the first time in my life that I understood anything about sex, about what women required, and about what they appreciate. I learned more about sex in the first three months with Jane than the whole of my marriage to Jean. I learned what it was like for a woman to have an orgasm. I learned what actually triggered an orgasm. I learned what a woman was looking for and what it all meant. It was all completely new to me at the time and it felt like waking up’.

Here is how today’s storyteller redressed the balance.

‘The first version of how I lost my virginity is quite literally painful for me (in more ways than one). I was 13 nearly 14. I had been with my brothers best friend on an off since I was 9 years old, rather naively believing that he was the 'one', planning to get engaged and married all before I was even 18!

Several months prior to the night I actually lost my virginity. We had tried to have sex but I found it too painful to carry out the act and asked him to stop, which he did. The only time he respected my request to stop. The second time was the weekend before my 14th birthday. For some reason he decided he wanted to have sex with me and nothing was going to stop him. Although initially I did agree to going through with it, my common sense kicked in (as did the knowledge that my entire family were in the house) and I asked him to stop. He refused and continued. I couldn't stop him from doing it. He was 15 when this happened.

Not long after this happened I decided that even though he had taken away my virginity, that technically and in my own eyes I was still a virgin. Which leads onto the second and 'official' story of how I lost my virginity. Which was also around a birthday, but my 20th this time. Although this version is slightly unbelievable to some as I have been told.

I lost my 'virginity' to a member of staff at the college I attended. He was not a teacher but a member of support staff in the college's student union that I was an active part of the student committee of. He joined not long after I had been elected onto the committee and just before the beginning of the summer break. At the time I was dealing with a lot of issues personally and he offered a shoulder to cry on. This obviously forged a bond between us that got stronger over the summer holidays as we talked a lot via text.

Upon returning to college in the September, I began to realise that there was something there. It took a few months before we started seeing each other in secret. In fact the first kiss happened at college and was a bit of a shock for us both! The November after that, we ended up at his house, the illicit kisses in the SU office where no longer enough. He knew about my past encounters with men and took we took it at my pace. He was very gentle and kind and did everything right, it was everything I imagined.'