I lost my virginity when I was fifteen years old....about one month before my sixteenth birthday to be exact. The first time we tried didn't quite work out. We were on my couch....middle of the day....he must have been feeling too much "pressure."
We tried again a few days later. This time at his house....upstairs, in his bedroom. His mother was very sick with cancer that summer....the doctors didn't expect her to make it more than six months (ironic: she has now outlived him.) Being the young, selfish brats that we were, we took full advantage of all of that alone time.
The first time was typical of first times. Pretty uneventful. A little pain. No blood. I remember expecting it to be much worse than it really was. After getting through that first time the two of us became a pair of teenage nymphos. Although he was my first, I wasn't his, and, well hell, we were horny teenagers! We did it everywhere and every chance we could. His grandmother was downstairs cooking dinner? No problem! Park his dad's car in the school parking lot? You got it! His best friend's parents' bed? A classmate's after prom party in her grandmother's room? We didn't care where, as long as we were doing it. We would rush back to his house on lunch breaks...once we were caught by his dad with his head between my legs. Once (maybe more?) we climbed on top of the local elementary school and did it there. Got caught by the football team in parking lots on more than one occasion. And there was one magical snow storm where we built an igloo on his front lawn and got it on inside....with all the cars humming by on a semi-busy street.
What is the point of all this explicit reminiscing you ask? There are two actually. First, as an adult I shudder at the thought of kids having sex. I look at my students and am in complete denial that they are sexual beings. I see the pregnant teenagers and shake my head. But I'm a hypocrite. I was one of the most sexually active kids there was. Luckily, I went from one long term relationship to a second one, so even with all the crazy sex I was having in high school, at least I only had two partners. There was almost a third in between the two boyfriends, but that story is for another time...
Now, don't get me wrong. As much as I can't bring myself to accept that all of my little babies are, or will be soon, having sex, that does not make me a conservative-abstinence-only-preacher. I am pretty liberal and believe wholly and fully in the necessity and importance of sex education. I actually took this stand at a young age and have grown more passionate about it as I have gotten older. Our kids need to be informed. They need to know how to protect themselves and their partners. They have the unalienable right to the truth...and all of it. Not informing them, not educating them about their bodies and their sexual rights is a crime and goes against all that this country was built upon. Again, maybe this rant is best saved for another time....
My second point is more relevant to myself and my life today. You see, it is a sad reality that I had much, much more of a sex life when I was a teenager than I do now in my thirties. And frankly, I think that is a crying shame! If I knew then what I know now....well, I would have savored it more. I never in a million years would have guessed that at the age of 32 I would have become basically celibate. I sometimes fear that I will never have sex again. Is that what I want? Absolutely not! I love sex! What I remember of it anyway. I firmly believe that a healthy sex life is incredibly important in leading an overall healthy life. Think of a baby that has been deprived of human touch. Now, for a minute, imagine that for yourself. Imagine going one, two, three years (or whatever your own threshold may be) without touching someone else. Without feeling someone else's skin against your own. Without kissing. Feeling another's hands on your face, back, arm, leg.... Of course, we all have daily contact (hopefully) with our family and friends. But that is not the touch that I am writing of. It has been so long...I can actually feel myself craving to be held...
So, as I watch Amy struggling as a new, teenage mom and Grace deciding to have sex for the first time, I am reminded of my own life in so many ways.
The secret life.
Mine sure was.
Still is.
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