Virginity Stories

There’s a young woman out there who is compiling a book. I could describe it to you, but instead I’ll just reproduce her own words:

My book is about sex, more specifically about virginity. I want your stories about how you lost yours, and my ultimate goal is to use the most interesting contributions for a book in which women's stories are compared with men's stories. The whole point of this: to show the different stereotypes/stigmas/etc. that are associated with having sex, and how they mean different things for different people...Therefore, when people read this book, it can help break down the whole idea of what the "first time" is supposed to be like.

If you're interested, I would love for you to submit your story. It can be a poem, a short story, a paragraph, stream of consciousness, a drawing, ANYTHING your little heart desires. What was it like, what did you think it would be like, did you feel bad, good, guilty? How did your identity/your partner's identity come into play? I just want your true expressed version of how it all went down for you. (Or how it all did NOT go down). I want stories from virgins too. (why they are waiting,
etc.) I want stories from all sorts of people who are from different backgrounds, classes, religions, ethnicities, sexual orientations, etc.

Soooo, if you want to be a part of my project, you can email me your story back here at myspace, or you can send it to me at lindsayannwhite@yahoo.com. This is a voluntary thing, if your contribution makes it to the book, you will not be paid (sorry). The stories will be published anonymously, so keep in mind that any information about the contributor will only be found in their actual contribution. The submission deadline is Thanksgiving. I am very passionate about this project, so please don't steal my thunder.Thanks for taking the time to read this message, and I look forward to hearing from you!

With lots of love,

Lindsay

So, you know, you guys help her out. I myself thought it sounded interesting, so I sent my story along to her. This is what I sent.

* * * * * * *

I’m afraid the loss of my virginity isn’t a great story, but I hope it’s got some twists in it that maybe aren’t that common.

I gotta give some background here. I was 15 and madly in love with an “older woman,” which is to say that she was 19 and married. When you’re 15, a 19-year-old seems like the very embodiment of wisdom and maturity, and I think it would be fair to say that I worshipped this woman more than genuinely loved her. She was lovely and smart, with a quick wit and a sharp tongue, and was a little more willing to say exactly what she thought than was perhaps good for her. And she could be very sweet, very gentle and understanding. I wrote her letters every day, page after page, and she was earth and sun and moon to me.

Anyway, she had married too young and was unhappy in the relationship, and I suppose she let the smitten young boy that I was latch onto her as much out of boredom as anything else. I spent every free minute I could with her. She would listen patiently to my protestations of endless love. She would make out with me, even sleep (literally) with me, but she wasn’t willing to go the last step and actually have sex with me. I guess the marriage vows still meant something to her, even if the marriage itself didn’t.

She was everything I wanted except that we weren’t sexually intimate with each other. Now, that’s a big deal in any relationship at any time of life, but especially so for a 15-year-old boy; other things are important, but sex trumps everything. I mean, there’s a serious biological imperative there, and her constant nearness and her intimacy drove me just about crazy with this passion I felt for her, and for which there was no release. There may have been peer pressure as well (actually, I’m sure there was…there always is), but to be honest, I don’t remember any.

There was an apartment across the street from the restaurant where I worked at the time, rented by some friends of mine. They had parties pretty much every night, so most nights when I got off work I would go across and hang out there ‘til sunrise or thereabouts, and my idol (I suppose she needs a name, but I won’t use her real one; we’ll call her Molly, because every story should have a Molly in it) would usually meet me there and we’d have an evening together.

One night there was a girl there that I didn’t know. I was very drunk, and she was very drunk, and somehow it came about that she wanted to screw somebody that night and, as she didn’t particularly care who it was, I would do just fine. So I went and talked to Molly about it. Isn’t that a little strange? I asked for her permission to have sex with this girl. And, for whatever reason, she gave it.

We went out to her truck and fooled around a little bit, and then took a spare bedroom for ourselves. To be honest, I don’t remember a hell of a lot about the act itself, beyond feeling a little bit disappointed when it was all over. Was that all there was? I don’t remember now what I had expected, but whatever it was, it wasn’t what I got.

I know that I felt thoroughly disgusted with myself and with her, and felt the same urge to escape from that room that one feels when stuck in a particularly smelly public restroom. There was probably less than a minute between the orgasm and me slipping out of the bed and pulling on my clothes; I wasn’t even flaccid yet when I walked out of the room. And you know, to this day I can’t remember her name or what she looked like or anything about her, except her being very angry that I was leaving.

I went back into the living room, and Molly was sitting on the sofa drinking gin and grapefruit juice (don’t know why I remember that). I felt profoundly ashamed, both for having gone off with the girl and for having treated her so badly afterwards. I apologized to Molly (not to the other girl; she avoided me when she came out of the room, and never saw her again thereafter) and told her I loved her, which seems terribly strange to me now, to do that only moments after being with another woman, and with her smell still on me. But for some reason, Molly blew it off. She forgave me, got me a drink, and told me she loved me, too. We sat and drank and talked for a little while, and then curled up in a sleeping bag in the corner and fell asleep in each other’s arms, just like we always did; and as far as she was concerned, the other girl had never happened. And now it’s twenty years later and I still don’t understand my behavior or hers on that night.

Shame and gratitude (for Molly’s forgiveness) are the only emotions I remember from that night. I think the next day I felt relief, as well; I wouldn’t talk about what had happened, but I’d had friends there who had talked about it, and at least among our crowd virginity (either in a boy or a girl) carried a certain stigma. I was, therefore, glad not to be a virgin anymore, though I wasn’t comfortable with the process that had changed my status. But really, even the sense of relief wasn’t very strong, since most of my friends had assumed that Molly and I were sexually active with each other anyway, and the events of that night just seemed like an interesting story to tell each other over the lunch table.

In any event, I don’t think about all this very much anymore. I don’t think that the experience made much difference in my life after that night, and since my relationship with Molly eventually became sexual I tend really to think of her as the person I lost my virginity to (and my relationship with Molly is a whole book in itself). It’s pretty rare that I remember the nameless girl at Ace & Brenda’s. But it’s funny that after all these years, when I do think of her, I still feel bad; and when I think of Molly, I’m as likely to feel embarrassed as anything else. I want to stress that I'm not in any way sorry that I became sexually active. I just would maybe have liked it to have happened somewhat differently.

So that’s my story. I hope it’ll suit your book. Good luck.