The Virginity Project

‘I was surprised’, wrote Abigail to me after I published her story last week, ‘I thought the main thing about my story was the impotence problems and the fact that it being with an Englishman meant more to me than with an Aussie, not the dissapointment about not being fully satisfied’.

It’s true, I see aspects of other people’s stories that they might not and in today’s case, it is the language that men use with which to describe their sexual experiences. I simply cannot imagine a woman saying ‘she took it very deep and swallowed every drop’. Partly for obvious technical reasons i.e. it would be a physical impossibility but you know what I mean. As a generalization – of which I like to make many and then contradict myself shortly afterwards - women tend to talk from a more emotional perspective when they describe the nuts and bolts of their experiences. Men furnish us with facts, or, as a (male) interviewee once put it to me:

‘Blokes ask stupid stuff, like, how big were her tits?  Did she suck you off? Raw facts, like football scores.  You know, blow job – one, big tits - two.’

Having made this point, don’t think for a moment that I am dissing today’s story - or its brilliant teller. Far from it. This is a humungous story with, as you will see, even more humungous consequences. What makes it really fascinating is that its protagonist paints us a vivid cultural picture of life for two teenagers in 1968. I can almost picture these two, Anita Ekburg and Prince Valiant with his vulpine side burns, curled up in the back of a Chevy together...fumbling in the darkness away from the relative innocence of their childhood and into the complicated lightness of being a grown up. And all that comes with that. And believe me, it comes.

I won’t do what I did a few weeks ago and give the ending away before you’ve even got to it. I will put the footnote where it belongs: at the foot. Take it away Mr Wolf….

‘I had experienced reaching puberty around the age of 12 and it wasn't easy. My voice changed quite early and by the time I started Junior high, I sounded like the late John Carradine. The acne started 4 months later and the scars were deep. The body hair came in about that time and by my 13th birthday, I looked like a gorilla. And this was when I started having nocturnal emissions, and not knowing how to meet my physical and sexual needs. I was a gross looking kid

I started doing something about it in the early Summer of 1965.I lost about 25 lbs and started to work out with weights and doing aerobics religiously. I trimmed up fairly quickly and developed a bodybuilder's physique so that at least I'd feel strong and look healthier. I grew a Prince Valiant hairstyle and Hugh Jackman ‘Wolverine’ style sideburns. I also became very sarcastic and sardonic and went out of my way to challenge anybody who ever gave me a hard time. Maybe the phrase ‘quietly fierce' is appropriate.

One sultry August night in 1968 (I was 16), I was up at the municipal pool, swaggering around and showing off my stuff. I was going to be starting my junior year in High School. The former Captain of the Girl's Volley Ball Team started to put the moves on me. She had just graduated and was the June Wilkinson/Jayne Mansfield/Anita Ekberg of the Class of 1968. She started bumping into me in the shallow end of the pool and was constantly nudging and pressing into me. I asked her what she wanted and her reply was ‘I want to see what's inside of your pants’.

I decided to oblige her and we left the pool and drove up to the local ‘Lover's Lane.’ We stared to neck in the front seat of my car, with the additional caresses and touching as was felt to be good. We then got out of the front seat, undressed each other (down to the buff) and got into the back seat. We had a tongue wrestling contest and I proceeded to kiss and suck her nipples. She rolled me over onto my back and then started to ‘play the skin flute’. I was petting and stroking her head while she was doing it and when I shot my load, she took it very deep and swallowed every drop. While I was catching my breath, she said ‘I always wanted to have a boy loose his virginity in my mouth.’ We waited until I was ready for action again, and started once more to kiss (a la Francais) and nibble her nipples. Finally, I took her and I had my first act of intercourse. This was repeated once more. (3 ejaculations on 1 night, even for a horny adolescent with the hormones raging, is quite a lot).

We lay in each other's arms for a while, whispering the sweet nothings and enjoying the bliss. Then we dressed and I took her home. When I dropped her off, she leaned over, kissed me on the cheek and told me that I was a strong man, a mighty lover and she would always remember this night. I slept very soundly and felt very peaceful

I didn't see her again until 2 years later I was at the cinema and recognized her as did she me. We started to talk and I asked her where she had been, as I had wanted to get back together with her. She informed me that there had been an unexpected consequence of our love making.(Somebody showed up 9 months later.) I asked her as to why she didn't call me, as I would have married her. Her reply was that she didn't want me to get into any legal trouble. Ever since then I was always careful to make sure I had a Sheik whenever I went out on the prowl.’

Footnote: naturally, my first question was…why didn’t she tell you that she was pregnant? And what happened to your child?

‘In Florida, at that time, if a 16 year old (me) and an 18 year old (her) had sexual relations, it would have been considered child abuse. Consequently, she would have gone to prison. So she went to a home for unwed mothers 2 counties away and had our son.

I am a well-educated, professional man with a substantial income. I spent some time in the late 80s locating him and paid for his education. He's married and has 2 kids of his own (Both born in wedlock.) I visit them on a regular basis.’

All’s well that ends well.

The very marvelous Cindy Gallop gave me a big up on Facebook yesterday and sent this link out which was kind of her. In doing so, she also connected me to Rachel Rabbit White, a woman who recently posted a story entitled ‘Why do girls get more depressed after first time sex?' on her blog. And it’s an interesting question. I don’t think my story gathering technique is quantative enough to draw conclusions but broadly speaking, yes, women can feel very depressed after their first time experiences. But could it be that we are just better at talking about this? Perhaps men feel the same way but they don’t have the language or the opportunity with which to express themselves in the same way….I’m just throwing it out there.

Either way, in one of those strange ‘the universe must be reading my mind’ kind of moments, the following story popped into my inbox. Here is a perfectly visceral example of how rubbish a woman can feel after she has lost her virginity.

But check out the twist at the end the story. I was so NOT expecting that. In a heart stopping moment – and several years after the event - her boyfriend confesses that he thinks he might have raped her when they first had sex – though neither force nor violence was involved.

I have often written about the idea of coercion on my blog and I can only conclude by saying what I said in reply to this woman today. We have very few boundaries as young people (and I include men in this equation. I have all sorts of sad stories from men who feel they were pushed into things they didn’t want to do). It takes time to build boundaries and unfortunately, the only way to construct them is via experience and experimentation. Along the way, hopefully we begin to find confidence in our own feelings and most critically, learn to imbue those feelings with a sense of importance and gravitas.

Because growing up is about realizing that what we feel is ultimately more important than caretaking other people’s feelings. Does she think she was raped? And is it helpful to try and label things in this manner or define them? She must do what gives her peace of mind.

This is what is fascinating about the virginity loss story in general. This story will remain as it is until this woman’s dying day. You cannot change the facts and figures. They are carved into stone but we are not. We grow and change over the years and the way that we think grows and changes too. I hope that one day, this woman will look back and have the confidence to see that she was young and unformed when this incident took place. And that her boyfriend was a jerk. We’ve all been there - male and female. Dating a jerk is part and parcel of the growing up process. Lets not try and label it.

‘I am 23 years old, born in 1988, I live in the U.S.A. I lost my virginity September 17^th 2006, I was 18 years old.

I entered college my freshmen year with little to no experience with boyfriends.  At the time I desperately wanted to be in love. I wanted one of those classic, storybook first loves.

His name was Kevin.  I met him during the first weekend at school at the first college party I went to.  The first thing he said to me was, ‘You live in Stevenson (the dorm I lived in my freshmen year), right?’ After I confirmed that I did, he said three words that made my heart skip, ‘I noticed you.’  This cute boy had noticed me??!  I couldn’t believe it; he made me so anxious and uncomfortable.

After the party, I blew him off for a couple of weeks because of how nervous I was about spending time with him.  I feared that he would realize I was dull or boring and stop liking me.  My roommate at the time told me that Kevin would probably stop trying to see me if I continued to blow him off.  So I finally mustered up the courage to go spend a night with him.  We played pool with a group of his friends and then the two of us went back to his room and talked.  After that night, Kevin and I started seeing each other more often. 

The group of girls I became friends during my freshmen year all had serious boyfriend from home at the time.  One afternoon everyone started talking about their sex lives and I found out I was the only virgin in the group.  This environment was new to me; at least a few of my friends from high school were still virgins.  In college though, I felt like the outcast girl that couldn’t join the conversation.

On September 16^th, Kevin invited me to his room to watch a movie.  My heart was racing as we cuddled in his bed.  We started kissing and he asked if he could take my pants off.  I said that I didn’t know if I wanted him to.  The next thing I knew, we were trying to have sex.  Since I was a virgin, it took some effort.  Kevin only had one girlfriend before me, but she had not been a virgin – so he wasn’t being that gentle with me.  We eventually had sex, it only lasted for a short while and it only stopped because of how much pain I was in.

Afterwards, Kevin turned away from me and gave me the cold shoulder as I lay next to him in bed.  Confused by his behavior but too timid and not comfortable enough with him to ask about it, I looked over at the digital clock to check the time.  It was 1:00AM, September 17^th, this had not been a very pleasant way to lose my virginity but I still felt that I needed to know when it had happened.

Kevin and I dated for three years.  He was very controlling of how I spent my time, who I was hanging out with and where I was going.  I was blind to how dysfunctional our relationship was because I needed to make it work. He took my virginity and felt like I had a responsibility to stay with him forever because of it. 

Two years into our relationship Kevin and I talked about the night we first had sex.  I finally asked him why he turned away from me.  Out of nowhere, he started to cry.  He eventually told me that he felt that he had raped me that night.   Since then, I have always wondered if it was rape.  It wasn’t violent, it was with someone who I ended up dating for years and would even consider my first love, but was it rape?'

Thursday is the best day of the week...

Today is an auspicious day. It is the day that my book is officially published and I am off the scale excited. I haven’t quite worked out what the form is yet. Does one rush into one’s local book store, pick up a copy of one’s ‘baby’ and scream at the top of your lungs ‘I WROTE THIS!! To anyone who will listen? I feel inclined to do so but being British and all, I’ll try to hold myself back.

In the meantime, I would like to say a huge thank you to all the people who continue to write and tell me the most brilliant stories. You’re the best. Today’s story teller is no exception.

Born 1991, lost virginity aged 19

'There are two words that immediately come to mind when I think about my experience of losing my virginity. One is ‘awkward’ and the other is ‘perfect’.

My religious tradition definitely had an effect on my opinions, but not, most likely, in the way that would be expected. I grew up in the Unitarian Universalist church, which didn’t give any kind of moral position on the issue, but emphasized a personal search for the truths that resonate most with you in all areas of life.

So sometime around age fourteen, I sat down and thought about what virginity meant to me, and I came up with a few conclusions and rules for myself. Waiting until marriage didn’t hold any importance to me; I guess I’ve never been romantic about marriage, viewing it as a celebration and formalization of an existing commitment rather than something that should particularly change the nature of a relationship. What was important to me was not rushing into something I would regret later and making sure the time was right. I swore to myself that I would feel ready on my own and I would be in love before I would even think about having sex. I took one of the virginity pledge cards in the they handed out in sex ed my Freshman year of high school - not because I bought into the ideology behind them but as a personal reminder of my promise to myself not to rush into something before I was ready.

In retrospect, I think it may have been a bit naïve to bank on concepts as subjective as being ‘ready’ and ‘in love’, just assuming I would recognize them when I experienced them. At the time, I just knew I definitely didn’t meet either condition yet. And I continued to go on as such for quite some time. I had my first relationship at sixteen, which took several months to get to kissing and never progressed much further. I was intensely ‘in like’ and loved him as friend, but it took eight months before I ever thought of myself as being in love with him. Around eight months I also started thinking I could see the possibility of having sex with him at some point, but not anytime soon. A month later, we broke up.

My next relationship didn’t go nearly that far, as it died almost as soon as it began due to my not really being over the previous one. I knew plenty of people my age who were getting it on, but the majority of my close friends were also virgins, and quite proud of it between ourselves.

In the meantime, I maintained my resolve with a lot of masturbation and becoming intimately acquainted with fantasy. I delved into the internet’s supply of erotic fiction, and started writing my own. I found out what turned me on and what didn’t, and had the time to get comfortable with things that initially seemed a little too much (the concept of giving blowjobs, for instance: intimidating as hell at sixteen or seventeen; hot as hell a few years later). I was excited about the prospect of having sex someday, but I knew I wasn’t nearly ready yet for that day to come.

And then about halfway through my Freshman year of college, I pretty much woke up one day from a really hot dream and realized I was ready. My previous methods of staving off frustration were no longer sufficient, and I was a little bit scared by the strength of my libido. I pretty much expected I would have sex in my next relationship, and I reasoned that it was okay if I wasn’t actually in love as long as I was in a reasonably committed relationship, but at the same time I was a little disturbed at the weakening of that condition. The thing was, at that point I’d been single for nearly two years, and I didn’t see any prospect of a relationship happening any time soon.

Until, that Spring, I fell hard for one of my best friends. And, although I’m still at a loss as to why, the feelings were mutual. Quite apart from my general horniness and the circumstances seeming right, right from the start it became clearer and clearer to me that this was the boy I wanted to be my first. He was sweet, and caring, and had a good sense of humour – which in some ways I found one of the most important traits; a laughing, ‘Biology is awkward,’ became somewhat of a catchphrase between us during our early explorations of each others’ bodies – and I felt comfortable talking about absolutely anything with him. He was also a fellow virgin, which was a bit of a surprise considering he was a year older than me and had a considerably longer dating history, and somewhat of a disappointment to me, as I’d always kind of hoped to have someone more experienced to guide me, but I dismissed that as an insignificant detail.

We progressed to increasingly heavier petting fairly rapidly, and as the first full month of our relationship and my nineteenth birthday approached, I shyly brought up that I would be interested in having sex with him at some indistinct time in the relatively near future.

He said he wasn’t ready. I said okay and didn’t bring it up again. We continued at about the same intensity of fooling around as we had been, ramping up maybe a little bit slower than before. Two months passed, and summer break began, turning our relationship long-distance (and I’m talking 4000 miles apart long-distance).

And about two weeks into the three month break, during one of our daily long phone calls, he told me he loved me for the first time and that he’d changed his mind and wanted to have sex with me when we got to see each other again. Anticipation made it an extremely long summer.

I got on birth control pills as soon as I got back on campus and impatiently waited the two weeks for the protection to be active while we wrestled with the logistics of a living situation that made it much harder to find privacy than it had been the previous year until my roommate took pity on me and arranged to be elsewhere for a night.

I had no illusions about expecting fireworks or anything from the first time; I was expecting a good experience. And I pretty much got what I expected. There was some pain at first, but it wasn’t a lot and it faded quickly, and I bled just a little bit. There were a whole lot of awkward little mishaps, from struggling to get the condom on to him banging his head on the upper bunk while getting in bed and me accidentally putting my panties on inside out afterwards, but there was also a whole lot of laughter. I admit to feeling a bit, ‘That was it? That’s what all the fuss is about?’ In the immediate aftermath, but I ended up somehow feeling closer to him all the same. We made another go of it later that night and got things going a lot more smoothly, and since then it’s only gotten better.'

 

You're the one that I want....

I can’t deny that I did think about jumping on the royal bandwagon and writing a wedding themed post and then I changed my mind. Kind of.

This week I have traveled to Manchester with the very fabulous Suzi Godson to do next Monday’s edition of Woman’s Hour. Together we met the legendary Jenni Murray and did our best not to swear by mistake on the show. I have also been into several bookshops to innocently enquire after a tome called ‘The First Time: True Tales of Virginity Lost & Found (Including My Own). I usually crack when they ask if it’s by Kate Monro and admit that I am she. I wonder at what point I will get bored of this game.

On a more serious note, I have fielded questions about the impending release of said book from my 13 year old nephew. I feel slightly guilty about the fact that I have written one of those books that I had to climb the bookcase to retrieve at great personal risk when I was his age. Naturally I chickened out and sent him in the direction of his mother.

More to the point, how am I going to stop my stepfather from reading the first story in the men’s chapter?? I think I am going to have to find a way of temporarily blindfolding him because when push comes to shove, I am far more worried about corrupting his relatively innocent mind than my 13 year old nephew’s!

But all in all, generally speaking, I can say that publishing my first book has far surpassed my expectations and it hasn’t even come out yet.

Until it does, here is today’s story. Hailing from the States, ladies and gentleman, I give you the modern day Danny and Sandy….

‘My name is Tegan. I’m now 17 years old and live in the US. But before I tell you my story, I think you should know a little bit about me. I’ve always been the straight A student, the very religious girl, you get the picture. But then I started dating Mark. We met at school freshman year; we started dating a month later. Mark was what most people would refer to as the ‘popular’ guy in school. He was known for being the star athlete…you know the type. He had an i-don’t-care attitude that attracted me to him, which was odd considering I had only dated the quiet, shy guys.

I honestly couldn’t tell you why I started dating him because I don’t even know myself. I never pictured myself with anyone other than your typical nerd. He just wasn’t my type; I definitely wasn’t his either. But it felt like with him…I had to make an exception. It was like we balanced each other out. I was quiet, he was outgoing. After a few months of dating we became best friends. I guess you could say we were pretty much inseparable. Six months into our relationship we began doing things I never planned on until after I was married...oral sex. After a few months of that, we wanted more. Not exactly sex itself, but the closeness that came with it.

I was fifteen when I lost my virginity to Mark. His family was out of town for his sister’s volleyball tournament, and he told his parents he was coming to my house that Saturday. I told my parents I was going to his, for they didn’t know his family was gone. It took a lot of planning, but it worked. We hadn’t exactly talked about having sex that day, though we had talked about having sex before.

The minute we stepped in his house we quickly went up to his room. We kissed and before I knew it our clothes we in the floor. We spent quite a long time ‘warming up’ if you get what I’m saying. I was more scared than nervous when we finally did it. It wasn’t like you read about in books or watch in movies at all. It took a while before he could get it in. And when he finally did, it hurt. It hurt bad. But not in a bad way. He didn’t last long, but that was okay; I’d come closer to him than I had been with anyone in my whole life, and that’s all we had wanted. I had his virginity, and he had mine.       

I’m seventeen now, and I don’t regret anything that’s happened between Mark and I. We aren’t like the crazy sex-obsessed teens today. We have sex to feel closer to one another. Not just to have sex. Although I’m still a Christian, I’ve come to believe that sex is okay as long as it’s for the right reasons. Maybe Mark and I will end up together, maybe not. But I know for a fact I couldn’t have asked for a better guy to experience this with. No, our story wasn’t the make-believe story everyone talks about…but it was our own story.’

The birds and the bees...

Ok, so it wasn’t Wayne Rooney that got accused of ‘kissing like a virgin’ recently but the sentiment is still the same. I don’t suppose it was meant to be a complement. It only serves to highlight the fact that being a virgin can be an alienating experience for your average young western person. And being a male virgin can be the pits. Not that I am taking sides. People have got quite impassioned about this at times on my blog, about whether or not virginity is a bigger burden for a girl or a boy…and I’m not going to take sides. It’s a different burden. Women undoubtedly have more choices when it comes to the loss of virginity. Whether or not woman want to take these choices is another matter but the fact remains that when push comes to shove (no pun intended) a woman can find a man to avail her of her virginity. We hold the cards.

In my forthcoming book, I use peacocks to make this point. Female peacocks don’t have beautiful plumage like the males do because they don’t need it. It is the female bird that gets to choose which male she will mate with. The boys just have to sit there and hope that they'll get picked. All this stuff about girls waiting to get chosen to dance at the school disco is a total fallacy. Most men will tell you that women have the power. We just don’t realize it is all!

Today’s young man feels the pressure in a big way. Lucky for him he has the brains to get off his backside and do something about it. As his last sentence attests…‘It is part of a past I am working through as I seek to find ways to express my sexuality in a healthy, positive manner.’

‘Dear Kate,

I recently stumbled upon your blog and feel compelled to share my story with you. I’m rather reserved, so such self-disclosure is pretty remarkable. So here it goes….

My name is Philip.  I was born in 1975, and I live in the USA. I lost my virginity when I was 22.

Growing up I was shy and found it more difficult to make friends than other kids. I was also raised in a Christian environment that frowned on any form of sex outside of marriage. I hit puberty and experienced the same flood of hormones any teenager does, yet I was extremely anxious around girls.  I didn’t date. When I finally was brave enough to ask a girl out as a senior in high school, she declined, battering what little self-confidence I possessed. In college, my shyness and social awkwardness continued to inhibit me. I rarely dated and never came remotely close to having sex. I did somehow manage to have a girlfriend for 6 months—she was the first girl I kissed—but we remained chaste. (She strongly believed in saving sex for marriage.) When she broke up with me, I was devastated.

I was conflicted in college. I was still a Christian, as were most of my friends. I believed in the sinfulness of extramarital sex. Yet I found myself in an environment where most of my peers were having lots of sex. When combined with the cultural expectation that a guy my age should have lost his virginity by this time, I felt inadequate. My strong sex drive didn’t make matters easier. I looked at pornography and masturbated almost daily.

During my senior year of college, the thought first entered my mind of visiting a call girl. At first I brushed it aside, thinking that I could never go through with it. But the urge to do so kept reappearing. One Saturday night I was by myself in my apartment, depressed and lonely. And really horny. I decided to go through with it. I checked into a hotel room and called an escort service.

The lady on the phone recommended a strawberry blonde ‘with porcelain skin’ in her 20s. While I waited for her to arrive, simultaneously excited and petrified, I opened the nightstand drawer and reached for the Gideon’s Bible. Seriously. I was skimming through the Bible as I prepared to lose my virginity to a prostitute. After what felt like an eternity, I heard a knock on the door. I opened it and saw an attractive young woman. She had a very pretty smile. As I greeted her, I remember thinking in my mind, ‘I’m going to have sex with her in a few minutes.’ After some pleasantries, we sat down next to each other on a couch. She was dressed nicely and professionally, as if she was on her way to a job in a bank. She must have sensed I was terrified, so she started a conversation that put me a little more at ease. (Needless to say, she did most of the talking.) She told me about her life. I still, years later, remember and appreciate her friendliness and kindness.

After about 10 or 15 minutes, she leaned in close to me and asked what I wanted to do. I stammered and mumbled some evasive reply. She said, ‘You can ask me anything.’ I leaned over to whisper in her ear and blurted out, ‘I want to have sex with you.’ I leaned in to kiss her, but she slid back and gently told me, ‘Escorts don’t kiss.’ She sensed my dismay and, smiling, reassured me, ‘I’m a very sexual person. We’ll have fun.’

Soon I was fumblingly attempting to undress her. At some point I confessed, ‘I’ve never really done this before.’ After we undressed and got on the bed, she started caressing me and nibbling on my ear. ‘You’re a cute thing,’ she said. As I was lying on my back, she placed her body on top of mine and…

I ejaculated on her leg.

I was mortified. She told me, ‘It’s okay,’ and went to the bathroom to clean herself. Once she returned to the bed, we talked for a while. It didn’t take me long to get aroused again, and I started to explore her body. I spent time rubbing and kissing her breasts. She laid me on my back, moved her head over my crotch and started to give me a blowjob. I watched with fascination as her mouth slid up-and-down the shaft of my penis. After going down on me for a few minutes, she asked, ‘What do you want to do now?’

‘Let’s f**k.’

She put a condom on me, lay on her back, and guided me inside her. I don’t remember much about the physical act itself, only the thought in my head, I’m inside a woman. I’m finally fucking a girl.

I climaxed and she cleaned me up with a washcloth. We then both sat on the edge of the bed. Instead of being relieved at losing my virginity, I started to feel very depressed. She noticed me looking forlorn and tried to cheer me up. ‘Don’t look so sad.’ She smiled at me, gave me a kiss on my cheek and said, ‘You’re a really nice guy.’ She dressed and I accompanied her toward the door. As she exited, she smiled again and wished me good night.

I spent the next couple of days in bed, paralyzed by guilt. Despite the positive qualities of the escort I hired, the encounter left me feeling empty and sad. I had violated my moral beliefs. For a few days, I felt ashamed to face my female friends and classmates.

But it wasn’t enough to stop me from doing it again. Since my first time, I have visited more than 90 call girls, and, outside of a couple of affairs with older women, my sexual experiences have been exclusively with prostitutes. My attempts at forming relationships have been a mess. I just started therapy for sexual addiction and depression.  Oddly, though, my regret at losing my virginity to a prostitute isn’t as deep as you might imagine. I suspect that even if I hadn’t called that escort service, I would have found some way to lose my virginity. And my sexual compulsivity probably would have eventually led me to pay for sex anyway. Nonetheless, it still isn’t a happy memory. It is part of a past I am working through as I seek to find ways to express my sexuality in a healthy, positive manner.'

 

Shit happens...

I don’t know why but this story reminds me of one of my all time favourite films ‘Stand By Me’. It has almost nothing to do with the actual plot of the film - kids run away from home to find the body of a dead man - it’s more to do with the pleasure and the pain of being a young person. The trials and the tribulations of what we go through, mostly alone. Today’s story speaks volumes about the condition of being a teenager. When shit happens, it rarely occurs to us to tell anyone about it. We often keep it to ourselves and carry on.

The interesting part of this scenario is that in the end, when we have digested, processed and hopefully learnt the difference between what was our fault and what most definitely was not, we realise that this shit is – for better or worse – par for the course. ‘Into each life a little rain falls’ as my mother once told me. It is what makes us unique. And as today’s storyteller shows, it doesn’t need to define us either.

I often think that these stories would make a great film. If I could choose a director, it would be Robert Altman. He is no longer with us but if he were, I can’t help thinking that this story would be in the mix. Its a cracking good read.

‘Born in the United States, April 18, 1993 

First, I want to say that I love and appreciate what you have here. Each of these stories are so rich and I truly enjoy reading them all. 

When I was fifteen my best friend, who was actually younger than me, lost her virginity. She told me stories as I listened intently while having the vague sensation of being left behind. ‘It's great! She said, ‘…after you get past the first couple of times’. 

I wanted to share this experience with her, to be able to swap stories like the girls in my novels. And I knew just who I wanted too. Sam was my best guy friend and I worshipped the ground he walked on. He was older, experienced, and rebellious and listened to everything I had to say. We were neighbours and spent most days together at the river or in my room talking, depending on the season. 

As my fifteenth summer was coming to a close, a moment presented itself. It was a common occurrence for us to camp, and one night it was just the two of us because our other friends wouldn't be showing up till much later. We made a fire in our usual fire-pit and passed around a bottle of whiskey; his preferred drink that I tolerated simply because it was his favorite (although I did grow to prefer it to other forms of hard alcohol). 

What started off as a back massage quickly escalated into kisses and clothes being carelessly tossed off. I gave him the most awkward blow-job, it tasted terrible and my drunk brain couldn't think of anything better than spitting on his stomach. It was terribly embarrassing, but luckily he laughed, which allowed me to move on.

‘Let's do it, I have a condom.’

‘I dunno…’

I rolled off to the side of him, attempting to think over what my next decision should be, until I felt him jab his erection into my hip. 

‘Come on, they're German. Plus what am I supposed to do with this if we don't?’ he asked while poking me again. 

I'd made up my decision. ‘I guess you'll have to deal with it yourself.’

I sat up, searching for my clothes and stumbling outside to wait for our friends by the campfire. This wasn't going to be the night, after all. 

A few weeks later, I spent a couple nights at my step mom's house, enjoying my rare time with her. It was late one night and she'd gone to sleep while I made a bed on the living room couch as my step-brother arrived home. We watched a movie and as he got up to retreat to his room he made a detour to my spot on the couch. He told me he wanted to try something before leaning over and pushing his slimy tongue between my lips. I freaked out and pulled back. 

‘This is too weird,’ I said, ‘you're my brother’.

‘Yeah, STEP-brother’, he replied, before pushing himself back on me only to have me squirm away once again. After asking him repeatedly to stop he gave up and slithered into his room. I was horrified, and couldn't sleep. Not much had happened but the damage had been done. He was someone I had trusted, someone I had loved as my brother ever since I was a young child and he had gone against all of that. If I couldn't trust him, who could I trust? 

I spent the next two years in what I called sexual hibernation. I lost the ability to handle anything more than a friendship with the opposite sex. I couldn't flirt anymore, I felt like I could hardly communicate like a normal human being. My social skills plummeted. 

When I moved states with my family, I started at a new school. On my first day I noticed the boy in my art class with eyes so vibrant they could literally light the room. I developed a crush on him immediately, but I assumed he was with the fierce girl that he was always sitting with. Not to mention I was far too awkward to start a conversation and my self esteem told me I could never in my wildest dreams have someone like HIM.

One day his 'girlfriend' followed me to my bike, promptly introduced herself with an outstanding level of confidence and we planned to have lunch the following week, when she'd be back from a trip. 

I spent most lunch hours reading in the halls, or outside if the weather would hold up. But one day I decided to try out the art room for a change, only to nearly run into the boy with the eyes (who's name, I had learned, was Bruce) as I rushed through the door. I sat across from him, and asked about his art and we awkwardly discussed books and interests. I was thrilled to discover we liked a lot of the same things. We planned to have lunch again, I was ecstatic. 

By the time his fierce friend had returned (I found out they were only friends), we had hung out a couple times, and I knew I was starting to actually like him. After a lot of poking she finally got me to admit to my crush. ‘He likes you!!’ She screamed at me. 

I made a lot of awkward attempts in class to talk to him, but when it was just the two of us, things flowed a lot easier. Eventually I made the first move, and kissed him on the cheek, only to have him kiss me full on the lips in front of my mother. I guess that’s how I knew we were together. No one is going to kiss you in front of your mother if they don't intend on doing so again. 

I had never grown so comfortable with someone so fast, I could talk to him about real things and he would listen. I told him about my stepbrother and he understood, letting me know that we would move as slow as I would like. As slow as I liked turned out not to be very slow in teenage measurements at all. After a month my mom had taken me to Planned Parenthood for the pill and I told him I was almost ready. He assured me there was no rush, and I understood, but I wasn't rushing, I was just ready. 

We had been dating for almost exactly two months when it actually happened. He had previously told me he wanted to make it special with candles and roses (he has a very cheesy streak), but I insisted that it wasn't needed.  Along with being far more experienced that I, he was also far more nervous. 

He was slow and cautious as he entered me the first time, staring into my face to make sure I wasn't in pain. He asked if I was okay and I told him I was but that it hurt a little. He did a small pump before pulling out. I wanted to try being on top so he rolled over and lay still, holding onto my hips as I tried to lower myself onto him. Whenever I asked for his help he gave it, but he wanted to make sure everything was on my terms. He was so helpful and gentle; it couldn't have been more perfect. We eventually dressed after mass amounts of cuddling and talking and went out for coffee and breakfast. As we walked down the street I tried to see if my view has somehow changed, but the world was still spinning on as it had before. 

Losing my virginity was not a monumental event, like so many other people, I looked in the mirror expecting to glimpse some sign of change only to see none in my immediate appearance. Sometimes, before, I felt as if I was the only person in the world my age who hadn't had sex yet, and that I was destined to become the old cat lady. But I'm glad things happened as they did, because my experience was perfect, and I don't know how many people can say that of their own. 

Bruce and I have now been together for nearly six months, and I love being with him in every way, I love him. And I am so immensely happy to know that he is the one to hold this place in my life.’ 

Negative regret...

This story says so much about allowing a person to grow, flourish and develop in their own time – and on their own terms. It also reminds me of an interview I once did for my book. My respondent was a young Indian woman who, for reasons known only to herself, thought that when she finally did have sex, her mum would know because he legs would go bandy. As I write this, I am fully aware of how absurd this sounds but honest to god, that’s what she thought.

Seeing as I thought that women had breasts because they were sucking their stomachs in and pushing their ribcages out when I was little, I don’t really have a (bandy) leg to stand on either..

'I'm Mei. I was born in 1991, in China. I am Chinese American. That means I grew up with strict parents, perfect grades, and not surprisingly, a very conservative view on sex, alcohol, drugs, and the like. When I was in 4th grade, a friend wrote me a note explaining the health processes related to puberty and sex. Apparently, her mother had given her ‘the talk,’ and you know little girls…they're eager to share. When I approached my mother about it, she told me that it was all a lie. It wasn't till middle school that I really found out about the whole she-bang: kissing, French kissing, groping, SEX.

I went through most of my high school years without having even a kissed a boy, which I swear wasn't for lack of wanting. I just wasn't allowed to have boyfriends. You wonder why I didn't go behind my parents' backs, but this wasn't just a rule...this was The Rule. For Chinese parents, a boyfriend means distractions which mean bad grades (like B's). There is no influence more evil than Boyfriends.

But at the end of junior year, an Asian boy from Canada transferred into my school. We met, and in a few months, I was in love. After weeks of coercing, begging, nagging, and of making absurd promises about studying hard, my mother miraculously allowed us to date. Maybe she saw how desperate I was for this boy.

We dated for two and a half years. For the first year, we were in total, loving bliss. Senior year was one of the best years of my life (so far, at least). I got my first kiss, my first make-out session, my first grope…the only thing we never did was make love.

I had always been taught to save my virginity for marriage, but honestly, I didn't care too much about the whole save-yourself bullshit. I was 18, and I had grown pretty tired of my parents constantly roping me down with stupid Chinese rules. If Wai had wanted it, I would have made love to him. And that's the thing; it would really have been making love because at the time, we were completely right for each other.

But he was much more Chinese (and Christian) than I was. He was a virgin and planned to stay that way until marriage. In fact, he wanted to marry a virgin. He said he couldn't possibly marry a girl who had already had sex with someone else. I was pretty disappointed inside when I found this out, but I loved him and respected him, so I let it go.

After senior year, I left for college across the country in California. We somehow stayed together for another year and a half, long distance. Wai was very straight-edged, and out of fear that he would leave me, I stayed away from those freshmen beers, weed, and parties. We chatted every night, and saw each other during breaks. I would wonder sometimes if I were missing out on other people and new experiences, being all tied up with Wai, but I really believed that I couldn't get anything better.

Things changed my sophomore year. I started rock climbing, and I met the most incredible group of people. They are my closest friends now. In that group was a boy, Jamie. We were incredible comfortable with each other from the moment we met, and our group of friends was amazing. I began to question my lifestyle: yes, I had been brought up to stay away from drugs and alcohol and sex, and yes, my boyfriend would flip a shit/break up with me if I did any of it, but I really wanted to experience all of it. More than anything, I wanted to experience it with my rock climbing friends. I knew I could trust them. And...I wanted to keep seeing Jamie.

I started going out regularly with my friends, to drink and smoke and hang out and really, just be a college student. I talked to Wai less and to Jamie more, and predictably, Wai and I started to have problems. After being asked why I wasn't ashamed of the way I was living, I broke up with Wai. 

I immediately started to date Jamie. Maybe that was callous, but we gravitated toward each other. He was everything that my old life was not. He smoked and drank, and didn't think any of it was a big deal. He was the most hilarious person I'd ever met, and was completely solid in who he was. He was happy, thought that other people should be happy, and didn't believe in controlling what other people did. He was everything that I wanted to leave behind -- all the suffocating rules and guidelines that would keep me ‘pure.’ All that my parents and Wai stood for.

After we had dated for two weeks, I decided to have sex with Jamie. Thinking back on it now, I think I just wanted something to erase all the stiffness and Chinese-ness that had defined my life for 19 years. It wasn't because I genuinely wanted sex, or because I was in love with Jamie (although, we liked each other quite a lot); I thought losing my virginity would be some kind of fresh start, symbolic of all the ways I had started to change.

Surprisingly, Jamie was also a virgin. We didn't really know what we were doing, I was tense and nervous, and it hurt like hell. We didn't get much of him into me, and I didn't really know if that counted as losing my virginity. After a few failed attempts, we gave up. That night, I lay in his bed, sore and frustrated, wondering what I was doing. If I was this tense, I probably wasn't ready to be having sex. Maybe my parents and Wai were right. Luckily, Jamie was incredibly sweet and understanding about it. He knew I had just gotten out of a serious relationship, and to him, the sex wasn't that big of a deal. It was about what I wanted, about being happy.

We stayed together, and spent many days and nights just enjoying each other’s company. Then one night, when we were fooling around, I realized that I really did want Jamie. All of him. The thought caught me off guard, but I knew then that this was how it should be. I was going to lose my virginity unplanned, without any rules or guidelines to restrict me, and that was completely right. I was much less tense, we went slowly, and this time, we succeeded. I remember looking into Jamie's eyes as he came in me, and thinking I had never been more happy about a decision. I had never felt so good. Before, I had been afraid that my parents and Wai might turn out to be right, that I would regret losing my virginity so...casually, but I knew then they were wrong. It's not about the rules, about using sex to seal some marriage contract. It's about what feels right, and being with Jamie, that felt right.

Jamie and I are still together. We have at lot of sex, and we love it. I am so happy about my decision to sleep with him that it's like I have negative regret - it's made me feel better about other decisions I've made in my life to bring me here. There's something physically and emotionally free about being with him. Losing my virginity (and I guess he lost his to me) has come to represent my liberation from the fear and timid-ness that my parents and Wai had instilled in me. I'm not that much more wild than before (although I do drink and take a few hits now and then), but I am happier. And I have no regrets about my first time. I can't ask for more.'

Two girls, two stories, one night..

I got sent two different stories on the same day last week from two different women. The first dispensed with her virginity in much the same way that one might throw a pair socks in the bin. She titled her story, ‘My first time, funny, drunken, but not regretted’. It was the story of several generations of young people (of which I include myself) who have very little standing in their way when it comes to the loss of virginity.

‘I wouldn’t recommend young people to lose their virginity in this way’, I wrote, ‘mainly because the margin for error i.e. assault when drunk is that much wider but at the same time, alcohol related issues aside, I get so many tormented stories from people who feel like they didn't give it the 'right' person in the 'right' way at the 'right' time’ that I’ve begun to think that jettisoning one’s virginity in a devil may care manner may not be the worst thing that we could do.’ Why put so much pressure on ourselves, after all, to make the first time ‘just right’? We’d all like to have the ‘perfect’ first time but this is real life. And it’s only the first time. The first, hopefully of many different, and perhaps more satisfying times.

As if by magic, the second story dropped into my inbox, this time, from someone who did give a shit about how they lost their virginity and that’s the fascinating thing about this subject area. No matter how much time elapses, no matter how many choices we have (particularly as women), the way that we view virginity and its loss remains a deeply personal matter. My second storyteller has given herself a profoundly hard time about the way in which she dispatched her virginity. If she could fight herself in a boxing ring, she would knock herself out in less than one minute. ‘I feel angry with myself for being so submissive’, she writes, ‘and letting myself do something I knew I didn't want.’

‘You were experimenting’, I returned. ‘You were pushing your boundaries to see what it felt like....and how else would you discover what is right – or wrong - unless you tried it out? I'm guessing you probably need to get to know someone a bit better before you have an intimate experience with them’, I continued’, ‘but at least you know that now.’

We must learn to be kinder to ourselves. We have to make what we consider to be mistakes in order to learn. It’s such a profoundly human thing to do! I can’t tell anyone that though. It’s a conclusion that people have to reach on their own time and in their own way. I can only throw in my ten cents worth and say, as I would to both of these young women, you’ll have a lot of different experiences in your life but when you have your first really great time with someone, you’ll remember that. For all the right reasons.

My first time, funny, drunken but not regretted.

‘So I had been hooking up with boys for a little while at this point. I was a late bloomer, and I hadn't officially lost my virginity around the end of my sophomore year. A friend that I had not seen in a few months invited me to his house to day drink, play games, and drink some more.

My roommate and I decided it would be a good idea to go and I decided an even better idea would involve a bottle of tequila, a tiny bit of margarita mix, and approximately 5 limes.

We go over around noon and start drinking, head to dinner around 6, and pick up a keg on our way back. So the night gets pretty fuzzy from this point forward. Oops.

The boys decide they want to make a slip and slide down a tiny hill, so they take their shirts off, we soap them up, and off they go. I watched for about 10 minutes, got bored, but when the boys came back inside they all smelled deliciously soapy, and shirts did not reappear. Great look for the party.

I end up playing beer pong with the boy who invited me over, T, and I assume we did horribly. Considering after we finished our game, we headed to his room. Apparently no one at the party saw this happen, he does not remember, and I most likely didn't even know my own name at this point so I am no help.

According to my sources (other boys), they walked into the bedroom, saw him and I half-clothed and tried to get us to rejoin the party. That obviously didn't happen.

I wake up out of my blackout, to his d in my mouth, and just continue with what I was clearly doing during the blackout. He pats my head, tells me to hold on a second, and goes to his closet. After about 15 minutes of searching he walks back to his bed with a condom, puts it on and lays back down.

Well this is my first time buddy, I think. There is no way I know what I am doing, let alone am trying to do all the work. I use my really effective whiney voice and cry, ‘I have never had sex before, can you puh-lease just get on top.’

He is not going for it. He shakes his head, and I think the alcohol and all the slipping and sliding has caught up to him, because it seems he does not know English anymore.

I whine again, and he rolls over on top on me. ‘Perfect,’ I think, ‘my first time will be official, and I know he doesn't have AIDS so that is always a bonus, and he is doing all the work.’

After a few thrusts we both realize we are wayyyyy too drunk for this, and we decide we're done. As I am laying in his twin bed, imagining how I plan on getting home in the morning, I decide it is not worth it at all to spend the night. I grab his sweat shirt, his shorts, stuff my bra, underwear, and the 2 shots I have left of tequila in my bag, scoop up my phone and begin the walk home.

I call my roommate when I get outside the apartment, and although it is 4:30 am, she answers the phone and screams ‘DID YOU HAVE SEX WITH HIM?’

I have no idea how she could have known that, tell her I will tell her the story, (as much as I can remember) and then half the buttons on my phone stop working. Cool, I love walking in the dark in the middle of the night in clearly walk-of-shame-clothes.

Two boys approach me, tell me I look like I could use some company and I drunkenly decide to tell them my whole really great story. They agree that Tee should have walked me home, and I laugh and tell them I am a big girl, and plus I never would have made friends with them if he was there.

I get home, tell my roommates about the greatest loss of virginity story ever, and go to bed. The next day I wake up to a text from him saying, ‘Hey, I don't really remember what happened but lets just not talk about it.’

I respond: ‘Yea, gggts not a bgggg deal.  Gggd rather just forget about it.’

-Yeah, my ‘GHI’ key wasn't really working on my phone. Apparently I had dropped a whole pitcher of beer on it the night before. So great work me.

All in all, I would say this definitely proves I saved myself for someone special, and made that night one I will never forget.

hahahahahah.’

Check out my blog at: http://afterthemorningafter.wordpress.com

Story 2

'Recently I've been struggling with the fact that I'm no longer a virgin. I have very mixed feelings about the whole thing. It happened this past October when my long distance boyfriend was in town staying with me. I more or less made the decision I wanted to sleep with him before he had gotten here thinking 'what's the big deal?' I'm 20 years old, who cares. No big deal.

So the first night that he was here we were lying in my bed and he said something along the lines of 'I really want to have sex with you' and I remember saying something to the affect of 'okay then, why not. I don't care.' And so we did. And the entire time I remember feeling strange. I wasn't ‘excited’ or felt like I was in the throes of passion, I was just indifferent, bored. I wasn't enjoying it, it didn't feel good. I was unimpressed.

I don't necessarily think it had to do with him or his performance. I just wasn't into it. So for the next five or so days he was here we had sex several times and every time I never felt any different about it. If anything, I was upset because I felt pressured into it half the time and he assumed that because of my body's natural reaction to get 'wet' from clitoral stimulation that meant I was outrageously horny and wanted to have sex. I didn't. After the first time I just really didn't want to have sex, but I just let it happen anyway. The entire duration of his stay, I faked every orgasm he thought I was having. The whole thing never really bothered me too much, except for when my boyfriend would bring it up later in phone conversations because it always made me feel really trashy and it made me feel like I wasn't myself.

It wasn't until now, months later, that I'm really recognizing how much I regret it. I'm just unhappy with the decision I made. I wasn't ready for it. I wasn't comfortable enough with him yet. We had only been dating about a month, and only ever met each other face-to-face once before. I had gone 20 years without sex with boyfriends I had dated and known for months if not years. I feel angry with myself for being so submissive and letting myself do something I knew I didn't want. I feel like I betrayed myself and my own morals, I'm mad because I more or less allowed myself to be objectified and used. I wish that my loss of virginity was something a little more special or enjoyable, but it wasn't.’

 

Semi-formal...

Without wanting to sound like a big sap, it sure is nice to start the year with a touching story.

I had to email today’s story teller about five times before I could post it as I genuinely did not understand some of the cultural references. I’ve told this tale before but years ago, during my first trip to the States, I grabbed a taxi from JFK into Manhattan with a couple of other stragglers from the airport. We dropped the stragglers off first before arriving at my destination of Prince and Elizabeth Street. As we did so, I realized that the stragglers had taken my bag, leaving me with theirs. The Horror!!

In stepped my knight in shining armor. To this day, I won’t hear a bad word about a New York cabbie. Mario Luna – for his name is still imprinted upon my memory – knew exactly where we had dropped off the bag grabbers and we were soon hot footing it back across town to retrieve it. By this point, my heart was in my mouth. In the months leading up to this trip, losing my belongings had most definitely not been part of my ‘arriving in New York for the first time’ fantasy.

When I finally arrived at the desk of the correct hotel and I gave what I thought was a plausible explanation for my sweaty, agitated presence, the woman behind the counter – in the most fabulous New York accent – uttered the immortal line, ‘I did not understand a word of what you just said’.

I was dumbstruck. I was talking in English but that’s just it. We might share the same language, but our colloquialisms are such that we don’t always ‘get’ each other.

Meanwhile, some concepts are universal. We all understand what its like to meet someone really wonderful for the first time. We all know what its like to meet someone that we can trust, someone that we can rely on. We don’t need language for that. It just is.

 'Hey there, my name is Jo. I'm 16, born in the grand ol' year of 1994, currently residing in the USA. I've been reading through your website for a few hours now and I came to the conclusion, my virginity loss was fantastic, especially for being 16. Well, without further adieu...

This was a process. Years, maybe. Two boys. For me, the quiet little blonde girl who liked punk rock and hanging with the older crowd, I think everyone assumed I'd ‘done it a million times’ by the time I actually did. I didn't care.

I'm an only child so my childhood best-friend and I, when we turned 10 or so, went straight to our computers that we both just received and suddenly figured out what the birds and bees truly were. Thank you, Fanfiction. Suddenly, my little brain was spinning with ideas of lust and romance, something more than ‘just kissing.’

Keep in mind, I still thought kissing with tongues was disgusting. Oh, little me. You have so much to learn.

Fast forward about two years and enter Dominic. We met 4 days after my 12th birthday and let me just say, he was GORGEOUS. I automatically assumed he was years older than me, with long reddish-brownish hair and big green eyes and scuffed up Chuck Taylors. I knew when I saw him across the room that he'd change me. Dominic and I clicked from the moment we first began talking.

Things took off pretty fast after that. Both of us were precocious 12 year olds (he was almost 13, November of 93!) who had too many questions and not enough answers. We loved our music loud and fast and angry and we especially loved discovering each other. Dominic was my first almost everything. He was my first kiss (grocery store, deli section), my first ‘make-out’/kiss with tongue (on his living room couch during ‘The Longest Mile’, that film with Adam Sandler), and eventually first penis I ever saw. When he dropped trou, I seriously had no idea what to expect. At this point, the only penis I ever saw was in the 3 second glimpse of Pete Wentz's (see: bassist of Fall Out Boy) schlong thanks to a friend on AIM Direct Connect, so to have a live, real, ERECT (!!?!?!!!?!) penis right there in front of my 12 year old face, I was at a complete and total loss. ‘...do you want me to...touch...it?’ I had a way with words, even then. Let me tell you.

Yet, even though Dominic and I were together three and a half years exactly, we never had sex. He always wanted to, constantly trying to coerce me into it but for me, I just...knew. I'm not a ‘TRUE LOVE WAITS!!11!!!!shifty!!1!’ person, nor strictly religious. Something just told me that he wasn't the one I should lose my virginity to. Call it intuition, I don't really know, but my gut decision wound up being right. As it turns out, he got it elsewhere in the meantime, cheating on me (and having the nerve to text her while sleeping in MY bed, but that's another story) and losing it to whatsherface-with-the-monroe-piercing, effectively breaking my 15-year-old heart.

Things with Dom and I had been rocky for a while though, since the start of my sophomore year. Ironically, that's about the time I was assigned to my sophomore year homeroom with ‘delicious-boy-who-likes-striped-thermals-and-fantasy-novels’ across the room. I never really figured out who he was strictly through homeroom, but man...he was adorable. I was too scared to walk up to him and comment on the books he was reading, even though we liked a lot of the same ones. (A 16 year old boy who reads Dante's Inferno and The Odyssey for fun!? WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN MY WHOLE LIFE?!)

Luckily for me, we shared a study hall together in January of 2010, after the Dominic ordeal ended. I came on entirely too strong but, as he told me later, he found it ‘endearing...since girls aren't really attracted and never have been. Plus, you're the most adorable thing I ever saw. So, the creepy was negated.’

I was kind of creepy. I Google Earth'd his address and found out how long it would take to walk to his house. I liked him. A lot.

In March, he asked me to semiformal*, which wound up being our first date. I think it was understood at this point that we would, eventually, wind up together. Upstairs, changing into my poofy black and purple dress in his parent’s bathroom, I said a silent prayer that this wouldn't be the last time I'd ever see his house. That this wouldn't be a one time thing; that this was a beginning. Prayers were answered that night.

Sitting upstairs on his bed, he had his purple dress shirt rolled up to his elbows, exposing some scars. ‘You're the only person I'd ever let see these,’ he said. Oh shit, I think I kinda sorta just fell in love with him.

Things progressed quickly after that point. We both didn't ‘need’ sex, but we were quiet and completely emotionally open with one another. We functioned as best friends since the moment we met, somehow it just seemed natural to move quick.

We were together 12 days when we had our first ‘experience.’ I came over to his house to enjoy the springtime weather, third time over *EVER*, mind you, and it started out as normal as one could ever expect.

We ate dinner. We made small talk with his mom and dad. We wanted to go in the hot tub downstairs, so we'd head up and get changed. Standing in his room, he ran his soft hands up from my thighs, taking my blue floral sundress off in one swift motion, leaving me standing there in my (only) pair of thong underwear and pink frilly polka dotted bra. Long story short, we were trembling and nervous and rolling around on the floor, touching new places and letting our skin melt into one another's. We tried to have sex, just to see what it'd feel like, but our nerves got the better of us and we couldn't quite ‘get it in.’ Laying on his comforter and pillows that he carefully laid down for us, we felt like we just hit the jackpot. Two virgin kids who fumbled and tried, who were learning to discover themselves through someone else. The whole experience reminded me of the e. e. cummings poem ‘I like my body with your body’:

 'i like my body when it is with your

body. It is so quite new a thing.

Muscles better and nerves more.

i like your body. i like what it does,

i like its hows. i like to feel the spine

of your body and its bones, and the trembling

-firm-smooth ness and which i will

again and again and again

kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,

i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz

of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes

over parting flesh ... And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you so quite new '

Time progressed and I found myself falling deeper in love with him than I could've ever imagined. We would write each other poems and talk about where we wanted to wind up in life. Our passions, our hopes, our dreams. 

My 16th birthday was coming up on June 10th. Troy was helping me plan a sweet 16 shindig for our friends, so for the weeks leading up to it, he was over my house quite a bit. He made invitations with me, favors, the whole bit. The day we actually lost our virginities was exactly one week before I turned 16, June 3rd. My mother worked late that night, not getting home until about 6 o'clock at night, leaving Troy and I three hours to ourselves. We were given the task of ‘finishing the party favors’ by my mother in exchange for the time alone. We both knew that this precious time would be used for finally giving me the best birthday gift of all.

I won't sugar coat it for you, it did hurt. We had issues trying to get it to ‘go in’ before, a few failed attempts under our belt, but this time we figured out that slow and steady wins the race. Seeing his soft, bare body hovering over mine all wrapped up in my soft white down duvet and hot pink flannel sheets sent shivers down my spine. Suddenly it wasn't just about the sex, it wasn't about the act, it wasn't about any of that. He looked at me and kissed me soft on the lips, and like that, it was in. 

Some girls complain about the first time they get penetrated, but to be honest, once he got going, it felt really natural. I jokingly called him ‘Goldilocks penis’ because he was just right. Not too big, not too small. He didn't come that first time, because after about 15 minutes or so I got too entirely sore, so we resorted to spooning- also known as the greatest invention known to mankind. 

It took us about 6 months before sex actually became extremely physically pleasurable, because emotionally it was incredible but I would still be in pain. Proud to say in about the past three to four weeks we finally mastered the art! :P

If you haven't guessed yet, Troy and I are still together. We are still very much in love, planning on where we want to go with our lives and still writing each other poems.

Losing my virginity to him will never be a mistake, because I gave it to a boy who gave me his everything in exchange. He's one of a kind. He's mine.’

*Semiformal is a school sponsored dance that has a 'semi-formal' dress code, meaning girls in tea-length dresses and boys in nice pants and a dress shirt, usually with sneakers and no tie.

A blog is not just for Christmas….

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

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

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

This is how it happened.

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

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

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

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

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

*verklemmt = emotionally inhibited in a convulsive way; stuck