Kat Allen
|
My previous understanding of sex was what we have since termed "hot dog in the bun". I believed the referenced vagina was what is in actuality the labia. I was 20 and I pictured sex as simply the friction of a penis rubbing within the labia, similarly to the way a hot dog fits in a bun. Maria was astounded by my ignorance:
"But how do you think the sperm got in the body?"
"I don't know, I just thought it was absorbed somehow."
"But you've been fingered and stuff, what did you think was happening?"
"I don't know, I just kinda thought that was a whole different thing."
"Don't you wear tampons?"
"No, I could never figure out how they worked."
"Why did you think people made sex out to be so intense?"
"I don't know, I just figured you didn't know until you had it."
"What would you have done if someone tried to have sex with you and you didn't know they were supposed to be going inside you?"
"I probably would have thought they were doing some mad kinky shit and flipped the hell out."
Having gone to Catholic school not just for high school but since kindergarten, sex education was left entirely in the hands of my parents. The closest we ever came to a sex talk was one awkward moment when my father spotted my underwear peeking over my jeans at 16.
"Pull your shirt down! Your underwear's showing!"
"Huff…fine."
"White for virgin, right?"
"Uhm…yeah, sure." It wasn't really an inviting opening for the two of us to have a quality father-daughter heart to heart. And since I had the hot dog in the bun theory, I had no idea that I needed to look into the matter and learn any more on my own.
I have reflected many times since that evening how lucky it was that I hadn't had sex before learning what it really was. It's very likely that had I entered into the act unprepared, a castration out of pure terror might have occurred. With my new anatomically correct revelation, I was horrified. The idea of anything going into my body, on the INSIDE - where I have organs and other complex systems- without a doctor's supervision, bright lights and highly sterilized equipment terrified me. I swore it would never happen. I was never going to let someone just loose inside me like that. No way.
For a while I tried to dreg up some inkling of the belief in God I had possessed in the past so that I could run away to a convent (My images of life as a nun reflected the egocentrism of my age. I denied that I would be the kind of nun thirteen years of Catholic schooling exposed me to and instead swore I'd find the Sister Act convent and we'd sing old R&B hits while chilling with all the cool people on our block.), but no luck. I was an agnostic bordering on an atheist and I would have to learn to embrace spinsterhood without any societally acceptable title or cool black habit to wear. I started hoping I'd die young.
A year later, hormones prevailed over fear, and sex became something I wanted to do very badly. Shouldn't be too hard right? I mean what man doesn't want to deflower a virgin? I saw Kids. Conveniently enough I had just started dating someone. I prepared him in advance so as not to be all torn up inside. And that's when I learned that apparently men prefer to deflower the virgins under the age of 18. After that old age, there's something scary about a girl who hasn't put out yet. Matt wanted to have sex with me, he just didn't want to be my first. I told him it wasn't a big deal, I wasn't looking for anything special, just wanted the event itself to go slow. He refused to believe me. He insisted that if I had waited that long I must be saving it for something special.
"No, really. I just didn't want to before. Now I do."
"Well, why me? Why am I different?"
"It's not you, it's me."
"But you must think I'm special, if you've waited this long. I like you, but I'm not sure I'm ready for a real serious relationship right now."
"I'm not looking for a serious relationship."
It turned into a conversation so closely resembling a break-up, that we just broke up, it seemed logical. He could never grasp that I could be 20 and have sex for the first time with someone who wasn't my soulmate. It's a dilemma I've repeated several times.
I tried to explain my position to a male friend once, thinking that since he wasn't directly involved he could see the situation objectively, understand the logic, and then perhaps pass the word along to the rest of his species. I was wrong.
"C'mon Kat, don't pretend like girls don't need it to be special."
"SOME girls. Lots of HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS, sex means something different if you're 15 then it does when you're 20."
"Yeah, it gets more serious…wow, especially if you haven't had it yet. I don't believe you're still a virgin."
"I'm trying not to be."
"Well, don't worry you'll meet the right guy."
I don't want the right guy. I'm young, I don't want a serious relationship, or marriage, I just want to have sex. If the entire male population continues to think this way, I'm not going to be able to do that. I suppose I could have sex with a woman, but it's not the same. Possibly, it's a conspiracy by the male population to force more instances of girl on girl sex. I find that unlikely, I really don't believe they as a gender have that much self-control. So instead I think it's just stubbornness that's going to force me to wait until I meet the right guy. And then I'm only going to get to have one kind of sex. Which of course leads to the dilemma of how good can I get at it if I only have it with one person? I'll be stuck stylistically. Eventually he'll get bored with me because I will lack variety. He'll leave me for better physical pursuits, and as opposed to being a spinster by choice, I will be a bitter and sad spinster. And probably own many cats.
My next boyfriend gave me new hope. He was a friend of a friend and more rational about the ideas of women's capacity to view sex casually. Nothing really special, he was a skinny boy with a hooked nose, but for some reason we had intense physical chemistry. Both of us wanted to have sex very badly. However he was extremely well-endowed, much more than I could handle as a first-timer, or so he told me. Since I haven't had sex, I don't really know. Eventually we broke up, partially as a result of the fact we really had nothing in common, but I maintain a lot of our tensions could be directly linked back to the fact that he insisted we couldn't get it on. We tried once when we were both drunk, it didn't work. So, as a disappointment to many of my more experienced friends, I essentially broke up with him because his penis was too big.
Suddenly I found myself 21 years old and sitting at my kitchen table the summer before my senior year in college with my three best friends. Maria, Vanessa and I do not suffer from any major physical deformity or eczema. In fact Maria is beautiful and amazingly intelligent and Vanessa is stunning and witty, yet we are all shackled to our virginity. Winifred, our other friend, who is a blatant slut in comparison, although certainly not even close to what society would consider easy, sat at the table marveling in the fact that after all this time she still couldn't talk about sex with us because none of us had had it yet. She feels we are too picky. I disagree. It's true all three of us individually have types of men we will not sleep with. I refuse to consider men that call me "shorty" on the street. Why would men even begin to imagine I would have a positive reaction to that? To me all it seems to be is an exhibition of their delight that they could easily dominate me. Maria can occasionally develop "sex aversion" to some men. For example, she is easily disgusted by the idea of feet. After making out with an extremely attractive guy for an extended period of time, he began to suck her toes. Maria stood up, left the room, puked, and refused to ever see him again. As for Vanessa don't even think about asking her to sleep with any man who wears tapered pants. But beyond that we weren't striving for the perfect mate or connection, we just wanted some respect and not a whole lot of pain. We really couldn't decipher why it was so surprisingly difficult.
I have now reached my senior year. Early this fall I was sitting in Maria's dorm room with some of her roommates, a few of whom are also lamentably virgins. Considering my prospects for potential partners and realizing I had none, I uttered, "I really think I'm going to graduate and still be a virgin, and then it's probably just gonna get even harder." Maria and our friend Liz shook their heads in resigned agreement. But Maria's roommate Rachel laughed mockingly at our pessimism, "You guys, the year just started. Give it a chance." This thought raised my spirits. The year had indeed just begun, possibilities were endless. Maria and I even discussed taking out an ad in the school newspaper for ourselves and Vanessa: "Three Hot Virgins Seek Man with Small Penis". However we decided both Vanessa and our University would not support that endeavor.
Then Maria took the leap. She met a man. He was the ideal situation. He was in a long distance relationship that was open for sex with other partners, but no emotional commitment. Maria was physically attracted to him (she thought he was beautiful) but had no real interest in him personally. He lived with another one of Maria's friends and had expressed his interest to her. The friend explained Maria's situation, and he was more than glad to take on the task. The best part was he was Asian, and therefore we rationalized he probably had a small penis. It seemed perfect. They both intentionally went to the same party, got drunk, and the deed was done! It wasn't that great, but Maria is now free to have sex with whomever and whenever she chooses. She has done so, it's gotten better and she is happy. I latched on to this idea as my shining beacon of example. If Maria could do it, then I could too!
The year has progressed and I have been informed that my friend ChronJon wants to "bone" me. I am slightly interested, mostly because we call him ChronJon, so I will always be able to say that someone by that name was my first, which I find intriguing. But there is something about his use of the term "bone" that puts me off. It is not in any way a pleasant euphemism. It reminds me of the pain you experience when you knock your shin, or your funny bone, only you feel this pain when your pelvis hits that of your partner's. Additionally because his desire to bone me has come to me through information passed along friends it puts this whole pressure of everyone else watching what happens on it. This always makes me feel like a rat in a laboratory, and therefore want to rebel against the expectations of others. Lastly, we shared a bed platonically on Halloween night. He dressed as the Incredible Hulk, complete with body paint. So I arose from my drunken stupor staring at the back of a big green man, which has now given me sex aversion. Therefore odds are ChronJon and I will never "bone".
At least he knows I'm a virgin and still wants to sleep with me. That fact has helped reassure me that I do not suffer from some outrageous deformity the entire world is too polite to tell me about. If someone had told me at age 15 that I would have problems losing my virginity, I would have laughed. Opportunities abounded. But sex was a mystery then, and I declined. Now I understand it, but I can't have it. I don't really know what the problem is. I'd like to blame it on society though. Because then at least it's not my fault. Therefore society takes the issue of women's virginity entirely too seriously while not treating the issue of a girl's virginity with enough respect. Although my situation was uniquely sheltered, as a whole society still tries to shield a natural human instinct from girls just as they are on the brink of stumbling into it without any preparation. Young girls are sexualized for the purpose of male fantasy, but are denied the opportunity or approved agency to learn about it in a rational context. Media images of sex are romanticized versions of the reality and while males are praised for their ability to cipher through the imposed connotations and separate the romance from the physical act, the only women allowed to do the same are the ones that either males or media conquered in their youth. A woman's desire to take control of her own sexuality in a mature and informed manner becomes a problem. Whether it be the woman who is as interested in experimenting with a succession of sexual acts and partners as a man, or a woman who, independent of the opinions of males or society, wanted to wait until she personally decided it was her time, the sexually free woman is subversely outcasted from the culture of intercourse. And I would like it to stop, please. Because I do not regret that I waited in high school, but now I am older, I am wiser, and I too want to have the sex.