The Virginity Project

I was tidying up the hard drive on my laptop the other day, as one is wont to do at this time of year, when I came across a document I had completely forgotten about. I had titled it ‘the virgin diaries’ and it is a diary that begins right after I first had the idea for my book. Back when this blog wasn’t even a twinkle in my eye.

For some reason, and as you will see, I had got it into my head that I couldn’t tell a single living soul about my book writing plans at work. Because otherwise they would sack me. They wouldn’t, but try telling me that at the time. I was quite possessed by my idea and nothing, but nothing was going to stand in my way. Ironic really that just as I had the idea for my book, my bosses asked me to manage the office move. For anyone who’s ever moved an office full of people from one location in London to another, you will be feeling my pain right now. Somehow though, in between juggling floor plans, handymen and contracts, I managed to source my first interviewees, experience all sorts of self-doubt and drive to Cornwall to interview the brilliant 93-year-old Edna. 

I’d also forgotten what a major challenge it was to step out of my comfort zone and do my own thing for the first time. It’s a brilliant reminder, at a prescient time of the year, that the best things we do are often the biggest leaps of faith. I had never written a book before. I had no idea what I was doing but I felt compelled to try all the same.

The story starts a few weeks after I have first had ‘the big idea’.

30 Sept 2005

My bosses are making noises about moving offices. If we do, I will be project managing the move. You have to laugh.  I am 37 years old and I have just discovered what it is that I want to do with my life and my bosses want me to put it on hold and move office.  Of course that is pure conjecture, they know nothing of my plans to write a book and my job is my job and must be done.  I just don’t want to hold back at this stage. I am on the cusp of committing myself to something in a way I never have done before. I know that deep down; nothing will stop me if I really want to do it.

17 Jan 2006

Crikey, I have got such a bee in my bonnet. Having had to stop work on the book for 6 weeks while I project managed the office move, and now starting up again…I’ve got a fire in me and it’s burning me up!

During the move I found time to sew little seeds here and there. Phone calls, emails, the odd dinner with someone I thought would make a good ‘connector’*, so that when I had finished with the move to St John Street, I would have laid some solid ground work for the next phase. And I have. But people saying they want to take part and actually doing it are two different things. It’s not like I’m asking them to discuss their favourite foods, I’m asking them to share some of the most intimate memories of their lives. So I have to go at their pace. I am an Aries and this pace doesn’t suit me.

I get an overwhelming feeling sometimes – there is so much to do – that I don’t know which way to turn first.  What about all the Muslims I need to talk to, the Jewish people, Buddhists and Sikhs.  There are 1.8 million Muslims living in Great Britain today and I need to speak to at least ten of them.  I find myself standing in the queue at the post office in Farringdon, looking at the girls behind the counters in their headscarves and seriously considering slipping a synopsis of my book along with my cash and asking them to please call me when they have read it.  Would they think I was weird?

*I began sourcing my interviewees via friend’s networks and some of them were incredibly adept (not to mention helpful) at fixing me up with interesting people to talk to. I came to think of these people as ‘connectors’.

24 Jan 2006

Bonus! Just got a call from Nancy’s 19-year-old-babysitter.  She wants to be interviewed for my book and what’s more, so does her boyfriend.  She also has two other friends she can bring along as well.  I have to hold her at arms length for a moment here.  Two is enough I tell her, if there’s four of you it will take too long so come with your boyfriend and lets see how it goes.  I’m really pleased. But nervous.  More so than with the older interviewees and I don’t know why. Young people have been really hard to pin down.

27 Jan 2006

I hit the read symbol on my phone to read the text that has just popped up. It is from Nancy’s sitter. ‘Sorry Kate, I can’t do it, I just don’t feel comfortable with it, sorry to let you down’.  Bummer. Well at least she let me know.

1 Feb 2006

I went out for an ‘appraisal’ lunch with one of my bosses today. It’s just a catch up and we go to the Souvlaki bar in St John Street.  I love it. The smell of chargrilled meat that hits you as you walk in is completely fabulous.

We chatted about work for a bit. On the back of the successful office move they have offered me a new role. And then he catches me off guard with something that he has asked before.  ‘But what is it that you really want to do Kate?’

‘Well I think this new role will be great, a new direction within the company is just what I need’

‘No, what is it that you really, really want to do with your life Kate?’

I am dumbstruck by his perceptiveness and I struggle, not for the first time - but now for a different reason - for a reply.  I begin to wonder if he knows what I am doing outside of work.  I end up fumbling around for some half assed answer about always working within creative industries, getting frustrated and wanting to do something creative myself.

‘Well’, he says, ‘you better hurry up and do it, because you’ll be thirty, (I don’t remind him at this point that I am about to hit 38), you’ll be forty, you’ll be fifty even, and your life will be over’.

Again, I cannot think what to say. It almost kills me not to tell him, that I am working on something, that its taking up pretty much all of my brain space, that I think about little else, that I am, in fact, possessed.

But I can’t.  In that moment my mind winds forward and I wonder if I would be compromising my position further down the line even though – spookily - he assures me that if I were working on something outside of work, he wouldn’t mind, as long as I wasn’t coming to work and ‘falling asleep on my desk’.

Again, I wonder does he know? It wouldn’t be impossible for him to find out.  And I think, it’s a shame, because I know he would love the idea and I want to tell him.

7 Feb 2006

I am having one of those days.  I’ve been off sick from work and I just can’t muster up any enthusiasm about anything. It’s tricky riding the highs and lows sometimes when you’re doing your own thing for the first time.  If I don’t do something of a day to push this project along then nothing happens. It’s as simple as that.  A lot of times that is quite an exhilarating feeling and others, like today, I feel like a heavy leaden weight is in my brain…37 years of total inertia and all of a sudden I have woken up, had the guts to strike out on my own and not give a monkeys what anyone else thinks about it. It’s a big deal for me. 

On the up side, I spoke to a lovely lady called Sherrie.  She is 50; she loves the project and wants to get involved.  I also spoke to 93-year-old Edna, who I am going to Cornwall to interview on Friday. It was a good chat and I feel more confident about it now.

One of the things that I allowed to do my head in most of today is the frightening thought that I can’t write for peanuts.  I want to express myself better but sometimes it just won’t come out. I find myself writing in a way that I think makes me sound more intelligent instead of just letting it flow out more naturally. I spend so much time with my nose in a dictionary these days, hoping that some of the words rub off on me. It’s certainly not for lack of interest.

So, time to lock my inner Hitler away for the night, and hopefully for a bit longer than that.  That was spooky. When I typed Hitler in lower case, my Mac automatically changes him to a capital H Hitler. Crikey, even my Mac knows who Hitler is.

8 Feb 2006

My mum calls me to say that 93-year-old Edna rang her this morning and made murmurings about cancelling our trip and therefore, the interview.  I think she is worried that she is going to have to entertain us.  I am torn between that explanation and the thought that maybe she just has cold feet about opening her heart about her past.  She’s ninety-three years old for chrissakes, it’s amazing that she even agreed to it in the first place.  I tell myself that neither my mother nor myself have really communicated our plans clearly to her and that when she knows she only has to hang out with us for an hour or two each day she’ll feel better about it. The most crucial part of the whole weekend for me is the 30 minutes that she will talk into my Dictaphone about days gone by.  It’s a cornerstone of my project, a bookend, a vital component and I desperately want it.

Its tricky being an impatient type like myself. On the one hand its good because I do everything super fast, on the other its bad because I get cross when things don’t go my way.  It’s all very black and white for me.  I am learning as I get older to try and see the grey as well, or the rainbow shades as my boyfriend would prefer me to say.  To this end I am starting a six-week meditation course after my ski trip.  I am hoping to learn to ride the waves in a calmer manner.

I’m on tenterhooks about the ski trip, tenterhooks of happiness that is. Even though its one of the more strenuous sports you can partake in, I find it relaxing for the simple reason that it gives me a break from myself.  I don’t have time to think about the next 15 paces when I ski. I can but concentrate on the path immediately ahead of me and nothing else.

12 Feb 2006

Home and dry.  I clocked up a solid 8 hours behind the wheel of my Renault 5 today but it’s been worth every butt aching moment.  Edna gave a fabulous interview. She was by far the most succinct interviewee so far.  Not only that but she has an edgy sense of humour and is as sharp as a tack.  With most people I am mentally editing out the parts of the interview that I won’t need but with Edna I found myself thinking ‘how on earth am I going to edit this woman down, its ALL interesting’. 

Edna was married to Henry for sixty years.  That’s almost unfathomable to me.  Though I hardly remember him, I know that he was terrifically popular, kind and handsome. Everybody loved him. He was a bomber pilot in the Second World War. As he left for his nightly trips across the channel into Germany, Edna would count the planes out and then count them back in before the sun rose each morning.  It must have been hideously stressful for her.  He also suffered with nervous related illness for years after the war because, as Edna said, he was a sensitive man and he would return from his nightly trips across the channel into Germany, troubled by the thought that he may be responsible for the lives of women and children, albeit the enemy’s women and children but lives all the same.

*Edna was indeed a cornerstone of my project. Although I did interview an older lady of 101, it was Edna’s story that made the cut. Six years later, as The Virginity Project became a play, I watched Edna’s words come alive again and everybody loved listening to her.

24 Feb 2006

In between bouts of interviewing and my day job, I left for a ski trip in Italy and it appears, a momentary meltdown. I included this excerpt because, as I point out below, skiing is a brilliant metaphor for life. You do it the best when you lean away from the protection of the mountain. When it goes well, it is risk taking at its most elegant.

Skiing, it seems, is a lot like life. It bloody well has its ups and downs. The weather was vile today. The wind howled like a dog and snow swirled in great swathes around our feet as we attempted to attach our skis to our boots whilst remaining upright at the same time.

The snow, however, was perfect. Perfect enough for us to make our second attempt at a black run. Sure, I was apprehensive but our first foray into black run territory two days previous had been triumphant so I was brimming with confidence. Off we went, curling our way down into the unknown.

It is not necessary to look downwards on a steep slope. In fact to do so is stupid. To this end, I concentrated on moving across the slope and repeated the straightforward corner-turning instructions drummed into my head for the past four days. ‘This is OK’, I thought as we negotiated our way around the upper reaches of black run number 6.  ‘I may not be doing this with style and panache but I am doing it’. Down we went. Soft powdery snow, giving my skis something to carve into, something to hold me onto the side of the mountain. 

All of a sudden the snow texture changed.  My ski’s started making a different noise and I realised I was skiing on ice. On a black run. There was now nothing to grip me to what looked like a vertical drop beneath my skis.  I couldn’t remember anything that I had ever been taught about skiing. It was all gone.  My mind was a blank page and as I looked down, I realised that I was now sitting down on the slope, arms, skis and legs bent into an angular mess and pretty much as helpless as a new born calf. I struggled to my feet and dropped straight back down again. My mind made me do it. As I looked across to the edge of the slope, I could not contemplate, even for one second, attempting to stand up, moving to turn a corner, my skis facing downhill, closing the turn and surviving.  It did not seem possible. 

Michele, improbably, had moved from half way down the mountain to my side in a millisecond. ‘Kate, Kate, what is problem? You are good skier. Why? Why? You are not my problem. Henrietta’, he said, pointing rather uncharitably at my ski partner, ‘is my problem. Don’t worry. Michele is here. I will help you’.

I think he could see from my expression that I didn’t believe him so he took my arms and started speaking. To. Me. In. Single. Words.  ‘Flatten. Your. Skis. And. Slide. Down. With. Me’, he said.  Deep down in the dark recesses of my mind I could hear the words and slowly begin to action them. I did exactly as I was told and we slipped slowly down the mountain, the harsh scratch of our skis against the rigid icyness.

Suddenly we met the soft fluffy snow again and he sensibly pushed me upwards and commanded me to continue my journey down.  I hung onto every word he said.  Up, up, shoulder, shoulder, shoulder and back down, prepare, prepare, prepare and turn, shoulder down, hold it, hold it and BEND YOUR KNEES!!  My composure, like the colour in my face, slowly returned to life. The mountain began to look like a mountain again and not the torture chamber it had appeared to be just moments previously and I wondered to myself, what on earth happened there? Where did I go? Oh, here I am.

2 March 2006

One of those nuts days that you can’t believe will ever work out but somehow it does. I was working on our new press books all day, cutting, pasting, arranging, re-arranging, trying to make some visual sense of all the agency press. My boss is taking them to New York on Monday for an important meeting and she’s super stressed about it. Luckily she was out all day so I was left to my own devices, leaving me free to get away at 6pm sharp to get to an interviewee at 7.30 on the other side of London.

At 5.15pm my boss called me. ‘I’ll be back in the office in 15 minutes’. My heart sank. I know what this means.  By the time she has got here and got round to looking at the books it will be gone 6.  True to form, she arrived in a flurry, took a long phone call and then sat down for a catch up with someone. The clock ticked by and I was caught in a terrible dilemma.  If there is one thing I can’t bear, it’s the look on my bosses face when its after 6pm, she wants me to help her with something and I have someplace else to be, like, er, my life.  As predicted, when I told her I needed to leave at 6pm sharp she asked what I had to get to.

In my boss’s mind, it’s a simple request for information. I know she just wants to understand if it is something important.  But my ears hear ‘Kate, I am seriously questioning your commitment to this role, perhaps its time to start looking for a new job’.

Anyway I managed to leg it by 6.20 and made it to Teddington against all odds AND via a route I had never taken before, by 7.30 on the dot.

In a sea of ordinary looking houses, Sherrie’s stood out a mile. Hanging by the front door was a huge fluorescent heart.  I knocked and waited. I was way too tired to be even slightly nervous. Funny how some houses just seem to suck you in. As I stepped in and looked around I saw that Sherrie had created a labyrinth of a home that involved a lot of bare brick, candles, fairy lights, pets, books, music, food, television, all the things I like the most. I must have looked hungry because I was seated at a table eating an enormous bowl of pasta within two minutes of arriving.

Down to business and Sherrie told me a great story.  Like most stories worth telling, it had some fabulous highs and some wretched lows.  Once the tape stopped rolling, we continued talking as I knew we would. Frankly, if she had run me a bath and tucked me up in bed I would have gone along with it. She talked a lot of her and her husbands myriad ‘adopted son’s and daughter’s’*and I could see how they had amassed such a collection of interesting young people. She really loves the company of young people and because of her background, she is painfully aware of how tender and vulnerable young people are, more so, she thinks, today than at any other time in recent history.

*I joined Sherrie’s collection of adoptees that day and we’ve been friends ever since. I did however, test this friendship when I asked her to the stage version of my book and forgot to re-iterate to her that her story was actually in it. There is nothing quite like going to the theatre and seeing your own virginity loss story told as a monologue on stage. Good thing I always change names. Sorry Sherrie and thank you, once again, to all my wonderful, creative and generous interviewees and blog contributors - and of course my ex bosses. In the book or not, this project would not exist without you.

Warning! Seasonal soppiness alert: The Virginity Project is going to post something warm and mushy. It is Christmas after all. And Christmas is a funny time of year. It’s a bit like L.A. It’s a wonderful town if you’ve got something good going on in your life but it’s a potential sprawling pool of loneliness if you don’t. The Virginity Project is having a high old time of it at the moment but for those who aren’t, take heart, nice things do happen, and often when you least expect them.

A while back, I pondered on the idea of ‘love’ and what that meant for people. I was researching a feature I was writing for a broadsheet and I wanted to know how people felt about the finding – or not – of love. I particularly wanted to know what teenagers felt about that. Do they need to find love? For themselves? To keep up appearances? Do we have to have romantic love in order to survive? Does the media give us unrealistic expectations for our love lives? Well, I can’t answer that last question today but seventeen-year-old 'Maddie' had something to say about the rest of it.

"Hi Kate,

I’m a 17 year old female, born in 1993, and my name, for the purpose of this piece, will be Maddie. Now, instantly as you discover that I’m 17, you’ll most likely be questioning the content of this e-mail, as when someone below the age of 22 speaks about love, their thoughts are disregarded as they ‘Don’t even know what love is’ - and that’s a very true statement. I have no clue what love is (well...romantic love at least). However love, not just romantic love, but material, physical, friendship and family, fascinates me. I think it’s perhaps for the exact reason that I don’t know what it is, that it fascinates me so greatly, after all, humans do have a great fascination of the unknown. But despite my age, bare with me, hopefully my two cents is worth something.

So basically, I’m 17, and have never had a boyfriend. Now although I’m reassured that this isn’t that unusual, and that I’ll find a boy some day, it makes me panic. The thing is, it’s all well and good for these people (all people who have had a vast history of romance) to be telling me that I’ll find a boy, but they’re missing one more vital piece of information....not only have I never had a boyfriend, I have also never been kissed.

You will most likely now be imagining some girl who is quite possibly socially retarded, and is physically not in the least bit appealing to the eyes, so I will now attempt to change your premonitions of what I look like, and how I behave in social circumstances. And even if you don’t think that I’m some weirdo, I’m going to tell you anyway, in an attempt to boost my slowly sinking self esteem.

I have a number of close male friends, have a high leadership position within my school, play sport, musical instruments and do alright in school. I get invited to parties on a frequent basis, and I’m fairly certain I’m normal looking (and slightly above normal looking when I put on make-up). So the fact that a boy has never even looked at me in a romantic way kills me slowly (that’s a semi lie. I’ve been asked out twice, once by a friend who I just didn’t see in that way, and a second time by my best male friend, who then proceeded to retract the offer because ‘the sex would be weird’.)

I feel like there must be something wrong with me. Everyone says ‘Oh I’m so jealous. It would be so great to be single again’. But is it? When you’re in a relationship you always have the option, so if being single is so fantastic, why don’t you too be alone? I have never told anyone about my frustration at my apparent ‘forever alone’ status. I guess it’s because I’m not often serious about such matters, and consequently it would be awkward for me to speak openly about such sadness. I know I’m only 17, and I’ve got plenty of time to find some boy who finds me lovely and wants to hang out with me, but I feel like I’ve been waiting for so long. Some of my friends have had so many romantic and/or sexual partners, and I can’t help but think... ‘Isn’t it my turn to be loved?’

Anyway, I know this basically turned into a therapy-make-myself-feel-better-about-being-forever-alone e-mail, but hopefully you enjoyed reading about how in a world so full of perceived mistrust and hate (so dramatic, I know), that love is, in my eyes at least, the most important thing.

Feel free to e-mail me back, or not, it's up to you. I've got plenty more stories on how I've been in love with the same guy for 2 years and he hasn't even noticed. It's great. Thanks, ‘Maddie’

I know what you’re thinking. What’s mushy about that? Well I’ll tell you. One of the (many) nice things about being the owner of The Virginity Project is that from time to time, people write and update me on their stories. So that what may have started out as a very sad tale can often take an unexpected turn for the better.

Earlier this month, Maddie emailed me out of the blue:

‘Hi Kate, I sent you an e-mail a few months ago and promised to update you if anything occurred within my love life, so, I suppose this is the update. Around 3 weeks ago, I received the text message I thought I'd never see - the guy who I've liked since I was 15 asked me out, and things have been going wonderfully ever since then.

I guess there's nothing more to add to that update except to say that I suppose miracles can happen! Also, I have to congratulate you on the success of the play! Keep up the good work! :)

Thanks, ‘Maddie’

And if that doesn’t warm the cockles of your heart, try The Muppets. This is foolproof.

The Virginity Project wishes you very happy and peaceful holidays X

Being a topical blog, I probably should be flagging up the fact that Glee has just dealt with ‘the first time’ scenario but number one, I haven’t seen it yet and number two, my US counterpart Therese at ‘How to Lose Your Virginity’ will do a much better job of ‘appraising’ it than I…which she does, right here. I’d like to like Glee but frankly, I still haven’t got over the demise of Buffy.

I should probably also flag up the fact that on last night’s ‘Made in Chelsea’, Ollie Locke and his agent came up with the ground breaking idea to interview as many people as possible about the loss of virginity and turn it into a book. I am truly ahead of the zeitgeist. I guess I’ll let them find out in their own time that that ship has sailed!

Meantime, today’s story took me straight back to my own. A radio interviewer once commented that my story – which he read in my book - seemed a bit cold and business like. That it was a job to be done, a box to be ticked. Because it’s true, at 15 years old I was hideously aware (that’s a bit sad isn’t it), of the fact that most of my close friends had lost their virginity….and I hadn’t. Not that anyone else cared about this detail, but I did. So the interviewer wasn’t completely wrong. I was on a mission that needed to be accomplished and the cute French boy I met on a Spanish holiday was the man for the job.

On the last night of his trip, we snuck up into the hills and did the deed. It was just about as far away from how I had imagined the experience to be than you could possibly comprehend. It was bound to be great because he was so good looking. Right? Wrong. It was what it was. Two young teenagers fiddling around with very little knowledge of how it’s supposed to ‘work’. Ouch. We’d known each other for less than two weeks too which doesn’t really help. But the prescient part of the story, the bit that I really remember is the ‘girl’ part of the story. Despite the fact that I hadn’t felt connected to my experience, I did feel connected to him. And walking away a few hours later, not knowing whether or not I would see him again felt weird.

There is something in the make up of a woman that makes this so. It’s an ancient thing. It’s a cosmic trick if you like and if it were any different, the human race would not survive. It really is as simple as that. We need to feel an attachment to our mates so that we stick together. More so when we are young and fertile than at almost any other time of our lives because sex has the potential to produce life and if life is produced you can be damn sure that you won’t want to be alone.

So wondering, as today’s female story-teller does (despite the fact that she first thought her lover an ‘arrogant knob head’), ‘if it doesn’t mean something more to both of us’ is the most natural feeling in the world. I felt it when it happened to me, today’s story teller feels it and if my radio interviewer had been a woman, she would have felt it too. Its part and parcel of being female and we are built this way because we need to be, whether we like it or not. On some levels, it’s slightly irritating. I mean, wouldn’t it be so much simpler if we could all be like men? But at least it gives me the opportunity to completely contradict myself…..

I think men and women are more alike than ever before. I have come to this conclusion whilst sitting and listening to hundreds of men and women share the complexities of their intimate lives with me. But you don’t need to do this to reach the same conclusion, just look at the world and the way it has changed. Women have stamped all over male territory. We earn money; we buy our own houses and generally look after ourselves whilst damn well doing what we like these days. Meanwhile, the men’s ‘personal grooming’ market has grown out of all recognition. Men moisturize, wax and powder whilst taking paternity leave and occasionally chucking the day job in on a permanent basis and becoming stay at home dads. The times they are a changin’. So……where we will park the evolutionary will to attach ourselves to our mates, the piles of hormones and the traditional balance between the sexes in amongst this gender related confusion?  Perhaps our physical make up might change to start mirroring what’s happening in society? Is this possible? Or more to the point, even desirable?

What will our relationships with each other look like in another 500 year’s time? I have absolutely no idea but whilst I am not sure I would like to stay there, I sure wish I could time travel and take a peek, I really do.

‘Hi, I'm Belinda*, I'm 15 from Manchester, England and I lost my virginity about 3 hours ago. I know this may seem like a weird thing to do, but the guy in question has left, so it's not like I've just left him in my bed to write an email about what's just happened.

This feels so strange telling the bare-honest truth to a total stranger, but we agreed, share no details, at all, to our friends.

Charlie and I aren't boyfriend and girlfriend. Up until a few months ago, I didn't even count him as a friend, because I thought he was far too arrogant and a general knob-head and while I still think that, now it just adds to his charm. He was the first and only boy I ever kissed, a month ago, and somehow it's progressed into something that I'm telling you now, all through the wonders of Facebook and it's instant messaging services.

It wasn't perfect, but I never expected it to be after my friend told me how disappointing her first time was, but it was perfect enough for me. I didn't come or anything, but it felt good, and he seemed to have a good time…..so good in fact, that tomorrow I need to go get the morning after pill, which should be fun, making up an excuse to my mum about where I'm going.

To put it in the crudest terms, because there's no other way to put it, I didn't expect giving a blow-job to be so easy. A lot easier than a hand job. It was sore at first but then we eased into it and I did enjoy it immensely….he's fun to be around, because we're both incredibly sarcastic, we understood each other, and it eased the pressure, and made it fun. We were better by far with me on top, and I didn't mind, because I could get the pressure and the angle I wanted from that position. I bled a bit, which he didn't expect, and I forgot to expect.

But, that's the technicalities.

I didn't understand 4 hours ago how much this connects two people. Even though this was only meant to be a 'friends-with-benefits' style arrangement, I'm sitting here still smelling like him, and thinking of the beautiful things he said to me, and wondering if it doesn't mean something more to both of us, but neither one wants to admit it.

That's my story. I still can't quite believe I actually have a story! Thanks a million and one for letting me unload my shit on you!

Belinda Jakes (initials BJ, it's a burden)’ 

*names, as ever, are changed to protect identity.

Hey ho, lets go....

And we are back to song titled posts again. It’s been a while. All it took was one mention of The Ramones to come up with the only Ramone’s song that I really know well - primarily because it was often used as a form of communication in a former job. As in, ‘Hey, ho, MONRO’ I digress...

I loved today’s story. I had a moment of total horror when I first opened the email, left it whilst I ran downstairs to fetch something and came back to find it gone. Nowhere to be found. This is my worst nightmare…losing a brilliant contribution. I briefly contemplated posting a request on my blog to the woman who had written from her ‘post break up death bed’ – what a fabulous phrase – and try to get her to send it again. However, the cat looked guilty and eventually I realized that he must have walked across the keyboard whilst I was out of the room and deleted it. I found it nestling in the 'trash' bin. THANK GOD.

What I like most about this story is the writer’s assertation that ‘it’s uncanny how your relationship with sex can be slightly fucked up, even when your parents were super cool about it’. You could use the phrase ‘fucked up’ but in the end, I don’t think it’s ‘fucked up’ so much as just not knowing how the hell you’re supposed to feel about your sex life when you’re young. Is there a benchmark for this? Not really. We’re all individuals and we all have to wind our way through a complicated labyrinth of thoughts, feelings and reactions to the opposite sex - or in the case of lots of young people - the same sex and hopefully come out the other side. It’s tricky.

We can read stuff and look on the internet, whilst simultaneously scaring the crap out of ourselves and feeling a strange thrill, after all, what are we going to learn from watching pornography? That women don’t have pubic hair and appear to climax with very little assistance or interest from the opposite, and incredibly well-endowed and rather oily sex? There’s a lot of information out there but not all of it is useful. Whilst we at The Virginity Project endeavor to give you as realistic a picture as possible about ‘the first time’, in the end, we are not going to be there with you when it happens. It is something that you will do by yourself and your instincts are your best guide. However, honing instincts takes time so ‘fucked up’ it is for the moment. At least until we find our feet and work out what it is that we really need from our intimate lives.

‘First of all I have to specify that I am writing this from my post break up death bed, which is a state that never fails to make me feel a bit nostalgic and prone to reminisce.

At 18 and a half I was the very last of my friends to become sexually active (or, as they say, to get rid of my virginity), and I am pretty proud of how I handled the situation. I was wise enough to not see it as something to give away: in my eyes it was simply a necessary awkward moment that would lead to a life time of enjoyable sex (oh, I was so naive in my teenaged wisdom). I was especially afraid of having sex once with somebody at a party and then never again for a long time, like so many of my friends had done. I wanted time to practice, because from what I knew about sex, I suspected it to be something that requires some time and dedication before it gets, ahem, good in that very special way. Especially if you are a girl, or maybe especially if you're me and lose five pounds before every first date.

But let's look back at my teen age years, that are not that far away but thankfully quite definitely gone. After three years of middle school spent watching other kids making out like it was a national sport from the corner where I was reading books written for an adult audience and watching similar movies, I knew too little and too much to feel confident enough to let those poor pubescent boys I started dating in high school kiss me. So basically I waited for the classic older, dangerous guy that gets you drunk and tries to have sex with you even though you made it quite clear that you'd rather just kiss some more and talk about astrology and childhood memories. 

While his equally older friends take your friend's virginity in the next room, three of them in one night. A night that you will remember for quite some time and that will give you a hint of what is wrong in the world. 

That night I was on my period and that tiny detail enabled me to keep my virginity (and gain a nice, fat, juicy trauma) for the next three and a half years. Three years in which I kissed three other guys (in the same month) and mostly removed sex from my preoccupations, although it was at the base of each and every single one of them. After a year spent in America in a Jewish private school being puzzled at the relationship between American teenagers and sex, I returned to my small island in Italy and eyed a seemingly innocuous nerdy guy with glasses and a beard that had just broken up with his first girlfriend (what can I say, I like my men vulnerable) and basically forced him to be my first boyfriend and after a couple of formative months, have sex with me. 

The funny thing is; he really didn't want to. His previous girlfriend and he had had sex only a couple of awkward times but I was determined and in the end he wasn't that hard to convince. He played an uncool instrument in a band that was about to dissolve, and their very last concert was the very first one I witnessed. My life long fantasy of being with a boy in a band was finally fulfilled, although nothing was quite how I imagined.

That night, I asked my best friend for a condom and the poor boy and I went back to my house. My parents were away for the weekend because my mom was aware of my agenda and quite keen to let me finally have sex. She probably hoped that I would finally calm down and stop throwing chairs at her every other day, or maybe she was just doing exactly what her own mother would have never, ever done for her in the 60's.

The act itself wasn't that remarkable at all. I just remember the pain that was mainly caused by me being extremely nervous and then the surprise I felt when I realized I was actually doing it, having sex, feeling ok about having that kind of intimacy with somebody else. Enjoying that intimacy even (because I definitely wasn't enjoying the intercourse itself). It was the anniversary of our country's liberation from fascism, a beautiful spring night, and I was losing my virginity, in my own bed, with Paul Simonon and the four Ramones cheering from the walls.

It is uncanny how your relationship with sex can be slightly fucked up; even when your parents were super cool about it and nobody ever told you it was a sin or something wrong. Even when you know exactly how it works since you're about 8 years old and even when you have been raised by feminists that taught you to be empowered by your womanhood from an early age. Ok, maybe it's really not that surprising at all.’

Truth, strange, fiction etc...

For anyone who ever planned on doing something new, something unprecedented (at least in your world), something you have nurtured as a dream and then thought, I can’t…in all likelihood, you probably can. If you had told me, just over six years ago that I would write a book, start a blog, start two blogs, get my book published – after many rejections – and then get that book made into a play, as I sat staring into the middle distance at my rather unfulfilling day job, I would have said you were a fantasist. But I started small and I kept going.

It helped that I was enthusiastic. When I first had the idea to interview people about virginity loss, I felt sure I was onto a winner. It wasn’t really ‘the moment’ I was interested in; it was The Story. Who were the characters involved? How did the plot build? And what inspires us to make such a big change in our lives? I set myself the task of interviewing as many different types of people as I could. Religious people, the older generation, those with physical disabilities, gay, straight, male and female, they were all fair game as far as I was concerned. I could barely get started fast enough. I worked my job during the day and snatched every spare moment I could to interview, cajole and extract the most diverse selection of stories that I could get out of people by night.

A year later, I got my first bite of the cherry when the sister of a friend set me up a meeting with Virago Publishing. She sent some of my stories ahead, they liked them and I was in. I had very little comprehension of just how important Lennie Goodings was as I climbed the stairs to her book filled office but that probably helped. I wasn’t overwhelmed. I took the experience in my stride. She was utterly charming. In the end, it didn’t lead to anything but ironically, it changed everything. The fact that Lennie Goodings was interested enough to look at my collection of stories was enough, in turn, for other people to be interested in me. By Christmas I had myself a bona fide literary agent and my dream was becoming increasingly real.

The next part of the journey was interesting….and harsh at the same time. My agent sent my book out on submission and it was roundly rejected. Looking back, this experience was the making of me. This was the moment when I toughened up and realised that if you really want to do something, be prepared to deal with disappointment. If at first you don’t succeed, cry by all means but for goodness sakes, don’t take it personally. Stand up, brush yourself off and keep moving forward. Every single cliché in the book was true. Rejection is part of the process. Deal with it. I didn’t find this experience easy though. I was like a bruised peach in those days. I’d just broken up with my boyfriend too, the one person who had encouraged me every step of the way. Without him by my side and a stack of rejection letters on the other, I found it difficult to see a way forward. My saving grace was that my book had been rejected nicely. ‘Cheer up’ my agent said. ‘Usually they don’t bother writing back when they don’t want to publish it’. They had all written and said encouraging things.

The days were dark but I had enough savings in the bank to take a few months off so I ditched the day job, got my head down and started a blog. Partly because I wanted to claim ownership over my idea, partly because I wanted to show publishers that my idea had legs but mostly because I realised that my life was weird. Who else goes around asking people to tell them about virginity loss? I wanted to share my odd adventures with the world at large.

Predictably, I was petrified when I began. I could barely press the ‘send’ button, so nervous was I about exposing myself but once again, it was one of the best things I could have done. I was lonely at home with my stack of rejection letters but those early months of blogging were a revelation to me. I was astonished at what a friendly place the blogosphere is. How people you have never met before are quite prepared to give you a digital ‘leg up’ over a metaphorical wall. Shel Israel writes a blog about social media and technology. He doesn’t know me from Adam but he liked my idea and he wrote about it. Bingo! Traffic came my way. I caught on quickly and I kept going, kept pressing the send button despite having limited confidence in my voice. Day by day, as winter turned to spring; people began to engage with the material, and, joy of joys; they began sending in their own stories. In April of that year, I scored a full page of editorial in the Sunday Times News Review. (Which I would link to if it weren’t for that PESKY pay wall).

Fast forward almost four winters and I found myself finally finishing that book. Icon Books had commissioned me…and they wanted the manuscript in 3 months’ time. Yikes. Time and again as I rose in the dark last winter, and it was a literal darkness this time, not metaphorical, I realised that coming to the page each day is an act of faith. You have no idea if something will come out. Deadlines don’t care whether or not you’re feeling inspired but the only way to find out is to try. Sometimes nothing happens. Sometimes it feels really uncomfortable but you have to keep going, however mind crushingly painful it may feel and eventually, something pops out. A spark of an idea comes. Pursue that spark, hunt it down, keep chasing that idea and watch it open like a flower.

The catch is that the human mind is forgetful so sometimes you have to go through this process every day. Sometimes it’s really boring. From time to time last winter I thought to myself, you know what? I really don’t feel like doing this today. Then came the awful realisation that if I didn’t do it, no one else would. It was my book, full of my ideas and if you don’t keep writing, there will be nothing to show for your endeavours. So man up, stick yourself in front of the keyboard and keep moving. Pursuing dreams, pursuing creativity, it’s all the same thing. The trick is that you cannot guarantee a return; you have to believe that you will get one. It’s only then, when you’re prepared to take a leap off a creative cliff and find out what’s on the other side that the exciting stuff begins to happen.

My book came out in May. New York, or more to the point, America, was the next step as far as I was concerned. That hasn’t happened (yet). But in June, I was approached by a theatre producer. ‘I’d like to make your book into a play’ he said. He was a Northerner (always a good sign) and he had some adventurous ideas.  Once again, I took a detour that I hadn’t intended to take and it turned out to be a wonderful thing.

My life is still weird. Last weekend, I found myself at Cheltenham Literary Festival. I had done an event there on Friday night and the entire Cheltenham experience was a joy from start to finish. I spent Saturday morning watching Arlene Phillips pirouette around the Writers Room and the afternoon chatting with the very affable Roger McGough. By Monday I was back behind my desk, starting a new PA contract. I barely know who I am anymore but I’m not complaining. The day job helps my writing life because I work for really clever, interesting people who inspire me to do better. I learn as much as I can from them whilst hopefully making their lives easier in return.

Where to next? I have no idea. I’ve learnt not to make predictions but I do know this: for every single thing that doesn’t happen, something will happen that you couldn’t have foreseen.  You couldn’t make it up. And you don’t have to because it’s going to happen anyway.

In the spirit of today’s post – and all the late bloomers of the world - here is a story that you couldn’t make up. It’s all true.

‘Hi Kate,

I am 30 years old and I lost my virginity last night.

I wanted to share my story as it seemed that as I went past the age of 25, I would never lose it. I was slightly obsessed and very ashamed of my virginity and made endless plans to lose it with an escort or a random one night stand. This never happened and would make me feel worse as I couldn't go through with any plans as they always seemed wrong.

I even consulted an intimacy clinic who agreed to carry out sex therapy with me using a surrogate...who was at least fifty years old. They couldn't understand why I was not keen to have sex with a man old enough to be my father and the whole experience made my self-esteem plummet. It seemed that even the 'experts' couldn't help. 

All the time I was dating. Meeting guys and then finding a flaw with them so I didn't have to get too close. Nobody was quite right for me and I honestly believed that only Mr Perfect would do. I was convinced everybody could tell I was a virgin and had to watch as my much younger sister got a serious boyfriend and moved in with him. I felt stuck. Not quite an adult, yet in some ways a woman old before my time - a Maiden Aunt.

I had gone to University at 21, as I had been a carer for my mother during part of my teen years, and when she later died I spent my early twenties grieving and trying to get my head around how different my life was to my peers. When I was still a virgin on the final day of University in 2005, I gave up all hope.

A couple of years ago I sought help one last time and went into therapy with a local psychotherapist. I went for eighteen months and the change in my life and mental processes was astonishing. She helped me to feel normal and to see that my family experiences had shaped my life so far and how I could remove this block. I started to meet more men who were attracted to me and I became more open to relationships.

Two months ago I met a guy who is the same age as me and although there were several times that I wanted to end things because of some 'flaw',  I recognised what I was doing and kept seeing him. He didn't pressure me and we gradually got closer.

Last night, aided by a couple of bottles of wine, I had sex for the first time. It was in parts awkward, painful, extremely pleasurable and a massive relief! He couldn't enter me all that successfully but said it was because he was nervous. Eventually he started to use his fingers and we got there. All I could think was ' Finally'! Today I have felt sore, I bled a little but thinking about the experience turns me on, rather than off. I can already see how pleasurable sex is going to be. My boyfriend has suggested that we go away for a couple of nights in a few weeks and I feel really close to him. Hopefully things will get better and better.

I regret not having sex sooner as I can see how much I have missed out on, but I realise that this was the right time for me.

I wanted to share my story to show that change is possible with the right help.’ 

The Virginity Project: The Cast....

Allow me to introduce the cast of the play of the blog of the book. Am I the first person ever to be able to make that claim? Has anyone made a play of a blog of a book before? Could this be a media first? Either way, ladies and gentlemen, I give you the cast of 'The Virginity Project'....

Edna, aged 93 when she told me her story but born in 1915 and lost her virginity on her wedding night in 1940, played by Liz Lees:

Sherrie, the 1970's temptress, played by Emer O'Conner:

Peter and Suzie, the teenage lovers who re-united 32 years after they first met and wound up getting married. Played by Valencia Harris and Efe  Cadircioglu:

Sophia - played by Tugba Tirpan -  the girl who dared to lose her virginity to her sports teacher....

'Ash', a part played so beautifully by Murat Erkek that its a shock to me to see him standing up at the end of every performance. Ash has a neuromuscular disease.

And last, but not least, our very fabulous narrator, Harriet Cox, a woman who is able to coax normal people out of their seats, down onto the stage and into 'the virginity chair'...

If you want to be coaxed or indeed, just want to come along and watch - both of which would be deemed perfectly acceptable behaviour - we are at the Tristan Bates Theatre in London's Covent Garden this Thursday 20th, Friday 21st and Saturday 22nd October....come on down.

To tell or not to tell..

Well now, it’s a weird and wonderful feeling, two nights in, to see a bunch of actors take a curtain call and realise, with a thrill, that they are kind of there because of you. I could barely concentrate on the first night of the Virginity Project show; so nervous was I for the performers. How do they do it? How does one stand on a stage, looking into a big black void, and deliver a performance that rests entirely upon the words of one person? These are monologues in the truest sense.

What broke the tension for me on the first night was, surprisingly, the moment when the narrator invites audience members to come and sit in ‘the virginity chair’. i.e. sit on stage and tell a bunch of strangers about one of the most potentially embarrassing moments of your entire life. There was nervous tittering amongst the very British audience until, astonishingly – and with a little nudge from my companion who could see that he was halfway there already – an 18-year-old boy dived onto the stage and spilt the beans. Not only that but he made the audience HOWL with laughter as he did so. His recollection of what was going through his mind as he urged himself not to cut 'the moment’ too short was a showstopper.

As an aside, I have a stateside friend in town that I haven’t seen for almost 5 years. Things being the way they have been recently, I hadn’t had time to respond to his calls. When we finally spoke this morning he confessed that his ‘plan b’ had been to sneak into the show and sit in the virginity chair at the appropriate moment. Now that would have got my attention.

This is a small fringe production, not a luxurious big budget number but I feel, instinctively, that it has legs. We have enough material to always keep it fresh. The stories could change according to the season and so could the cast members. More to the point, the audience reaction will always be different. Sometimes they laugh, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes you can hear a pin drop. Particularly when the actor who plays Ash, the man with motor neurone disease, recounts the brave steps he took to lose his virginity.

What I really love is the way that each time someone does make that leap out of the darkness and sit in the chair, every single person in the room is rooting for them. You could cut the empathy with a knife because we’ve all been there. We all have some comprehension of what a vulnerable moment virginity loss is and now, someone is choosing to relive it in the company of others. I’ve considered doing it myself to tell the truth. But don’t watch this space, I’ll probably chicken out.

Whilst I’m here, could I ask you to vote for this blog in the Cosmopolitan Blog Awards 2011? I have been shortlisted in the final and your vote could seriously help swing it. The Virginity Project is in the sex & relationships category and my other blog, Big Guy Small Dog Blog in the Handpicked Media lifestyle category. You can vote here. THANK YOU!

The Virginity Project show is also being live streamed here on the night of each performance.

It seems fitting today, on the day that we lose Steve Jobs, a man who bought excitement to the word ‘technology’, that I tell you what makes me so excited about tonight. As discussed in a previous post, I dont generally 'do' the theatre. The reason for tonights journey onto unchartered territory is that my book, ‘The First Time’ is being turned into a play. What really gets me going about this production, is that Chris Mellor, the producer, is utilizing technology to create a unique theatrical experience. In theory, it should go something like this...

The audience will be taken 'backstage' via camera during the show to learn more about the background to each of the charactors in my book. In between the actors monologues, the audience will also be invited to tweet in their stories, thoughts and reactions to #camden theatres. This material will be fed back into the show by the narrator. For the very brave, there will be the virginity chair, a place where audience members can come and tell their stories live. Next Thursday 'The Twespians' - tweeting thespians of course, what else, - will be joining the action.

I say, in theory, at the moment, Chris is pacing up and down the floor, no doubt wondering whether he has made a terrible mistake. What if it all goes horribly wrong? What if no one turns up? And if they do, will they bother tweeting about it? In the end, it doesn't really matter. The show is designed to deal with any eventuality but the point is that technology means that we can present a new and exciting show every single night, depending on how the audience reacts to the material.

The whole shebang is being streamed on the internet so don't feel left out if you don't live in The Smoke. You can stream the show live from the Camden Theatres website and tweet your reaction referencing the tag #camdentheatres. So...its almost lights down here in the inky blackness of the Tristan Bates Theatre. Chris is still pacing, the actors are warming up, sound is being checked and the social media expert is well, being a social media expert. Break a leg guys.

Good day mate...

Greek islands are nice and all but frankly, who needs them? I mean really, I would so much rather be back here in the Smoke, working, hustling for my next day job and generally contemplating the incoming British winter.

Seriously, things aren’t so bad in my world. For one, it appears that I bought the beautiful weather back home with me and for another, The Virginity Project and I have much to celebrate together. If I didn’t say it enough already, I am over the MOON to be nominated in the final of the Cosmopolitan Blog Awards 2011, not only for The Virginity Project, but also for Big Guy Small Dog Blog. Both of these nominations were a huge surprise to me and if you would like to help me win, please vote for me here. The Virginity Project is in the sex & relationships category, Big Guy Small Dog Blog in the Handpicked Media lifestyle section.

As if that weren’t enough, I went this week to see the first run through of ‘The Virginity Project’: the play. It opens next week at The Tristan Bates Theatre in Covent Garden and watching the voices come alive on the stage last night was fascinating. If you live in London, come along and say hello. If you don’t, worry not, it is going to be streamed live from Camdentheatres.com and the whole production promises to be a unique, interactive theatrical experience. Come join!

Meanwhile, on a more somber note, lets take a trip down memory lane and recall the first person who really let us down. We all have one. There is something quite special, in a bittersweet way, about the first person who takes your heart, tramples lightly over it and hands it back to you slightly bruised. But it’s a rite of passage in much the same way as losing your virginity is. It’s a part of life. Sadly for today’s storyteller, it’s a two in one deal. Virginity loss AND being let down. Still, she lives to tell the tale and she tells it well…..

Born 1988, England

‘When I was 19, I gathered all my savings, gave my notice in at work and for the flat I was renting and got on a plane to Australia. I went on my own because I wanted to. I was fed up with seeing the same people all the time and wanted to do something different for a year. I headed to Brisbane and stayed in a hostel in the city. I met new people every night and felt amazing. About 2 weeks in I went to a bar with my new friends and started chatting to Shane. I'd never been interested in boys back home and they'd never been interested in me, but he was something special. We chatted all night and spent the following weeks together.

We'd kiss and touch but I'd always stop things just as they progressed. I could tell it frustrated him but he'd put on a smile and we'd cuddle instead. After 6 weeks of 'no nookie' he got fed up and left Brisbane without telling me. I found out after a guy who worked in the hostel asked me if I was missing him yet. I cried constantly for 3 days and became completely withdrawn. None of my new friends could get through to me. A week later I packed my bags and moved up the coast to Cairns. I made a resolution to get a grip, make more friends and forget about Shane. 

On my second night in Cairns it was New Years Eve. I made my way to the centre of town, found a backpacker bar and ate dinner on my own. Gradually I started chatting to people and decided to see out the night there. I was never really a massive drinker but I drank a lot that night. A guy whose name I don't remember kissed me at midnight and shortly after shoved his hand up my dress, so I told him to fuck off and left the bar.

I was staying a 10-minute walk away and the streets were full of people celebrating, making out and throwing up. I saw Shane only about 200 yards outside the bar, he smiled at me and came over. As soon as he hugged me I burst into tears on him and within the space of 10 minutes I told him I hated him, loved him, never wanted to see him again, wanted to spend the rest of my life with him and asked him how he could leave me. He started to walk me back to my hostel; we kissed numerous times and eventually made it back to my single room. When we got in the door he pushed me down on the bed. It was exciting, I wanted to sleep with him and show him what he missed out on. I didn't tell him it was my first time, and if it was obvious he didn't say anything.

When I woke up in the morning he was gone and I was angry. I packed up my stuff again and came home for good. When I arrived home I lied to my friends, told them yes, I had FINALLY lost my virginity - to a gorgeous guy from Scotland who I met in a bar and had a whirlwind relationship with. I don't know why I bothered lying but I've regretted it ever since.

It was only last month when told my partner the truth about losing my virginity that I finally felt relieved! I was embarrassed up until then but he made me feel so much better about it. It feels so amazing to finally get my experience down in writing!

Thank you,

M’

The Virginity Project is shortlisted for Cosmopolitan Blog Awards 2011!

The Virginity Project aka me, Kate Monro, is OTT excited to learn that I have been shortlisted for the Cosmopolitan Blog Awards 2011 in the Sex and Relationships category. To say that I am amazed is an understatement. In all of my almost five years of blogging, this is my first nomination of any kind. This would not have been possible without your brilliant, often brave and very honest submissions. So...I thank you. This blog continues to be a fabulous collaboration and absolutely what the internet was meant for.

I would love it if you could help push The Virginity Project one more step towards winning this coveted award. If you would like to help, please cast your vote right here.....if you would like to pass the link along to your friends, your colleagues and perhaps even your grandparents, postman and local bus driver, please be my guest AND THANK YOU!