The Virginity Project

My non-perfect perfect first time..

How I wish I had posted this post yesterday. The mercury was rising in London yesterday. Today it is not but my story teller still lost his virginity on a hot sticky day in July. Mostly I like this story because he explores the idea of perfection, something that we have talked about recently.

People strive for perfection in all sorts of departments. Losing virginity is one such department and it’s a losing game. You can’t plan perfection. Perfection just happens. The very act of striving for perfection renders its existence null and void before you’ve even begun. To my mind, if something really is perfect, that conclusion can only really be reached in retrospect. Here is a man who didn’t plan his first time. This is a man who admits he did not love his lover, nor did the experience involve ‘rose petals and candles’ but upon reflection, he realizes the experience was perfect for him.

I also love the fact that he read about The Virginity Project in a feature I wrote for this month’s Glamour Magazine. He is a gay man so perhaps its par for the course but put it this way, he is not the first man I have heard from this month who likes checking out Glamour and they’re not all gay. Fact. Guys like reading girl’s stuff.

‘I read about your work in this month’s 'Glamour' magazine, and found it immediately interesting. I too have always found such a traditionally taboo and significant concept intriguing. I felt compelled to write to you about my experience. I'm a 20 year old gay man, and I lost my virginity when I was 17 to a man I barely knew. I'd met him on a night out the evening I turned 17, but I didn’t see him again until about 3 weeks later. He was so not my type, or anything like the sort of man I had imagined I would lose it to, but he was charismatic, about 6 years older than me, and incredibly 'together'.

He had his own city centre apartment and expensive clothes. To a teenage homosexual still living at home, this all seemed amazing. It was a sticky hot summer’s day in late July, and we agreed to meet in the gay quarter near where he lived for a drink. We got there, but being such a beautiful weekend, everywhere was packed. He asked me if I fancied getting a bottle of wine back at his place, and I knew right there and then exactly what that meant. I agreed, we bought the wine and walked up to his place. My heart was in my eyeballs and I couldn’t remember what to do with my tongue in my mouth. We proceeded to get a bit tipsy on the balcony, and I can remember the heat being so intense. I suggested moving it to the bedroom (the wine did wonders for the confidence), and we did. He had no idea I was a virgin, and still to this day I don’t think he does. He was kind and sparkly, and he looked after me. It hurt, like a bitch frankly, but I did ease into it in the end, and found myself really enjoying myself.

We made love again a few months later and it was just as fun. I just thought, with all the stories I hear from friends about how shitty their first times were, with horrible people or bad places, it would be nice to show that some can be perfect. I didn’t love him, nor do I now. There weren’t any candles or rose petals, but it was absolutely perfect for me and I always look back on that hot day in July and smile. I can’t wait to buy your book and see what other people have experienced.’

All's well that ends well...

I was going to call today’s entry ‘A Gothic Tale’, playing as it does with dark themes. And who doesn’t like a dark gothic tale at this time of the year when the days are short and staying indoors seems like the only sensible response to such extreme weather? But its Christmas Day and luckily, what begins as a horror story soon segues onto much happier territory.

As it does, our writer also talks about something that – surprisingly – we have never really discussed on this blog: the experience of ‘taking’ someone else’s virginity. Traditionally speaking, the taking of virginity would be an act performed by a man but today, in so many different ways, the tables have turned.

I won’t say anything else. Quite apart from anything, I am about to go and cook Christmas lunch for 12 people but needless to say, all IS well that ends well. Happy Christmas one and all!

‘Hi Kate. I'm female, I was born in 1991 in London, England, and I have two stories to tell you. I'd like to share this first story because it's quite painful for me to remember and it'd be nice to get it out there, rather than keeping it to myself so much.

When I was 14 and my hormones were raging, I found myself making friends with a boy in the year above me at school - Tommy. He was tall, dark, handsome, and completely fascinating (at the time). He was flirty and charming and slightly gothic, with dyed black hair. Being an angsty teenager, I had already developed an intense jealousy of his female friends so I did my utmost to become one of them in order to get closer to him.

I'd never had a real boyfriend before, just some snogging and brief, sloppy oral with someone else a few months previously and Tommy appeared to be everything I wanted. He also became friends with my best friend Martha around the same time but I'll come back to that. Things developed, and we began to engage sexually on spare afternoons. I became more and more obsessed with him, especially when I noticed that he and Martha were getting on remarkably well; unfortunately, I began to suffer from mild depression and started to self harm on occasions, but I refused offers of help from the infirmary at school and continued to engage with Tommy, even though I knew it'd hurt me.

In December, when I had turned 15, I invited myself to a stranger's party through a friend (Edie, who is gay), which Tommy was attending. The party went as one would expect, but the next day, Edie, Tommy and I decided to go back to her house to get some sleep before the journey back to our respective houses. Because the walk back to Edie's house had been so cold, we decided to get into her double bed to warm up and watch a film; Tommy lay between me and Edie. Edie took off her bra to be more comfortable, but left her t-shirt on, I pulled off my t-shirt and Tommy pulled off his own, and then undid my bra. Edie pulled me towards her, so that I was in the middle and I kissed her. She caressed me and I moved down to tongue her nipples, which Tommy took as his cue to put his hand down my jeans. Edie took my hand and put it in her knickers once she had realised what Tommy was doing. He decided to lie in the middle, and I got on top of him and continued to kiss and fondle Edie. Gradually I started paying less attention to Edie, because, of course, I was infatuated with Tommy.

Eventually he made it clear that he wanted to have sex with me, and I took off both of our pairs of jeans and underwear, put a condom on him and attempted to allow him to penetrate me from beneath, but I was too tight and couldn't manage it. Edie, understandably, left the room. We switched into the missionary position, and I remember thinking, as he penetrated me, 'So that's it, I've lost my virginity.' It hurt: of course, his penis was far larger than anything I'd previously had inside me, and my head was banging against the headboard with each thrust. He didn't seem particularly interested, but I tried my best to enjoy it and make it enjoyable for him. Sooner or later, he came and rested his head on my chest. A week or so afterwards, Edie invited me to her house by myself (it was  obvious why she wanted me there), and although I considered myself straight at the time, I went along with it and had my first lesbian experience. That's not too relevant, though, as I didn't consider myself a virgin any longer. 

It wasn't until a few weeks later, when I was shocked and hurt that Tommy didn't want more to do with me, that I found out that he had had sex with someone else, a friend of Edie's, on the very same day that he had taken my virginity. As you might imagine, I was extremely hurt by this, and even more so when Tommy began a relationship with Martha, my best friend, whose virginity he had taken a few weeks before my own. I had no idea they were involved like that, and couldn't believe that my best friend could betray me that way. This was the beginning of a long and difficult period of depression for me. I started self-harming several times a day and was forced to go to the local mental health clinic by the school infirmary. After many months, during which I still had sex with Tommy, Martha and I made up, and I began to recover. Now, Martha is by far my closest friend, and I'm good friends with Tommy, and although I doubtlessly became closer to Martha than I ever would have had this not happened, I regret the circumstances in which I lost my virginity more than anything else.

This second story is much more positive, and makes me smile rather than shudder. It is about how my current boyfriend, Chris, lost his virginity.

Chris and I met on the 10th of October, the very first Friday of the first term of my first year of Uni, when I was 18. I had decided, along with a few others, to continue the night after clubbing at the campus SU in the flat below mine, which I hadn't previously visited. We were all quite drunk and talking and laughing loudly in the flat kitchen. Chris and a couple of others came and joined in our drunken chat; unsurprisingly, we got along extremely well (I had immediately gravitated towards him because of the green eye-shadow he was wearing) and swapped numbers. He called the next day and asked to meet up, which we did the following morning, and straightaway began a relationship from scratch, having known each other for a few hours. (He says he 'just knew' he wanted to be with me; I say he leapt before looking.)

Our sexual relationship began quickly, though he was determined to savour each experience before moving on. One day, lying in bed together after mutual masturbation, I asked how many people he'd had sex with. ‘What do you mean by 'sex'?’ he asked. ‘Well, oral or more, I suppose.’ He immediately blurted, ‘One.’ I assumed he meant he'd had sex with one person, and was taken aback when he told me he was a virgin. I couldn't understand how someone so handsome and desirable, not to mention 20 years old, was still a virgin. He explained to me that while he knew it was a leftover from being strongly Catholic before losing faith, he wanted to keep the ultimate intimate experience for someone he was really in love with, and who was more special to him than anyone else. Of course, I didn't pressure him to have sex with me - he wanted to do other sexual things, and that was fine. He was already the best sexual partner I'd had. I did, however, confide in a few close friends for advice, which turned out to be exactly what I would have done anyway. We grew closer and closer, and he let me know after a few months that he did intend to make love with me, but at the right time for him. I was overjoyed that he felt I was that special, so I couldn't wait.

One night in spring, after a meal out and a visit to the cinema, we went back to his house (coincidentally, we live very close together, considering we met at a Uni 150 miles away) for the night. We went to bed as usual, and began to touch and kiss each other, but instead of bringing one another to orgasm, he raised his body over mine and penetrated me for the first time. He moaned and so did I - I hadn't had sex in months and he had stretched me somewhat with that first push. We whispered tenderly and lovingly to one another as he began thrusting. The bed was squeaking and it was at the back of my mind throughout, worried that his mother would overhear. After a couple of minutes, his nerves took over and he lost his erection, which unfortunately continued to happen and prevented his orgasm before we were both tired out.

The next morning, we woke after his mother had left for work, and tried to make love again. This time, Chris was less tired and more relaxed and didn't lose his erection. He lay over me again and thrusted clumsily in and out, still and it was obvious that he was anxious to do it 'right'. He came inside me, which I definitely wanted. Afterwards, he lay in my arms, pleased that he hadn't had to stop and that he had had sex as most people think of it, and we fell asleep again.

We're still happy and have an explorative, tender and satisfying sex life.

I know the second story is someone else's, but it's still extremely important to me. I hope these have been, if not helpful or interesting, then at least a bearable read. Thanks for taking the time to read it! I've just discovered your blog and find it fascinating, so thanks for that as well.

Best wishes,

T. C

A blog is not just for Christmas….

I’ve used that line before but forgive me, it’s a good one and apt considering I abandoned my blog like an unwanted pet for the festive season. Truth be told, I’ve missed the little bugger like mad but needs must. There is nothing quite so galvanizing as checking the Amazon link with your book on it and realizing that you haven’t actually finished writing it yet.

To that end, I have risen every morning and crawled my way through the early morning darkness to the keyboard. I have drunk forty-five gallons of tea, read entire chapters aloud to the cat (he loved it) and generally lost the plot in the way that one only can when one is unable to leave the house for weeks on end. It was all worth it. I emerged this last Thursday, blinking into the light and clutching my - more or less – completed manuscript! Mission accomplished. To celebrate, I have a cheeky little story from a young man in NYC. Charles raises that old (Christmas) chestnut. How does a gay man lose his virginity? I asked him and this is what he had to say:

‘Well, I guess for man-on-man action, there are two V-cards you could lose. My friends and I have discussed this several times...and almost all of us have come to the conclusion that oral sex IS sex, but penetrative intercourse results in the loss of a V-card (this includes my LGBTQ and straight friends).  We haven't done a scientific study to back it up but I guess from personal experiences we've found the penetrative act to be more intimate.’ He also made this rather interesting point. ‘Also, had I been a heterosexual woman offering up my wares for free to a heterosexual man, I almost guarantee that it would have been a different outcome, and I would have hung my V-card up six years earlier...’

This is how it happened.

‘I'm Charles, born in the US in 1983, raised in Germany and moved to the US later on.  I have a super European liberal minded mother, but to spite her liberal awesomeness (but mainly for schlepping me back to the US), I decided to join a super evangelical Christian church.   Sex wasn't much of a taboo in our household, but I was a bit verklemmt* about the whole sex thing after the religious morals that were taught to me in the church. Although I didn't think it was a big deal and as my friends were losing their virginity's, I just kind of shrugged my shoulders and thought ‘to each his/her own!’  I did the whole Christianity thing for a while and I eventually realized that it wasn't my cup of tea.  

In college, I realized that, whoops! (Surprise, surprise) I liked the boys.  It wasn't really much of a surprise, but it didn't help make the sex situation easier.  When I was 20, I finally decided it was time to get things going and I made out for the first time ever. Making out once with a guy led to many times with many people (guys and girls) and I was quickly versed in the ways of non-penetrative sex.  Finally I was ready to ‘go all the way’ and this is where my five-year long journey of trying to get ‘it’ starts.  

First guy...a couple of dates, I'm ready and willing and waiting.  He knew I was a 'virgin' and when I asked him to help me get rid of that label, he said ‘I can't do that to you. You're so innocent!’  Yikes! Strike one. Saw him once or twice after that, and I tried, tried, tried soooo hard, but it just wasn't doing it for him.  After that I went on a rampage for a few months working it like a hooker a month before Christmas.  After a couple of more ‘you're so innocent’s’, I gave up and only tried a few times a year to no avail.  

Then comes the week before my 26th birthday and I decided that this was it.  I was going to get laid and not give a damn what anyone else thought.  I started working it like crazy again but also decided at this point that I wanted a perfect dick for my first lay.  After a few short months, I finally found him.  Tall, dark, handsome and with an accent.  He takes me home, we start doing our thing, and then I see it.  A fantastic specimen.  So I asked him if he'd ‘do it’.  He asked if I'd done it before, and I just said ‘yes, of course!’ So we did it, and it was amazing.  I never told him that I hadn't done it before, but oh well. Only saw him once more a few months later, and it was still good.  

Do I hate the fact that I had to lie to someone to get what I wanted?  Yes.  Am I glad I did?  Hell yeah!  Was it necessary?  Probably...I might still be running around begging, begging, begging for a lil' something-something had I not.’

*verklemmt = emotionally inhibited in a convulsive way; stuck

Are you being served?

Today’s story is a showstopper. It also highlights a shadowy area of intrigue for some of us…what men get up to when left to their own devices. We have all heard the tales about boy’s boarding schools and whilst I am not accusing every man I ever met of being secretly gay, I do think that most men are a lot less hung up on the idea of ‘being gay’ than they let on. I also think its got nothing to do with being gay and everything to do with making the most of whatever opportunities come your way.

Some years ago I took a detour into restaurant management. The restaurant was populated by the gayest (and loveliest) collection of male waiting staff you have ever encountered. The kitchen was where the straight guys hid. Big, beefy macho men who could take the punishing pace and crippling heat of a Saturday night restaurant service. Well, you might think that east is east, west is west and never the twain shall meet but that wasn’t the case in the restaurant that I worked in. It wasn’t just that we were the culinary equivalent of the United Nations, i.e. all departments loved to party together regardless of our differing roles, genders, sexualities and religions. No, there was partying of quite a different kind going on between some of the straightest, manliest chefs I have ever encountered and some of the most homosexual waiters. Strictly behind closed kitchen doors you understand. I only know all this because I had the ‘ears’ of the gay waiting staff. This wasn’t a one off either, it happened a lot.

I remember being surprised at the time but I am not now. Men understand each other. They understand each other’s needs and to that end, they can make simple physical transactions with each other that have fewer emotional repercussions than their heterosexual equivalents. Women are hardwired to involve feelings. Sometimes it’s easier to leave us out of the equation.

‘I prefer the company of and sex with women but enjoy the frisson of possible discovery involved in homosexual activity. I don't regard myself as a gay man; I'm not sure where I stand on the sexual continuum.  I suppose I am about 10% gay and 90% straight.’ 

So says today's story teller. Sexual orientation is not a black and white matter and it never has been. Today’s story teller is totally down with that.

‘I am a 68yr old man, born in the UK where I still live.

I was educated at public school and this seems to have bred into me a subsequent tolerance of the breadth of sexual desire. I was 16 or 17 when I lost my virginity. I was at boarding-school and living in one of seven houses, where we ate, slept and entertained ourselves.  Among the staff was a young woman who was employed as a maid in the kitchen and the dining-room.  She was a pleasant, friendly lass, well-built with large breasts and bottom.

I think it was in May 1959, the summer term and I walked through from the boys' end of the house, past the kitchen towards the cellars where the craft and other rooms were.  What I had intended to do there, I haven't a clue.

As I approached the door to the cellar steps, I bumped into Jesse.  I cannot remember from this distance in time what was said nor how it was that we came to be kissing.  I can remember that she had full lips and that when ours met I lost all sense of place and time.  I think it was at that point that I stuck my hand up under her overall and into her pants.  

We made a tacit decision to go down to the cellar, where we shut ourselves into a vegetable store room.  We continued kissing and I put my hand inside her bra to feel a breast which was large and soft. She took off her pants and lay down on the floor;  I'm not sure if I took down my shorts (yes, it was that kind of school!) or simply unleashed my erection from the fly.  I lay down on top of her and my cock entered her very easily. She was soft, wet and roomy but unlike anything I had ever felt in my life - blissful.  However much I was enjoying it, the sensation did not, sadly, affect the enthusiasm of a young man's first time and the excitement ensured that the performance was all too brief.  I had just relaxed on top of Jesse, when we heard familiar footsteps coming down the stairs.  

My housemaster!  His steel-tipped heels clicked their way along the stone-flagged passage outside our door. Jesse and I did not breathe. Our already-raised heart rates must have doubled as we lay, terror-stricken. The footsteps continued and on into the craft-room next door.  They did not stay there long before retracing their way back up the stairs.  Silently praising providence that he had not wanted a vegetable, we gave him a decent time to return to his quarters, hastily adjusted our clothes and went back upstairs.  I kissed Jesse good-bye and, knees trembling, went back to daily life.  Jesse will always have a warm place in my heart and I shall be for ever grateful to her for the pleasure I had in giving her my virginity.

During my time at prep and public school, being a male with a very healthy sexual appetite, I did become involved with other boys in mutual masturbation but never experienced anal sex.  I was in my 40s in the mid-1980s before I started to explore an interest in sex with men.  I had read stories of the infamous New York bath-houses and learned that there was a Turkish bath and sauna in the neighbouring city.  On my first visit it became clear that it was a hot-bed of homoerotic activity.  There was a steam-room, and three sauna areas of varying temperatures from mild to very hot.  In those days, men would walk around naked and sexual activity was common almost anywhere.  I had a number of pleasant experiences there and met someone with whom I shared other sexual moments over a good number of years.

However, my experience of anal sex took place in a well-know male 'cruising ground' in woods north of the city.  One way of soliciting attention is to single out a likely candidate (and they're quite obvious), to stop and have a pee, making your intentions clear by displaying your cock to the subject.  On this occasion, a short, bald well-built man responded by producing his cock but remarking that he knew a better place to go and suggesting I follow him.  We returned to our cars and drove a mile or so to another area of the woods where I followed him into the trees for a distance until we were sheltered from gaze.  I asked him what he liked (a stock phrase of the male cruiser), to which he replied that he liked to be fucked.  I was happy to oblige. 

We dropped our trousers and I gave his cock a cursory fondle before turning him round.  He had a muscular bum, smooth  and lightly covered with dark hair.  He gave me a condom, which I put on and he bent over to receive me.  I place my cock at the entrance to his anus and pushed, a bit too sharply, because he complained.  I took more time and let him absorb my cock until I was fully inside him and started to slide in and out.  His passage was tight and smooth and felt wonderful and the condom ensured that I could enjoy a decent ride before shooting my load.  As is usual in these circumstances, we parted with a mutual pat on the backside.

Having fucked a man, I developed a curiosity as to what it felt like to be fucked.  One evening, some years later, I was cruising in woods nearer home, where I met a man who was similarly inclined.  We withdrew to a secluded spot, where we got out our cocks and indulged in mutual stroking, sucking, bottom-stroking and hole-fingering.  He asked if I was up to be fucked.  I had another look at his cock which was uncut (my favourite!) and, although not small, was, I hoped, of an acceptable size, so I agreed.  He put on a condom and I anointed his cock and my anus with KY and bent over to receive him.  His cock felt large as it entered and its passage through my sphincter while uncomfortable, was not unduly painful. 

He shafted me enthusiastically for a few minutes before he came.  It did not feel 'natural', which of course it isn't and it did not feel, judging by this experience, to be a past-time I wanted to pursue, although I have succumbed occasionally since.  I am now a subscriber to the Julian Clary philosophy that it is better to give than to receive, though, in fact, having recently received a clean sexual bill of health, I now abstain from anal sex and fellatio but I do not resist the occasional 'feel'.  I don't know if you are aware of the seemingly huge number of men who seek out this kind of experience before returning to their partners but it appears to be prevalent wherever one goes.  

So there you are, dear Kate, three virginitie for the price of one.  I am glad I was not the subject of the rogering administered by the female banker's dildo to her husband.’ 

Love is contagious...

Today’s story comes in two parts. The first, the loss of virginity with the sweet boyfriend, the second, the discovery of potential boyfriend number 2. Marred only by the fact that boyfriend number two lives on the Pacific Islands, some distance from our storyteller in Australia. What can I say about today’s story? It reminds me of being young, of feeling that crazy heart-in-your-mouth feeling about a potential new love, even if you know next to nothing about him. Because one finds as time moves on, that conversation and humour are just as important as raw animal attraction, if not more so. Excitement is just that: excitement. But it’s not a sustainable way to feel. On a practical day-to-day level, if we felt excited all the time, it would lose its, well, excitement. There has to be something more to keep the motor running.

I think its tough being young these days and I count myself in that bracket even though I have reached the big four oh because I am still part of the post pill generation and for that reason, none of us need to commit. As women, we no longer need men to support us and the institution of marriage is largely obsolete unless you have children. We are free to move onto the next big thing the moment that things start to get tricky. Our parents would have tried harder to make things work because they had to. Our generation have very little motivation to stick it out. Not that I am suggesting Emma should marry boyfriend number one, or even potential boyfriend number 2. There’s no point staying with someone you don’t fancy (bf number one), and bf number two sounds lovely but they don’t speak the same language – cute and charming at first, quickly tedious  -  but somewhere in this equation, there has to be compromise between the values of the old guard and our new throwaway society. I haven’t quite worked out what that is yet but I do know that if you find it, hang onto it. It’s rare.

Emma from Australia. Born in 1991, lost virginity aged 19.

‘I had never understood the 'sacredness' of sex. I'd masturbated since I was 5 and constantly thought about it, however when I was 12 and my best friend practically tried to thrust himself inside of me I realised that it was perhaps a little bit important. My friends began having sex around the ages of 13 and 14, I did not. I quickly became the odd one out in terms of sexual promiscuity. However, late at night, on the bus, in a mathematics class or at dinner at my Great-Grandparents home, I longed to be entwined with someone, my hands stroking their budding breasts or their hard penis deep within me. Nothing romantic of course (oh, how I detested romanticism), just rough erotic fantasies (I'm glad I wasn't born a boy, with that utter misfortune of letting everyone know when you are 'turned-on'). 

So there I was, dreaming away, growing older and being so caught up in my self-esteem issues (oh my god, I have flaps - how one can be so insecure about their vagina is ridiculous - and black curly bushy pubic hair, how could I!) that I never actually played out one of those erotic fantasies of mine until I was 17. I'd met a sweet boy while on holidays at my aunt's house and I didn't really like him very much. In fact, I'd forgotten all about him until one day (a few months later) when we came to contact with each other via the internet and began writing tremendously long emails to one another which then developed into a ridiculous amount of plane trips interstate and a long distance relationship which lasted for a year before I moved to his city to study. 

It was four months into the whole thing before one night we were fondling around on his make-shift bed on the floor (so that we could both fit) when we took each others pants off and it happened. Poor boy, he was so insecure about his small penis that he couldn't get it up and I partially lost interest. But it happened and I was left thinking, 'ok, so that's it'. All in all, it was sweet and funny. That was my first heterosexual experience, however I'd really like to fill my desire and make love with a beautiful girl. 

Oh, and I watched a insightful documentary the other week called 'The Perfect Vagina'. It certainly cleared up any of my remaining insecurities surrounding my vagina.’ 

Emma followed up with this email shortly after:

‘Can I include a sequel? I'd like to share it because the whole experience really feels like an opening to a new phase of me.  

My current boyfriend (whom I lost my virginity to - the previous email) and fell out of love with a while ago. My love fled about 8/9 months after being together (about 4 months or so after doing the deed). Goodbye euphoric first love feelings. Since that feeling went I've cheated on him about 5 times. I told him every time (except once, a kiss to a mutual friend. Oh dear.), and I tried to talk him into having an open relationship, but he didn't want a bar of it. 

This last time however really was the tip of my sexual iceberg. I was holidaying in the Pacific Islands last week when I managed to fall in love (perhaps that word has been misconstrued here, I'm talking of holiday love, where you come home with too many souvenirs, suntanned and considerably heartbroken. I still haven't made up my mind if it is love... as in LOVE) with a handsome, funny, sexy, cool, sweet, beautiful, lovely island sailor. 

How I yearned for him. My heart began doing 60's jive dancing as soon as I saw him. I fantasised about him constantly and tried to control my sexual urges as I walked passed him every morning. I told no one, and I continued smiling when my mother bragged to people about how amazing my boyfriend is and how she wishes he were her boyfriend instead. My loveless yet sweet and friendly relationship back at home......then on the last day this sailor told me, in broken English, how when he first saw me his heart did back-flips and his mind goes crazy every time he sees me. The last day! Why on earth did one of us not share with each other this vital information when it first happened? 

The night unfolded in a series of events closely starting with him asking to 'try my lips'. It was the most magnificent night. So amazingly incredible and liberating. Which isn't just the 'newness' and excitement of that night but also the love and adoration. Or it could all have been a lie, another one night stand for a sailor. But, I truly believe (am I sounding rather naive here?) that it was not. He said that I was only the second girl that he'd been with, and he was my second man that I'd been with. I've cried every day since I've returned home. 

However, the experience really helped spell out to me what my relationship doesn't have any more and made me realise that although I love my boyfriend, it is as a friend and nothing more. There is no attraction, just an empty cup. Now, I lay in bed with the man I care for with all of my heart and I dream of the man I love who is a thousand miles away, who lives a completely different life to mine. Love is so utterly confusing.’

Sunshine on a rainy day...

If you’re sitting at work staring into space and thinking to yourself that sun really should be enjoyed whilst actually sitting in it…as opposed to observing it through a pane of glass, here is a Grade A, top quality virginity related distraction. This will keep you quiet for a good ten minutes. It has all the charm, pathos and shock value of the mighty Post Secret but without the visuals.

And you can probably tell that I wrote that a couple of days ago when I was a. at work and b. The sun was actually shining. As opposed to today when I am contemplating a trip to a field in Somerset and the celebration of a friends birthday in a large tent alongside the promise of rain. What it is to be British. Virtually a moment goes by when we feel we can’t possibly continue unless we mention the weather.

No matter. I am off to Greece on Monday for my holidays but before I go, here is an interesting little story that I found when I was searching on ‘gay virginity loss’. I was actually looking for a rock solid definition of virginity loss and whilst this story doesn’t supply that, it is still a beautifully crafted little tale with some vivid imagery.

Definitions have been on my mind lately as I work on the chapter of my book that seeks to define virginity loss. If anyone has anything to say on the matter, email me, I would love to hear what you think.

Is virginity loss a physical process? Or is it more of a spiritual or emotional matter? And how much does our definition of it change over the years? i.e. would you say the same now about virginity loss that you might have said twenty years ago….or do we refine our  definition of that ‘loss’ as we grow and change and become more reflective about the past?

Your contribution could be vital – please email me on [email protected]

Happy Holidays!

 

The love that dare not speak its name..

There’s a first time for everything. So goes the title at the top of this blog and I never realised at the time how true that was. When I started to blog, I intended to talk only about virginity loss but along the way, I realised that a. we might get bored and b. there are all sorts of first times. This has been a recurring theme ever since.

When you ask anyone about their first time, they can usually pinpoint the moment at which they lost their technical virginity….but ask them about the first time that they actually enjoyed having sex and that’s another story altogether. Occasionally these two momentous events conspire to collide with each other but not very often. Except for today. Today’s storyteller lost his technical virginity when he was seventeen. But fast-forward a few years to his twenties when he had the experience that he considers to be his genuine loss of virginity. This was the first time he did what he felt he should be doing – having a relationship with a man.

This story is a departure for another reason. It is one of the stories from my book that never quite made it. I recorded this interview myself sitting across the kitchen table from Dave, one of many brave friends who agreed to be a guinea pig back at the start of this project. My interviewing skills weren’t all that but it didn’t matter because this story tells itself. It’s an absolute cracker for all sorts of reasons but for me, the magic lies in the last sentence and his very personal declaration about virginity loss: 

'I think it has affected me, I hadn’t actually consciously thought that before now, but it’s changed me. It has defined how I have sex.'

I shall leave you with that powerful thought. And as ever, if you'd like to make any comments on it, be my guest.

Dave Heart.  Born 1967. Lost virginity aged 18 and 21.

The first sexual encounter I had with a girl was on a train station and it’s a bit crude but it was the first time I’d actually tried to use my hands and I couldn’t find it!  She was like, ‘What are you doing?’ and then the train came, thank god.  It was a nightmare. Bracknell Train Station at eleven o’clock on a Sunday night.  Dark, raining and I’ve got my hand up this girl’s skirt and I didn’t want to do it, I just felt like I should do it.

I knew I was gay when I was fourteen years old because I used to masturbate over boys.  I never told anyone, I kept it all inside. I remember the first gay character on EastEnders. My mum was like, ‘That’s disgusting’. I remember sitting there thinking, oh my god, that’s me. My parents have totally accepted me as gay now but sex didn’t rear its head at all in my family.  No, it was a case of any sex on TV, any naked bodies, and my mum would be shouting, ‘Turn it over George. Turn it over!’ at my dad.

I used to have these secret fantasies in my head with blokes I was supposed to be friends with.  One in particular, Chris, was gorgeous in every way. Fantastic personality, fit body, we used to go to the gym together but he never knew how I felt. I used to sit and watch him through the smoky steam room air.  I’d have my girlfriend there with me but I didn’t exude any of the signs of being gay. It was such a weird situation.

No one had any idea that I was actually still a virgin either. The word was bandied about a lot, almost as an insult, ‘Oh so and so is a virgin’, especially if they were not very good looking. I never got called a virgin but I was one. I always had girlfriends and I always had the best looking girls as well.  The problem was with the girls themselves. They would want to have sex with me and I was the one that was always making the excuses, so I would just have to dump the girl and move onto the next one. It was just like a cycle and I kept on doing it.

The first time I had actual sex, I was eighteen years old.  I had joined the RAF and I was living off unit in a house with two other guys.  Her name was Mary and it was really difficult for me. It was a case of having lots to drink first and lots of kissing. I had the smallest room in the house but it was right next to the toilet so I could run in there, get everything working and then run back into the bedroom, jump on top of her, and try to find the right place to put it.  She later claimed that she was pregnant and had had an abortion. She only told me because I saw her crying at the RAF club. That really shocked me. I still went out with girls after that but only to be seen with someone on my arm, I didn’t actually physically have sex.

I didn’t have sex with a guy until I was twenty-one years old. I got sent to Norfolk RAF and as soon as I arrived I met a guy called Matthew. He was an RAF Steward and straight away I thought there was something between us. He was cute and we got on really well.

It was a new base and I’d gone from being in the same place for four years and feeling very secure to being somewhere where no one knew me. So in those first two months, we spent a lot of time hanging out together and I could feel that there was something there, some sort of electricity. It was amazing. But I didn’t speak to him about it because I had no idea if he was gay or not.

We’d made a few friends there and we used to go out together a lot.  One night there was a party in the RAF mess with all the crew and I remember thinking that I might actually be in love with this guy and he had no idea. Then at the party I saw him kissing a girl.

I was absolutely gutted. I was so upset. I made my excuses and left the party. I went back to the base and sat on my own in the TV room. I wanted to cry, I was so pissed off. Suddenly, after about twenty minutes, Matthew appeared and said to me, ‘Where did you go? What’s wrong?’

‘Oh nothing’, I replied, ‘I just wanted to go, I didn’t feel very good’.

He came over and sat next to me and we were just looking at each other and that’s it, we started kissing. It was risky, this was 1986 and it was still illegal to be gay in the armed forces. And we were doing it in the TV room, with the lights on, in an RAF block with windows and no curtains. Snogging as if our lives depended on it.

Then we went to his room and just snogged and clothes started coming off and I remember feeling the heat of another man’s body next to mine for the first time and it was perfect. And that’s when I first had sex with a guy. It wasn’t just doing a deed; it wasn’t just fumbling in the dark with someone you’ve never met before and forgetting about it. It was a build up of two months of tension and it was fantastic. It was a magical feeling. To actually see someone else’s parts, aroused, and feeling them next to you, on top of you. It was just really, really good.

I was in love with him. We had a really intense relationship, partly because we had to keep it quiet. It was a big secret and no one but us could know.  Eventually we decided to move off unit together. People just thought we were mates although I did start to think that they might have their suspicions. And then I got sent to the Falklands for four months, which was awful because we had only been together for a year and for the first time in my life, I was in love with someone and the feeling was being reciprocated.

I used to write to him and tell him how much I loved him and missed him and I can’t wait to, you know, get his cock in my face or whatever, and then one day, he read one of my letters, put it in his pocket and it fell out. It was picked up by an RAF policeman. He read it and because what we were doing was illegal, he went to his boss and reported it.

I had been in the Falklands for a couple of months and I got a phone call to go to the police office. In the back of my mind I just knew that they knew. I went in and sat down with an RAF policeman and he was very nice to me. He asked me how I was finding it in the Falklands and then he said, ‘I have to ask you a question now. We believe you are having a homosexual relationship with a Mr Matthew Knowles’. I remember hearing the words and the room spinning. And then I just thought what’s the point in denying it. There’s no point, so I just said, ‘Yes, I am’.

Our relationship did continue for a while after that but we broke up badly after a year and a half. I came home one day and he had gone. I did see him many years later. I was shopping in town and went into a gay bar for a drink and there he was. There was this guy, the man that I had lost my virginity to, we had changed our lives together. I went back to his hotel with him and it was so nice to see him and we had lots to talk about but I didn’t fancy him anymore, my first love as it were.

My attitude to sex now is that I don’t really like one-night stands. As a gay bloke, I don’t do saunas or get my cock out down at the park. Any important relationship that I have had, I have always liked somebody for ages before anything has ever actually happened. I think perhaps that first experience with Matthew has stayed with me because what I really yearn for is that feeling of electricity between two people. I want the build up of tension. I want to get into the package, you know, to have the box and then actually open it up and see what is inside. I think it has affected me, I hadn’t actually consciously thought that before now, but it’s changed me, it has defined how I have sex.

 

 

Sunday service…..

This story speaks for itself. Its owner wrote me last summer to tell me about her search for love and companionship, a search that her family thought she shouldn’t make due to her sexuality. Luckily, Sadie* is a pioneer. I don’t suppose there are too many daughters of Christian Evangelist preachers who are prepared to go against the grain and stake the claim over the life they instinctively feel they should have.

Which brings me to my next point. Lately this blog seems to have morphed into a one-woman mission to insist on the most basic of human rights. I can’t help it. Instinct should triumph over dogma. Marriage or not, gay or not, whatever or not, we cannot deny ourselves the most basic of needs. A sex life has to begin somewhere and that usually begins with the loss of virginity. Read on…

 Sadie. Born 1973. Lost virginity aged 35.

‘Hi Kate

I'm back again....finally with the rest of the story.

First of all a poem was what started some of this for me. It was the thought: ‘If I died today, what would I have most regretted I didn't do?’ And for me it started with kissing. I didn't want to die having never kissed someone. And then it progressed to ‘I don’t want to die having never been loved physically like that’.

As you know from my earlier story, I had no interest in sex with men because I'm gay. For years I wasn't able to seek out relationships with women because of my religious beliefs and because I kept trying to heal myself i.e. not like girls.

About two years ago I asked my counselor if he thought I was healthy in general and he said ‘yes’. I had been in counseling for years and I suddenly decided I was wasting my life trying to fix something that wasn't fixable. I finally started to accept myself and my love of women as something that just was.

The result of this is that I started dating for the first time in my life. I went out on dates or ‘friendship outings’ as I like to call them because a lot of these were just ‘get to know you’ events. I got to know myself a bit as well. I developed more confidence that someone would actually want to date me.

To skip ahead, a couple of months ago I met someone who I wanted much more than just a friendship date with. I was looking for someone who had a lot of the same religious things in common as me. We are both Christians, I can go to church and hold her hand, God and gratefulness is important to us both. Both of us would only like to be intimate in a committed relationship so soon we were dating.

I am still stunned that I lost my virginity. You asked ‘how does a lesbian lose her virginity?’ I think it's the first time you are fully naked and physical with someone. I asked my girlfriend and she said it's both oral sex and any type of penetration.

My strongest thoughts afterwards were: The church/Christians have totally lied to me. The church has made sex sound like crack. Something so powerful that you will be addicted. Something that is evil and then magically becomes good the moment a priest says something over you like ‘your married’. That is all a lie and I think it does a disservice to tell people or even hint at these things.

Sex and intimacy was sweet and playful. It was lovely. We were gentle and fun with each other. We talked a ton about it before. We talked about the areas of our bodies we felt insecure about. We talked about what we wanted and hoped for. What we had heard. And then we also talked during and after just checking in on how emotions and all were doing. It was really helpful and healing for me to talk like this. And she was so sweet. We are well matched sexually because we both have similar wants.

People told me I'd be scared, I wasn't. People told me they shook. I didn't. I had thought through this decision so much that I think when the time came I was just fully ready. I learned that I am an Aries lover. This is something I totally didn't know about myself until this. I thought all that stuff was junk. She said she was surprised I was a virgin because I didn't act like it. But I think the reason why is found in a poem by E.E. Cummings that says ‘the body has an intelligence of it's own.’ I did not need to train it. It knew what to do.

Our relationship is still going great. I do not feel any different. I do not feel guilt. I do get in some way why it was a great thing for me to have sex in a committed relationship. I think when I was younger I would have had some self-judgment due to the religious voices I'd heard through growing up. But here's the thing. Those same religious voices won't let me get married because I'm gay. So the best I can do right now in seeking to live the life I want is by keeping sex in a committed monogamous relationship.

I know I'm a rare breed. I was a virgin until just before my thirty-fifth birthday in order to figure this out. The decision to have a more spacious and wholistic understanding of sex than the church’s literal and confining view took me a long time.

The church has made being anti-sex it's own God. The church, especially the evangelical church in America judges the body as evil. It may not say this outright but it does come through. I think I've heard more about the evils of sexual temptation than any other topic. But in the end, sex for me was nothing to do with temptation. It was a choice to live instead of kill everything in me that was embodied.

Besides this, I have told three very open and accepting friends and it will stop there. But in needing to tell someone about all my years of working towards this and all the crap I had to figure out for myself, I wanted to tell my story somewhere. If I ever told my story in a Christian community I would be soundly renounced. I get that. But you know that just keeps the fear and lies about sex in play. 

One more thought. I am so glad I didn't force myself to date, marry and have sex with a man. I know another girl who did that. She has to drink alcohol to have sex with her husband. She stayed a virgin until she was married. And now she is basically stuck. I definitely am glad I didn't do the same as her just to ‘look good’ for the church.

 *Name changed to protect identity. Part one of ‘Sadie’s’ story was published on September 10 last year.