The Virginity Project

Back in the 1980’s when I was a teenager and we felt like the first generation of women who could make like a man i.e. have sex with whomever we chose (not without its issues but that’s a story for another time), it wouldn’t have occurred to us to think of virginity loss as anything other than awkward penetrative sex with a member of the opposite sex. This was the demarcation line between cool and not.

On a personal level, wearing a faded pink Fruit of the Loom t-shirt and tumbling in the grass with a French boy with cheekbones like razors on a balmy Spanish evening, I made sure I was cool, even though the physical experience itself still makes me wince when I think about it (the story behind it, however, was enough to inspire a book). My point being that times have moved on. People are freer to define their first sexual experiences in a more personal and frankly, interesting way. To give you an example, a female interviewee once said this to me:

"After a few months of sleeping with my boyfriend, I started to feel the twinges of a possible orgasm. And then he made me come. That’s when I really started to lose my virginity."

THIS IS WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT. Is that not one of the most joyous, evolved sentences you’ve heard? Everyone should be able to put pleasure at the center of their sexual experiences whether it be the first time, the fiftieth time or the last time - and not to concern themselves with the route they took to get there, whether it be trad penis in vagina sex, tongues in all manner of places or the classic dry hump.

And it definitely shouldn’t involve guilt, shame or at the worst, a doctor, politician or religious person who feels the need to define what to this day and forevermore will remain indefinable. There is no such thing as a test that can prove or disprove female virginity. I sincerely hope that one day we will live in a world where the need to even discuss this will cease to exist. Your virginity, or ‘lack’ of, is nobody’s business but yours. End of story.

Today’s story teller drives home, if you needed more reasons, why, contrary to what Susan Sarandon says, you actually DO need to vote with your vagina if you value the freedom to make your choices about your body. Susan Sarandon has enough cash to flee the country and not worry about the outcome of this election if it all goes tits up. If you don’t, close the lid of your lap top now and go and vote.

Hi Kate! I love your blog. Reading about other people's experiences is amusing and interesting. So I wanted to share mine. I'm Samia. I was born in 1995 and I'm from the United States. 

I come from a conservative Christian home. I was raised to believe that your virginity is special, only to be given to your husband. And also that no good guy wants a girl that's already had sex. Youth pastors used horrible analogies to get this point across like ‘Would you want a present that's already been unwrapped? Exactly’.

This scared me a lot. I've always been intrigued about sex from the time I got ‘the talk’ in fifth grade, but I didn't think I wanted to do it until I was married. I even had a purity ring, which sits, dusty, in my jewellery box as I type this. I had also been told by many people that you would experience immense guilt after doing it before marriage. So I felt pretty confident in my virginity pledge. 

I met Evan when I was 16. He was so easy to be around. I never felt uncomfortable or judged by him. Soon after we started dating, the topic of sex came up and it turned out he’d had a pretty crappy experience with it at first. He had been kind of talked into it by a girl he was dating for a few months and didn't enjoy it. We decided it was in both our best interests to wait. 

Fast forward two years later; we were on his bed, getting hot and heavy. He asked if I wanted him to ‘go down there’, I reluctantly said yes and I didn't regret it. It was bliss. 

After about a year of doing everything but intercourse, a few weeks ago, we tried it. 

This huge experience that everyone told me about was finally here. I was anxious to see what my own ‘first time’ would end up like. 

It was pretty bland. It only lasted about four minutes, neither of us finished. It was very uncomfortable and slightly painful. Afterwards he held me and kissed me and told me he loved me like thirty times. I was excited to have done it, and I can't wait to get more practice in. 

The thing is, I don't feel guilt like I was told I would. I don't feel this big emotional connection either; I was already so emotionally connected to Evan. He's the love of my life, and it was simply one of many first experiences we have shared together. 

That is my theory. Sex is what you make it out to be, and for me, it's an experience to share with someone. Don't get me wrong; I'm glad I waited to do it with Evan. But honestly, we had been ready to do it for a long time! Our relationship is strong and solid, with or without sex. And that is what my youth pastors left out: Sex does not make or break a relationship. People do.

The Candle Man

For almost as long as I’ve written this blog, I’ve been in touch with someone whom I have come to think of as my New York Counterpart, Therese Shechter; a person who has been making a documentary film about virginity loss and blogging about it for the last forever. A little like myself but the film version. Well it turns out that forever is more finite than I thought because hells bells! She’s gone and finished it.

Furthermore, it debuts this Sunday November 17^th at the DOC NYC Film Festival; 9.30pm at the SVA Theatre in New York so go and see it. It’s a fresh, funny and long overdue exploration of the myths and misogyny surrounding the ‘precious gift’ of virginity. For anyone who knows me, and even those who don’t, you’ll understand why I’m gutted I can’t be there for more than one reason. I have an ongoing romance with NYC and I’d love to wish Therese well so go for me. Break a leg Therese and massive congratulations to you. No one knows better than me how gratifying it is to see what has kept you awake at night for more years than we care to count take tangible form. Enjoy!

 

There is a New York theme to today’s post and in the process of describing it; I am going to sound like a total ponce. I bought some books at McNally Jackson on a recent trip to NYC and I was so excited about reading them that I came back to London and purchased the cheapest flight I could find to somewhere in Europe with the sole intention of doing just that.  I booked a holiday to read some books. Ok, so I’m exaggerating a little. I was tired and needed to take the kind of break where you don’t feel like you stuck your hands in an electric wall socket. That’s how NYC makes me feel and I love it…but its not conducive to the Zen state of mind I was hoping to achieve with a stack of books, a Mallorcan mountaintop and, as it turns out, *the most annoying ginger cat in the world.

But I did want to honor the books. And so…day two atop the mountain (its a hill but I’m a townie so it feels like a mountain) and in between sunbathing, what could almost be described as biking (cycling down to the shop, walking the bike back up) and eating, I finished fellow blogger, Leandra Medine’s book ‘Man Repeller’. I liked it very much. This book appealed to me because I love the idea of telling stories via items of clothing that we have known, loved and occasionally hated over the years. As a dyed in the wool tomboy with more traumatic tales to tell you about being squeezed into my older sisters hand-smocked-by-my-mother (‘but I made that dress Kate. How could you not wear it?’) as a stroppy four year old than I care to remember, this is a sartorial subject close to my heart.  This shit matters.

Leandra’s story takes shape around the observation that what she chooses to wear; in fact, the things that she loves to wear the most (high-waisted denim shorts, dungarees amongst others), also happen to repel men. This forms the basis of her uber popular blog, Man Repeller and now, this book. What’s this got to do with the theme of my own blog you ask? Well, Leandra is very upfront.  She says things that most of us think but don’t always say out loud. This is one of the things I like about her and her virginity loss story is not left out.

Here’s the thing. As I read it, the thought occurred to me that this story answers a question that comes up a lot on this blog. I get a lot of emails from young people and I’ve heard a lot of stories over the years. As you can imagine, they’re not all pretty. Not that I expect them to be because that’s life. Those who subscribe to the everything has to be ‘perfect’, whether it is their virginity loss experience, their day, their lunch, whatever, annoy me almost much as the ginger feline who wakes me up every morning on this mountain top and appears to think (persistently) that I am in charge of its eating schedule. Life is not ‘perfect’ and this is what makes it interesting. The two most important qualities we can cultivate during our time on earth are humor and a sense of perspective. Because almost any story can be funny given time and the right point of view.

I digress. I guess what I am saying is that I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on what could make your story memorable for the right reasons. Setting aside the actual moment of course (that part often does suck I’m afraid), your choice of partner is something that you mostly have control over and this choice can drastically shape the outcome of your experience. Leandra, bizarrely, picks well.

I say bizarrely because its not the most promising start.  She and the man she choses to help her dispatch her virginity had been broken up for ‘approximately one year, five months, three weeks and two days’ after he had chewed up her heart and spat it out - several times. Despite this, and presumably recognizing something in said man that isn’t immediately obvious to the reader, she harangues him into being the person she loses her virginity to. See what I mean? This can’t end well.

But here is the part that got my attention. No matter that she and Abie are nothing more than technical friends by this point. No matter that there is every chance that once the deed is done, and having had no prior experience of just how much the having of sex can bend one’s mind and emotions, when she arrives at his apartment at virginity loss o’clock, he has taken the time to line his living room, the hallway, the bedroom, in fact, his entire apartment with lit candles to celebrate this momentous occasion and to give it extra gravitas. Corny? Maybe. Sweet? I think so. Thoughtful? Absolutely yes. And there is the clue: thoughtfulness.

One word that packs a big punch. And whilst it might seem obvious to you and I with the benefit of hindsight, sadly it’s not always the most obvious quality to inspire the average teenager. Ergo Leandra is ahead of the curve because one thing I have come to know over the years of reading your stories is that you can’t go wrong when you do it with someone who actually gives a shit about you - and someone who has the foresight to go out and purchase that many candles and light them cares about the outcome of your experience. And whilst I don’t want to get all Jane Austen on you because I believe there are many more important moments in a woman’s life asides – and, I guess, as well as - finding someone to marry, reader, she does actually end up marrying him.

Furthermore, I cannot deny that the romantic in me wished it so all the way through the book. Or at least that they would get back together. Marriage is a minor detail in my view. But I did enjoy the wedding outfit very much.

Finally, I’m not suggesting this pyrotechnical gesture be your benchmark younger readers. It could be impractical to sit around waiting for the one human being who is prepared to break the bank and attempt to set their entire living space alight for you. But its equivalent wouldn’t hurt. And if anyone has some real life examples, I would love to hear them *thinks back to own experience and finds it sadly lacking*….however, like Leandra, it did at least inspire a book!

*the finca owner’s wife fed The World’s Most Annoying Cat twice from her plate at a local restaurant. It found out where they lived, came to visit and it has not left since. True story.

 

In honour of my trip to speak at the inaugural Love, Sex and Intimacy Fair this weekend; I decided to revisit one of the most impactful stories from my book. 

In today’s sexualized culture, I find Diane’s story more prescient and visionary than ever. Born in 1946, Diane lost her virginity to her next-door neighbour in an incident that had me mentally clasping my legs together as she recounted the story. It was fast, furious and lacking any form of enjoyment whatsoever. It was to kick start a journey, not to mention a pregnancy, that would take her somewhere she never expected to go.

Now she dedicates her life to teaching others what she has learnt along the way. She should be on the national curriculum. When you consider what a critical role sex will play in our lives, it’s astonishing that we still haven’t fully grasped the concept of sex education.

'I don’t need to talk about my sex life!’

Really? You could have fooled me. Ok, I know. It’s too close to the bone or too personal a discussion for lots of people and I respect that. But going over my notes for my talk, I am reminded of the sheer volume of people who, given the opportunity, men in particular, to talk to me about their sexual lives, grabbed it with both hands. Talk? I could hardly shut them up and nor did I want to.

The issue is this. Sexuality is ever present in our society today. Its everywhere you look. But rarely in a way that reflects the sensuality, intimacy or earth shatteringly leg shaking way that we’d like to experience it and, once we’ve got over the awful realisation that our children are also going to be sexual people one day, when the time is right for all concerned, it would be nice to think that they might experience this too. And not assume that sex is all about having your hair pulled whilst five men come on your face.

Blunt, I know. But what else are children and young people to believe? The cat is out of the bag. Unless you can police your Internet connection 24 hours a day, and even if you do, most young people share content on mobile phones, you can’t stop them from digesting a wide range of ‘influences’.

Its not going to stop so we may as well offer up something to counterbalance that. A place where young people can find measured, honest, sexy even (?!) information about something that will occupy a large amount of head space throughout their collective times on this earth. Cindy Gallop works tirelessly in this department with her Make Love Not Porn website. Bish Training do a sterling job in UK. And now this, the Love, Sex and Intimacy Fair presents its first event in Hove.

I’m British. The title still makes me want to titter ‘oh er missus’ every time I say it. We are after all, mostly descended from Benny Hill and Barbara Windsor. I don’t think that’s a bad thing but I do think its time we manned up, got over ourselves and started dedicating ourselves to promoting more useful, uplifting and healthy messages around sex for the younger generation.

Here then, to kick-start the proceedings is Diane’s ‘journey from ignorance to completely understanding’. In particular, I have always loved her description of virginity loss, which she defines as ‘being a person who makes love or becomes intimate because they choose to, and not because they have to’.

Diane, born 1946, lost virginity in 1963.

‘I didn’t know anything about sex. When we did get television, which was probably about 1953, anything on TV that even faintly hinted at anything sexual, I knew that I had to be sent out of the room. You know that it’s something that’s not right.

There’s a lot of stuff been written about this. About what you know, and what you are told.  Because as a child, you have a very deep, inner knowing. And what happens to us is that our intuition is denied and that’s why we get so fucked up, because we don’t trust ourselves.  Because the authority, parents, teachers, whatever, tell us that what we’re feeling is wrong.  And that’s the journey really, to get back.

I’ve come full circle. I do a job that feeds me, nurtures me.  I teach women and I teach men how to have pleasure. That’s my group work; my private work is giving people pleasure from a Tantric perspective. I’m very generous with my body. Because I think that sexual energy is the best thing there is for health. I teach them how to relax into pleasure.  We’re not taught that in this society. We’re taught to go for more and more materialistic stuff, you know, which doesn’t satisfy, because it’s an endless journey. You can never have enough. 

When I was about fourteen, some boy kissed me and got spit on me and I was terrified I was going to get pregnant because I knew nothing.  And neither did my friend Carol. We were both anxious about this, and I think she started to get into self-pleasuring, as we call it in Tantra. Exploring herself.  I think I probably started to do a little bit too, but feeling really guilty about that.

Later, I joined some sort of Christian youth club and the boys at the Cathedral school came over and put on a Kung Fu exhibition. This boy chopped a block of wood in half, like they do and I was incredibly impressed.  Incredibly impressed at this and it was love, obviously. That was a lovely intimate time, just exploring the body.  But we didn’t make love. Because it wasn’t a big thing, like it’s a big thing now, to have penetrative sex.  It wasn’t.  And that’s the whole perspective of Tantra. People think you’ve got to have penetrative sex to have had sex and it’s not about that, it’s about the whole body.  I think that’s probably what we were doing, actually. There was no goal. Which was nice. 

I was lucky to have that experience because the next thing that happened was that I was pregnant at seventeen. The guy next door in the electrical shop was the father of my first two children. I used to go out with him delivering televisions and he fucked me, basically, and I got pregnant immediately.  Immediately.

It happened in the back of the van, it was really quick and I remember it not being very nice. It was not pleasure.  Just sort of when you don’t connect with that part of your body. Because you get into a situation, well, I got into a situation, women get into a situation, when you feel obliged. You don’t want to say no. Because it felt like … I didn’t want to upset him.

Then of course all hell broke loose because you didn’t have unmarried mothers in those days.  Got to marry him.  You can always divorce him later.  What will your father say?  All that money spent on your education and now look at what you’ve done. So I was married within two weeks. Top hat, tails, Rolls Royce, the whole bloody thing.

I was with him for two and a half years and it was never like making love, and that’s how we continued until I left him really.  After I turned my husband out, I had lots of different experiences with different people, some beautiful, some not and I found myself living in the red light district in Liverpool. I used to watch the girls take the guys behind the lorries from my window.  It was fascinating and I became friendly with the women, I thought they were great, so open, great women, you know.  So one day, I went down the road and I thought, oh well, let’s give it a go, let’s give it a bash and at the same time, I had a guru, so I had the spiritual stuff but my day job was as a sex worker.

On some levels, it was no different to working in Tesco’s. I mean, I would have hated working at Tesco’s, and on another level, if you’re in your authority, in the place of the goddess, if you like, it can be a beautiful experience.  It’s the oldest profession. The sacred prostitute.  

The biggest thing I learnt is that it’s not about sexuality. Men are looking to get back to mother.  They all come from woman, and they’re looking to get back there. And they think that sexuality is going to do it.  And for at least a few seconds, minutes, it does.

For me, it was research, but it was unconscious research. I guess that’s how it is in life.  You do this, you do that, and then you look back and piece it all together. For me it’s been a journey from ignorance to completely understanding. And then of course, you teach what you’ve learnt.

I had been invited to a Tantra workshop, which I didn’t want to go to.  I’d heard about Tantra in the sixties and I didn’t like the sound of it, obviously because I had big problems around sexuality. But I went because it kept coming up and I thought, well, maybe there’s something here for me. 

The first night was horrendous and the second day I had a couple of very strong experiences. We were doing a meditation and I saw this tiny little woman dancing in front of a bunch of women and she was free and I thought, I want that freedom.  And then she came really close and it was myself, I was looking in the face of myself.  So I thought, okay, this is my journey.  I knew it was going to be hard because I knew where I was and how far I had to go but I just did it and I know now that what I do is good. I know that I’m doing my bit for humanity, because I’m giving back what I’ve learnt and understood.

Tantra is a way of using your sexual energy to move into a higher state of consciousness because, I think how you are sexually, is how you live your life. I work with people in groups, teaching them how to self-pleasure. Some people are really quick, can’t be bothered, some people are too finicky, it’s too cold in here, the music is too loud, it’s too this, it’s too that.  That’s where they are in life.  Some people go on for hours, you know, and really take their time, so you can actually go right down into sexuality, and see what sort of person you are.

To get to that stage, we have to become vulnerable.  And everything that’s in the way of that vulnerability has to be looked at, and sorted out.  I mean, sexual energy is our life energy; it’s our creative energy. It’s the energy of joy.  It’s who we are.  But it’s almost like, on top of that very beautiful energy are all sorts of guards and restrictions that hold it down. And the first bit has to be sexual healing.

Ultimately, I think that losing your virginity should be that gateway into pleasure, a gateway into something very innocent and beautiful.  It should be about moving from ignorance to awareness, to becoming totally sexually self contained, to being a person who makes love or becomes intimate because they choose to, and not because they have to. Of course that could come years after you technically lost virginity. And for some people, maybe never.’

I’m not a fan of the Daily Mail but even I have to admit to checking out the Side Bar of Shame sometimes and I’ll tell you why. If you’re taking a temperature check on current issues, if you want to know how a cross section of people feel about the world, the DM comments section is as good a way as any of finding out where people’s heads are at. Even if you suspect they might be the kind of heads you would cross the road to avoid.

Which is why you could have knocked me over with a feather on Friday. It really has come to something when DM readers are bored by faux lesbian bondage porn stories. I’ve nothing against Kate Moss. I’ve got a little thing about Rhianna but that’s got everything to do with Chris Brown.  Either way, here are two women at top of their respective games. I also appreciate beauty as much as the next person. But I find it achingly unimaginative that between the world’s most famous supermodel, the world’s most famous pop star and one of the finest fashion photographers in the world, a triumvirate of creative power if ever I saw it, they have managed to create yet another tedious fake porn shoot. I don’t know what surprises me more really. That or the fact that Daily Mail comments section managed to sum up my feelings so succinctly.

‘Can't imagine seeing David Gandy and Harry Styles in a similar photo shoot’ wrote one.

Excellent point.

‘Seriously’ writes another. ‘It is all so depressingly predictable now. I think women are going backwards in society rather than forward, sadly of their own free choice in a lot of cases. I'm not so old at 37 but I think the last decade has been dreadful and as someone who does voluntary work with 7 to 10 year old girls I despair at the effect our culture has on them’.

I couldn’t have articulated it better. I too fear for the effect this has on upcoming generations of children, particularly female children. I was watching X Factor a couple of years ago. Chistina Aguilera was the special guest. It was 7pm and she was dressed in a black basque, a suspender belt and stockings. She bent over a chair whilst she sung, breasts dripping out of her underwear as a male performer simulated penetrating her from behind. At that moment, I thanked god that I don’t have children. Because if I did, I’d have try and explain what we were watching.

I have a male friend who once told me that his opinion of women changed forever when he first saw pornography as a young teenager. He probably had to look pretty hard because he’s almost 50 now. It would have been the tattered shreds of a copy of Mayfair dug out of someone’s dustbin that inspired this sea change in his youthful mind. These days it appears you only need to turn on the telly on a Saturday night to get the same effect.

I’m tempted to mock my Mary Whitehouse tendencies but I shouldn’t because this shit matters. There are ways and there are ways of being sexy and as any healthy person knows, if not as a teenager, then hopefully as an adult, sexiness doesn’t need to be overt or obvious. It could involve a suspender belt but it doesn’t depend on it. Sexiness can come from within and in my mind, that includes the knowledge that you don’t have to be a porn-star-style-sex-puppet in order to get the attention or the admiration of the opposite sex. I’m old enough to rationalize this stuff. Sadly Kate Moss, Rhianna and Mario Testino, legions of your young fans are not.

Where do we draw the line? Is it healthy to live in a society that draws lines? Difficult questions to answer but I return to the words of the Daily Mail commenter. ‘I think women are going backwards in society rather than forward, sadly of their own free choice in a lot of cases’. Older women are mostly cogniscent of the fact that we have been sold a really crappy version of equality. Younger women – and children that watch X Factor – are not.

Today’s storyteller looks at similar issues, but through the lens of a man. Young men are led down the same wonky paths as women, just in slightly different ways. Which is why I thank god for the work of Cindy Gallop. You will see why here. What I love about Cindy is that she is prepared to jump into the fray with her ‘opponents’ and meet them with courage, humour and elegance. She puts her heart and soul into it. She really wants people, even the most bigoted ones, to learn and see things from a new perspective.  That she can turn a troll into a friend, and hopefully a happier man says so much. All hail Cindy.

Here, today's man chronicles his own search for some sensible information.

'Dear Kate,

I am 23 and have lived in New Zealand for most of my life.

Let me say first that my knowledge of sex as I matured was developed through the media. I believe that there is a particular message that the media tries to push. While it has become less prevalent in my lifetime as societal attitudes towards sex relax, I think it is still there and rather harmful. The message is, basically, that it is only males that like sex, they think about it far too much and they push the idea onto females, while females dislike sex. Of course I can’t speak for other males of my age, but the effect of this message on me was to convince me that sex is bad and I should ignore my feelings and desires. But of course it is not easy for a pubescent male to ignore his desires, so I had a number of years of furtively looking at men’s interest magazines (or to use that wonderful British term, lad’s mags) and sex-related books while I was in bookshops.

There were a couple of incidents that helped me change my attitude towards sex. The first was while looking at one of these lad’s mags. I looked at the scantily clad model on the front cover and suddenly realised how sad it made me. While not wishing to pass judgment on young women who pose for such magazines, it occurred to me that they were basically paid money so that they could provoke a certain reaction in guys they would never meet. I was sad because that was not about love. It was about lust. There must be something more, I thought.

The second incident happened while I was watching The Chatterley Affair, a fictionalised account of the obscenity trial relating to D H Lawrence’s novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover. This 2006 BBC production starred Louise Delamere and Rafe Spall as fictional jurors whose relationship (particularly the physical aspects) mirrored that of the characters in the novel. Apart from my obvious physical and hormonal reactions to the graphic sex being portrayed on screen, I noticed two important things in the film. One, the female character was enjoying the sex as much as the male character. In fact it was the female that was keen to try new positions. This was a revelation to me, given the ‘message’ that I referred to earlier. Suddenly, I felt a hell of a lot less guilty about my feelings. Two, the two protagonists clearly loved each other, and their sex had a magical quality because of that – more than the physical sensations, it was an expression of their love for each other.

After these incidents I began searching for material that expanded more on the romantic, rather than physical, aspects of sex. I also looked for material that discussed female perceptions of sex, so I could learn about what females thought and liked. The first website I found was My First Time (http://www.myfirsttime.com) which enabled people to post anonymously about their first sexual experience. There is a huge range of material on this site: short stories, long stories, graphic stories, romantic stories. The stories that affected me the most were the ones that discussed two friends who were emotionally close enough to each other to experiment physically, learn about each other’s bodies and eventually fall in love. A great example of this, which readers of your blog may be interested in, is story number 1330, entitled ‘Polly’.

The second website I found was Advanced Masturbation (http://advancedmasturbation.com). What inspired me most about this site was their mission to be completely non-pornographic and educational, to be a repository of information rather than, shall I say, a horniness bank. I have enjoyed reading the stories written by females, because I discovered that they like sexual pleasure just as much as males do.

The third piece of material I found was your book and blog. I am particularly interested in your commentary, and the life stories of the participants, because they lend so much meaning to the tales of virginity loss. Some of the stories are incredibly powerful in their evocation of an experience. I was particularly affected by the story of the young man around my age who has psoriasis, featured quite recently on your blog. He sounds like an individual with a wonderful attitude towards life given what he has gone through.

You have introduced me to some beautiful stories, and have helped me greatly in my journey to see sex for what it really is – a perfectly natural expression of love that can be enjoyed by both sexes. I don’t think it would be right to go into all the details of my personal virginity loss at this time, because the relationship has recently ended. However, I was very lucky in that my virginity loss was similar to that experienced by Polly in the story I mentioned on My First Time – it was about physical experimentation, mutual enjoyment and, most importantly, mutual love.’

Ships passing in the night..

We’re back to boats again. Several posts ago, we heard from 'Stuart', a man who sails great big boats all over the world, the captain of the ship if you like. But as he poignantly points out, he is ‘a boy doing a man’s job’. He believes this because he has never had sex. If only he knew how many emails I get from men and women just like him, perfectly normal people who, for one reason or another have never gotten around to ‘sealing the deal’.

I digress. Today’s storyteller comes from the Channel Islands and met her ‘first’ online. She then travels to France to meet him and is surprised when, meeting and spending time together for the first time, she feels nervous. ‘It was daunting and awkward to me, sleeping in the same bed as him and getting used to being open around someone new and different……I was not ready for the intimacy just yet, it took me by surprise.’ No shit!! It always surprises me – although I don’t know why. I was probably the same at that age – at how hard people are on themselves. How could you, at 21 years old, particularly never having had a close relationship, expect to feel comfortable around someone that you have only ever spoken to on the phone? Albeit most days for 5 months but still…..imagining something and being there are two different things and intimacy can be scary when you’re young. And is it even intimacy we are talking about anyway? A genuine intimacy is something that grows between two people over a period of time. It is symptomatic of the comfort and ease that two people feel together. Sex is something different. Don’t confuse the two. Although when they do happen to collide, it can lead to a life-changingly pleasurable situation.

One step at a time and all that.

‘Hi there Kate,

My name is Nicky, I am 22 and I live on Guernsey which is one of the Channel Islands. I read your article in Glamour magazine yesterday and it got me thinking that I would really love to write down how I lost my virginity. I love to have a record of things to look back on, and I hope my story will be interesting to you!

I met my other half through internet dating last year. I will admit that I have never taken such a risk before as to go to France, across to a different country to meet someone off the internet. Was I, at 21 years old, ready to have a proper adult relationship with someone who I had only talked to for about 5 months before hand? Was I just settling for the first man to ever show me any attention? What will people think of me? I have always had low self esteem issues so just the pure belief that someone could love me for myself was hard to get used to at first, and to me seemed a valid reason to take the plunge and make the first step.

That first boat trip I took over was the most nervous I had ever been about anything in my life. I had butterflies and my heart was going a million miles per hour. I was so scared of what he might think of me and what would I do if it didn’t work out how I hoped? My mum didn't even know that I was going to France. She thought I had gone somewhere on a 'girls' holiday. I had to take the plunge, not only for the possibility of having a long term relationship but for myself. It was something completely out of my comfort zone, but I figured what was life without a little risk? 

I arrived in France to meet him. The man I had been talking to online for 5 months. It was daunting and awkward to me, sleeping in the same bed as him and getting used to being open around someone new and different, I was so used to talking to him that to be around him physically I felt very shy and it took me a few days to just get used to that. The first night we spent together in bed was awkward. I was not ready for the intimacy just yet, it took me by surprise.  We kissed but it was too much too quickly, I could feel him getting excited in bed and it scared me. I was a virgin with hardly any experience, in bed with a man for the first time in my life. Yes at 21 it seems a bit old, but I felt I waited for the right person to give my virginity too which I always viewed as a gift. I used to be religious but I am more indifferent now that I can enjoy my life without feeling guilty for doing things like drinking too much or having sex before marriage that people would ultimately judge me for. Who have I got to prove myself to other than myself? I have learnt so much that life is what I can make of it despite what other people think.

Anyway the week progressed that I spent in France last July. Me and the other half went to the supermarket. Ironically we both were eyeing up condoms in the aisle. We went home and later that evening last year we were getting frisky, and I decided there and then that yes he was the one I wanted to do it with, and yes I knew that we were going to be together for as long as we both lived.

I don't know what made me decide that but I love the fact that my first time was with someone I knew was worth waiting for and that the story of it is amusing to me. So as I said we were getting frisky in bed and I said that I wanted to go all the way with him. He asked me if I had any condoms and I said no, I thought you had some. So as it turned out, at about 10 pm in Catholic France we decided to drive to the nearest town to look for a condom machine. We tried several places with no such luck. Although it seems crazy, I suggested that we drive all the way to St Malo which is a 70 mile round trip….for condoms. We looked at each other and we decided that, yes it was worth it for my first time. So we arrived in St Malo, get out the car and go into the walled city, walking around looking for shops that might sell condoms. I spot a newsagents and I make him go in there. He asks the guy for condoms who takes them out from under the counter as if it's a crime, gives them to him for a euro and winks and says, ‘Have a good time’. My boyfriend comes out of the shop, hands me the packet which I stuff in my jeans pocket, (I still have the box as a memento) and then we go back to his house to, well, do the deed. Which I will admit is not all what its cracked up to be. It hurt and I felt sore afterwards. I didn't orgasm but me and him have found ways around that. We love to do other things to each other which is part of the adaptation of having a relationship. A year on the passion is still there and I am counting down the days until I see him again soon. I am so glad that one risk for love has worked out in favor for me'. 

The X Y Z of love OR, how to find The One...

Although one doesn’t like to give the Daily Mail too much credence, plus the essence of this article  is that Mills and Boons might actually be killing our loves lives….I feel I might have to make the case for the Daily Mail today. On top of that, some of you may know that I’ve been writing a feature about people who have ‘not found love’ for another national newspaper and its raised some interesting questions about the way we approach our love lives in the 21^st century.

We live in unusual times.  Most of us look at the relationships that our grandparents and our parents had and we aspire to the same thing, never really taking into account the fact that our circumstances, our very existence on the planet earth, particularly as women is a different proposition these days. Older generations of women had to get married. What was the alternative? Women didn’t have careers. What were you going to do? Stay at home with your parents for the rest of your life. I think not.

I’m not saying there wasn’t romance; nothing says romance quite like the black and white movies of my mother’s generation. I’m just saying that people were motivated by different reasons to pair up and start families. It was harder to separate too. Until the early 1970s it was nigh on impossible to get divorced. Fast forward 30 odd years and people are still getting married and divorced just as quickly. Why? Because they’ve realized that sticking together is not easy and being ‘in love’ is not always enough. It’s a challenge. At which point I feel I must hold my hands up and say what do I know? I’m not married but I do have eyes – and my own experiences to draw on – and this is what I have observed from my parents marriage, my friends marriages and my own relationships over the years. I remember thinking only too clearly as I broke up with my boyfriend of 5 years in my twenties that love was not enough. Losing him was like cutting off my arm but we didn’t have the nuts and bolts, the dynamic, the guts and gumption, whatever it takes to see us through marriage, babies and a lifetime together and I knew it.

I think that finding real love is as much to do with finding someone who is prepared to put up with the shitty times, as well as the good ones and to be frank, not many of us are. Most of us are seeking an ideal that doesn’t exist. Committing to love is a conscious decision, not some random wand that gets waved by the magic love fairy. Mills and Boons, by peddling notions of ‘romance’ probably haven’t helped the cause. Ergo, on this occasion, I think the Daily Mail might be onto something.

What do you think? Do we have unrealistic ideas about ‘finding love’ – and keeping it - these days? Or is it possible to find ‘The One’ person that is the ‘perfect’ fit for us? More to the point, is finding love and the concept of partnership the be all and end all of everything? Can we live happy and fulfilled lives without it or at least enjoy our single time whilst we have it? Some people think so. I’d love to know what you think, mail me on [email protected]

In the meantime, here is a man with a rather large love shaped dilemma. If you thought it was only women who worried about meeting The One, you would be wrong. Welcome Mr Perfection, a man who wants to save himself – and his virginity - for ‘the right’ woman. I point this out in my book but I’ll say it again. This sort of exchange is fraught with difficulties. How can we know for sure who ‘the right’ person is? Do the parameters of rightness not change as we get older? It’s not a fixed thing. But then this, to me, is symptomatic of a society that is obsessed with the idea of finding perfect love and the sooner we let go of that and find something that just works - and makes us feel good, the better.

‘I took an interest in your website and, assuming I didn't miss it, none of the tales seem even remotely similar to my seriously awkward predicament.

I've always felt strongly due to my philosophy that life is all about sharing experiences with the right person and as a result, I wanted to save my virginity for the person I believed to be 'The One'. Years passed through school and 6th form without even a flicker of interest in anyone. I even thought myself to be asexual.

And then along comes Ms X. For 6 months we dated and we genuinely thought we were the ultimate match. But there was a problem. I'd grown a paranoia that I would mess it up and hurt her. So, scared and confused, I broke it off. I had mixed thoughts of regretting it and wondering about whether I'd made the right decision but in the end, I came to the conclusion that as much as I loved her, she wasn't The One. Because if she was, what would I be worrying about?

Enter Ms Y. Instant best friends with matching characteristics, ideals, pasts and likes. Feels like we've known each other forever. It's now obvious to me that this surely is 'The One' and that there wasn't a chance in hell that I'd find anyone I'd rather spend my life with. Only there's a catch. When I tell her about my feelings, she makes it clear that she doesn't want a relationship with anyone full stop. She felt the two choices boiled down to lover ending in disaster or best friend forever. Of course I chose the latter and decide to simply bide my time and act when I'd gained her full trust. After all I'll have an amazing friend in the meantime.

Re-enter Ms X who tells me I'm still The One to her, and much as I'd like to say the same, I can't. I explain the situation, saying that I didn't want to take her for second best, as that's not fair. She says she just wants to be with me and make me happy, which in fairness I know she would, but with the nagging feeling hanging over my mind that I'd given it away to the wrong person. I'd regret that for sure. Also I can't help but think about the situation where Ms Y becomes available again. That would be messy.

Dilemma: save virginity for The One, who may in fact be unavailable forever, or give someone that truly loves me what she wants. I can't decide whether or not it's worth it to save it anymore.'

Edutainment...

 I am happy to post the following request from the research team at Channel 4’s groundbreaking show, ‘The Sex Education Show’ because they do good work. Check out their website. I particularly like the section entitled ‘What porn doesn’t tell you’. When you take into account the fact that a lot of young people grow up thinking that real women don’t actually have pubic hair, this is useful information. ‘The Sex Education Show’ have asked me to tell you that they are looking for people to tell their ‘first time’ stories for the next series. If you are game, here are the details:
‘Channel 4’s primetime hit TV series, ‘The Sex Education Show’ is returning for an exciting third series.
And we are looking for young people between 16 and 25 for a feature on first love. 
Are you planning to have sex for the very first time?
Are you unsure as to whether or not sex is right for you now?
Maybe you are waiting until marriage?
Or have you had sex and then decided it is not for you?
Straight, gay, bi-sexual or unsure…please get in touch.
 And email, providing your name, age and details of why you might like to get involved: 
[email protected]

Don't be prophetic...

There is a whole bunch of stuff written in the media these days about ‘the law of attraction’. And I don’t necessarily mean the pheromones that attract one potential mate to another, but the experiences that we subconsciously bring into our lives - for better or for worse. We all have a conscious life. And we all have a subconscious life.

The self-help industry has spawned a million books on the subject. The premise is that if we focus fully on the positive, the great and the good with a bucket load of self-belief thrown into the picture, that we can achieve anything that we want. The catch is, that what we believe to be true, we often bring to fruition - whether it be our most fantastical fantasies or our own worst nightmares. Films have been made about this. One could attend any number of seminars on the matter and I, for one, concur. I think it’s also called a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Which all sprung to mind as I read today’s story’s. Asides from my obvious chagrin at the lack of punctuation - we will say no more on the matter – what strikes me about this story is how its owner manages to twist and turn the events listed below in her mind so that they end up becoming her actual reality. Her limited expectations for herself have tripped her up. She doesn’t believe that she can lose her virginity to a man who will tell her that he loves her – so she makes sure that she leaves him before he has a chance to say it.

It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is not a criticism by the way. We have all done it. Heck, I only recognize the tendency because I've seen it in myself.

 The difference at least for this young woman is that she is twenty years old but she recognizes this aspect of herself. In this respect she is five steps ahead of the game. Know thine enemy and all that. We frequently are our own worst enemies but having the foresight to acknowledge this is the first, and probably the most powerful step in the journey.

Aurelie. Aged 20

dear kate

i came across your blog about a year exactly when i was contemplating losing my virginity, but it became all the more relevant on april 13 last year when i actually had sex for the first time. mine is the usual story, one which im sure happens to many. what i would like to share however, was my thoughts on the experience, before, after and now. what i never expected was the length of time it would take for me to understand exactly what it meant to lose my virginity- i guess I never truly will know.

unlike my mother and grandmother before me, i did not lose my virginity to the man i was married to. And not to a boyfriend. but to a boy i had seen for 2 months. it was a purely sexual relationship. he was a decent guy, but our time together revolved around the amazingly magnetic spark that existed between us.

i had sex with him because i was naked in his bed, a little drunk, and he was the sexiest guy i had ever seen.  i thought i was in control of my sexual destiny, that making the decision to relinquish my virginity to this guy was somehow empowering. the sex was amazing but whilst i lay there in his dark room, with his body pulsating, i suddenly knew i would never be there again. i would never be in his room again, i would never kiss him again.

straight after i banished that thought. but true to form it happened as i had imagined. i felt so confused the next week, trying to make sense of it. it was as though some part of me was missing, that i had crossed over a bridge i could never get back from - yet i was aware that it was all a construction of the mind intermingling with my value system.

i had not devalued myself in making my decision but society’s expectations of how you should lose your virginity began to resonate.  i knew i didn't regret it, but i began to wonder if there was something wrong with me in sleeping with a guy who didn’t love me.

sure enough, i broke things off with nick, telling him i liked him and i couldn't just see him casually anymore.  he replied  as i knew he would, stating he didn’t want a girlfriend. at this point i walked away and haven’t spoken to him since, despite him attempting to get in contact with me many times. in this way, i followed my self destructive narrative- i lost my virginity to someone who wasn't my boyfriend, thus i was punished in it not resulting in a relationship and subsequently felt worthless for a long time.

it was only the other day that i realised i had punished myself for not having a fairytale version of this sacred event. it was clear that we both liked each other, but in my misinterpretation of what virginity loss meant, i acted rashly when he didn’t say the words i wanted to hear and I never gave him a  chance.  

i have an idea you can only truly own your sexuality after  losing your virginity. Losing it is like venturing into un-chartered territories where you are not quite sure what you will find. when you do arrive, it might not be what you expect, and so you instinctively use old and ingrained ideas to try and explain this new concept in a way your brain will understand. gradually, when you come to realise that virginity is an individual thing and sex is undoubtedly different to anything you've encountered before, you can create a new set of ideas about it. so i've finally been able to forgive myself for the decison i made to lose my virginity and thus let go of all expectations i never really knew i held. (aurelie, 20, Australia)

 

Honor thyself...

 

Today's account is a rather emblematic tale of conflict in a modern society. It is the story of a young woman who is torn between the sharp confines of her beliefs and her religion and the very real yearnings of her heart. We all want love, intimacy and union with that special somebody. Life is tough enough. We seek shelter and hope in our relationships. We seek a place to stop and express ourselves…which frequently, let's face it, involves sex. 

Because sex is a way of demonstrating how we feel, of reviving and of pleasuring ourselves. All pretty essential components of a healthy, happy life. Make no mistake then, that deciding to remain a virgin until the day you get married is a tall order in today's society. Throw religious confusion and a sense of duty into that pile and you've got yourself a real dilemma.

And I'm not trying to be flip when I say that today's story revealed a conflict of my very own. I set about 'correcting' this story with all the zeal of a person who believes that every single sentence ever written in the English language should begin with a capital letter. I mopped up those 'i's and corrected those 'the's' in a fit of grammatical self righteousness that left me exhausted, so tired was I from scooping up all those dropped capitals. I just cannot get with this trend to un-capitalize the crap out of everything. Until I had a little revelation of my own.

This story, in the rush to make it sound 'better', had gone and lost its power, its resonance and its poignancy. Instead of sounding like the voice of the person who had written it, it had begun to sound like me. 'Corrected' it may be, but homogenised it had become. The ticks and the nuances that add the flavour, the style and the feeling of the story had all gone. Times change, language changes and ultimately, the way that people communicate with each other has changed, and so, dear reader, I decided to get over myself and un-correct the so called corrected.

Ok, so I left in the full stops. Let me have some full stops. I like my full stops. But everything else remains the same. And it feels better. More importantly, it sounds like the human being that wrote it. I can hear her voice more clearly and that’s the most important thing.

Perhaps, in the spirit of modern communication, you might have something that you want to say to Honor? Can you offer her a solution, or some comfort for her dilemma? As a modern woman in the 21st century, I found it very hard to put my own feelings aside when I replied to her email. But then I am not religious so what do I know. I only have me to answer to, and that’s hard enough as it is. Imagine having to answer to god as well.

honor

from london UK

'virginity' is a very sensitive issue to me. i am twenty two and still a virgin. the reasons for this involve both religious and personal reasons. how i have kept it for so long in this time and age still shocks me but i have. the journey has no way been easy for me. i have been through so many boyfriends as well as heartache, because of my unwillingness to have sex. i do get involved in other sexual activities but just not penetrative sex. i have had so many moments where i have doubted myself and felt that it was fear holding me back, i have been brought to tears on this issue on several occasions (including this very moment).

i decided to keep my virginity because of my faith (religion). it does not encourage sex outside of or before marriage. other reasons for this is that i don't want to start having sex with one guy then break up with him and end up having sex for the wrong reasons like anger, just in the moment kinda thing or a drunken moment.  i have alwayz thought of my virginity as a gift, one i intend to give my future husband. my ex`s have all said to me i am in lala land if i think i would find someone who will wait and called me naive and scared. but i am 110% sure that i do not have fear of the sexual act. if i have any fear then its fear of having regrettable moments involving sex.

needless to say, the teary moments are what gets me. i have met guyz i have thought to be perfect for me but i fear the relationship ( if any) would be based on sex. i met a guy who for the first time since i started dating, gave me all the fairytale moments. he was my friend and more. and like a friend he was honest to me and told me he wouldn't be able to be with me without sex, he said he loved it too much. this caused so much confusion for me because i really liked him - all of him and he wasn't even my type which made my attraction to him stronger. he said i was perfect for him but he didn't know if he could wait and not cheat on me.

of course everyone told me that it was all bull but i was so into him that i didn't care and stuck with him, tellin him how much i adored him everyday. On valentine`s day this year i wrote him a poem. i could tell it touched something in him because he was more attentive to my feelings and all the sweet talk we used to do initially came back only much stronger. but i had to know he wanted to be with me so i kept my distance and gave him space to show he wants to be with me. i stopped callin him and eventually he called me after 2 weeks saying he has been trying to call me but i didn't get any missed calls, till today a couple months after and he hasn't contacted me and vice versa.

i miss him so much but i cant force him to be celibate because of me. till today i get moments where i just want to sit down on m my bed and cry my eyes out thinking if im making a mistake keeping my virginity. right now i want to call him but i fear that time has created to long a bridge for me to cross and i have already lost him as a friend and more.

i am tired of doing this over and over again but there is nothing i can do. my reasons for keepin my virginity still stand but my heart weakens every time i turn a guy down and its like every time that happens, he takes a piece of me and i am completely lost. my greatest fear is that pressure from today's society and my sexual urge for release will lead me to lose my virginity for a reason much worse that if i had choosen to have sex with one of my ex`s.

oh and i'm catholic by the way, very strict religion, especially on the issue of sex but apart from that my mum ( bless her soul) takes pride in knowing i'm a virgin, my younger sister isn't and told my mum and i could tell my mum was heartbroken about it and yes i know its my life and not hers but she wouldn't want the wrong thing for me and i take pride in the fact that i could keep myself this long. the idea of giving my hubby this precious gift of mine is still strong and possibly the strongest reason i have but i fear that i might lack experience to keep him home when the time comes.

actually i have two thoughts about my 'wedding night', i either want to shock the socks of him by giving him the greatest sex he ever had or giving him the gift idea. 'sigh', like i said, im in two minds about this.'

 

'Just for the first time dear...'

Well now, just when I thought I might have run out of things to say about virginity loss and move onto pastures new (hair loss? sanity loss?), someone comes along and presents us with a new conundrum. What would you say to a healthy young woman who appears to have a similarly healthy interest in sex – but can’t, for some inexplicable reason, do it?

We have met all sorts of virgins on these pages. Shy virgins, religious virgins, people with all sorts of issues who, generally speaking, are not entirely comfortable with their virginal status. But they are all able to at least articulate a reason as to why this might be. They can usually point their finger at some area of their life and tell you what they think might be the problem. But not today’s storyteller. And at first, neither could I.  I was baffled. Everything seemed to be in full working order: sociable, healthy, sexually interested, what could be getting in her way?

Upon further investigation, it would seem to be….herself and another vital organ that we discussed last week: our minds. If we, as we did then, work on the assumption that for most people, the brain can actually be considered to be the most vital sexual organ of them all, then you can see why things might go horribly wrong when its not working properly.

Which leads me to my diagnosis. Vaginismus. An ominous sounding word for a straightforward problem. Vaginismus is a reflex that causes the muscles in the vagina to tense suddenly therefore making penetration difficult or impossible. A cursory look at the Wikipedia entry for this condition confirms the following: ‘A vaginismic woman does not consciously control the spasm. The vaginismic reflex can be compared to the response of the eye shutting when an object comes towards it.’

How annoying. And when you think about it, it doesn’t seem like such a crazy response. Having something inside your body for the first time is a tricky thing, Vaginimisis or not. That’s one of the reasons that I loved ‘Peg’ so much, the story I published a couple of weeks ago about a man being penetrated by his wife with a dildo. It was interesting to see how a man responds to a situation that a woman deals with all the time. And much as I came down on the side of men last week when we raised the thorny subject of whether it is harder for men or women to lose their virginity, you should never underestimate the impact of allowing another human being into your body, literally for the first time. That requires trust, patience and respect. And not just for the first time, but for lots of times after that too.

So perhaps it is not such a surprise to learn then that some people’s psyche’s may just respond with the following: ‘Do you know what? I’m just not that into this.’

And there’s your problem. But problems are there to be solved and there is no doubt in my mind that this one is ripe for the solving. A decent therapist, a bunch of patience and a bit of self-exploration  - on every level – and I reckon this story could have a happy ending. Cindy, I look forward to hearing it.

Cindy. Aged 21

'Well, so here I go... sending an email to a total stranger whose blog I just stumbled across is not something I ever thought I would do, but it seems quite fitting. Serendipitous even. I love your blog, because it almost gives me hope. Thank you.

If I am being completely honest, I came across The Virginity Project after typing in ‘can't find hole, positions for losing virginity.’ Because of this, one can assume that this is not a story of losing my virginity, but rather, trying in vain.

I'm a twenty-one year old college senior about to embark on the rest of my life and I feel hopelessly resigned to a life of celibacy. Most days, I feel like the protagonist in Nathaniel Hawthorne's ‘The Scarlet Letter’, except it’s a big red V card pinned to my jacket.

I know the story. I know all of it, because I'm also someone who cannot keep my mouth shut. I think my entire university community must know my status - because its most likely I told them. Whether it be over a cold beer at the bar or Calzone in the dining hall, I have admitted my guilt on numerous occasions as if someone (anyone!) could give me some answers, some guidance.

I know about ‘waiting for the right guy.’ I know about the plethora of procedures (how clinical that sounds...) one can go through to make things easier; to loosen things up. I know that I've tried with more than four guys in the last five years... armed with my ever expanding condom and lube collection, we try different ways at different times in different settings with different ambience and a different soundtrack, and I still feel SOL.

I lost my stage theatre virginity this past month by acting for the first time in Eve Ensler's ‘The Vagina Monologues’. That has to count for something?

Or maybe, its one more way of showing how obsessed how I am with my own anatomy. So obsessed because I can't for the life of me figure out how it works! And here I sit, resorting to a Google search engine to assuage my fears.

When I mention guilt, it’s not that Catholic schoolgirl sort of thing. If anything, it’s the opposite. It’s the guilt of knowing that I can't get over the mental hurdle which has increased exponentially in height.

I'm not shy and I'm definitely not a prude. I love to be naked on Saturday mornings and cook pancakes in my underwear. I like to dance to horrendous hip-hop by myself and I like to drop it like its hot and I like to watch porn. I am not a Christian and I am not from a conservative family.

I've never met a virgin like me. People are usually shocked and I always have to warn guys before things get too far along that I don't put out. I freak out so much anyway that they usually don't want to stick around - and they definitely don't want to stick anything in. I must have penetration phobia or something.

Lately, I have one of those terribly annoying ‘friends with benefits’ who is also terribly satisfying. I like to call him over sometimes when a paper just gets too much to handle or when I haven't talked to him in a week and I feel things slipping away. It’s ok that he's a rock climber - you know the type, crunchy-granola guys with unruly beards and a great body who is forever inaccessible but likes to rage at parties all weekend and make you laugh at three am? He forgets to call a lot, even though he is best friends with my roommates. I always go for the guys with the glimmer of hope.

I'm too emotionally intelligent for him anyway. Remember, I know the story. I know the myth that the first guy you have sex with is NOT the first guy you fall in love with. I've already fallen in love with that first guy. I want the first guy I have sex with, obviously.

We try a lot, but I am scared. He makes up in patience what he lacks in proximity. My legs clench up. I'm like a brick wall and he's trying to pile drive into me but there must be steel reinforcements between the brick and the drywall. Or something. Sorry for the terrible details masked in even cheesier metaphors.

It almost always ends in my tears of frustration and his cold shower. It’s been five months of this and it’s starting to get old. I'm starting to get old.

I'm starting a heated power yoga class this week to try to shake things up a bit. Trying to get the walls to crumble. I went and visited a gynaecologist for advice. She told me to purchase a vibrator and the trusty old classic ‘How To Be Your Own Sex Therapist.’ Best doctor's orders ever? Perhaps, although the 70s era pictures in the volume she suggested leave something to be desired. I just need to get down with myself, she said. My therapist prescribed me an anti-anxiety pill ‘just for the first time, dear.’

I'd rather call over my trusty old not-boyfriend and get down to business without some sort of pharmaceutical contract, thanks.

I'm too much of a screamer to be silenced for so long.

Cindy

United States'