'She could absolutely be
forgiven for not remembering the precise moment of her virginity loss because
it was so long ago but one thing she was 100% certain about was this: it was
before she got married.
'We imagine that the
older generation were all so Victorian in their attitudes towards sex but its
simply not true. Some were and some weren't.
'What intrigued me was
the idea of exploring recent history via the first person stories of lost
virginity.
'Ask someone who lost
their virginity in the 1940s and someone else who lost theirs in the 90s and
you will hear two very different stories.
'In between those two
events, you will see the introduction of the contraceptive pill in the 1960s
and the enormous impact that had on the lives of women, then and today. Its
been a fascinating journey.'
Here, Kate shares some
of the stories from her fascinating book, Losing It: How We Popped Our Cherry
Over The Last 80 Years, which is available now.
'Learning how to go down
on women was a huge step forward for me': Charlie Thomas, born in 1962, was a
victim of thalidomide. His arms that finish at his elbows.
'It was the late
Seventies, she was the daughter of one of these lesbian couplings and she was
called Stella. Stella had huge bosoms, reeked of ‘teenage’ and sashayed down
the hall in a way that stopped everybody in their tracks.
'Cut forward a couple of
months we were almost officially girlfriend and boyfriend. One day, in her
bedroom, with her mum downstairs, one thing led to another and she lay down and
opened her legs.
'I sort of got on top of
her, I had no notion of foreplay or anything like that and I managed to put it
in her with a little bit of assistance, and then I started putting it in and
out and in and out again.
'And I remember
thinking, "Is that it? Is this what I’ve been waiting for? Because this is
shit! This is nothing!" I didn’t come either, so I didn’t really
understand the feeling that can go with it. I’d done the act but I didn’t have
the feeling.
'It wasn’t long after
that that we were doing it every night. I had a lot of partners over the years
because I was in rock-and-roll bands and I was shagging everything I could get
my hands on.
'Some moves were not an
option to me, because of the disability stuff; there were some areas that I
literally could not reach. So I became damn good at oral sex to make up for that.
Making the leap and learning how to go down on women was a huge step forward
for me because then I could absolutely guarantee their pleasure.'
'I ended up in
hospital': Taylor, from Pennsylvania, US, was born 1981. He lost virginity
first week of August, 1997, aged 15.
'One Friday after work I
met Sarah at her house. We ate together, drank a bit of wine, watched TV, made
out and eventually ended up undressed on the couch. I should point out that
this couch was a beige leather-clad monstrosity that had a large glass topped
coffee table positioned in front of it.
'At first I was so
nervous I couldn't keep an erection for more than a couple minutes. We lay
together, cuddling for a while before trying again.
'Sarah insisted I be on
top. I tried to penetrate her a couple times and, on the third try I got in a
little deeper and tried shifting my knee, only to have it slip off the
couch.
'I fell sideways,
banging the ol' family jewels on the edge uncovered by cushions and slashed my
scalp open on the corner of the glass coffee table. Sarah peered over the edge
of the couch, caught in uncontrollable laughter, which made me start
laughing.
'It took me a minute or
two to realize my head was bleeding quite a bit. Off to the local medical
clinic we went, her driving faster than the speed limit, me holding a kitchen
towel to my head, both of us breaking out in fits of giggles.
'It only required two
stitches and we were back at her house within two hours.'
'My friend was drugged':
For Samantha, 23 from the US,her first time wasn't the romantic notion she
thought it would be.
'Me and my best friend
were the funny, likable, frumpy girls in high school. Popular but not sexy like
the dancers, we made friends of boys rather than lovers.
'We lived in a small
town about an hour away from the city. When we were 16, we jumped on the bus
one Monday night and head to the city. We thought it would be exiting and full
of passionate embraces.
'By the time we found
ourselves out the front of a hostel in the dawn, my friend drugged by the man
she just shared a bunk with, and me, with the taste of someone foreign and ugly
in my mouth, it lost its charm.
'He was French and
looked OK on the dance floor of a backpackers pub. He did me briefly in the
bathtub.
'There was a moment on
the curb, when the morning birds were waking, when I noticed I was bleeding
slightly.
'My friend held me
tenderly in her groggy arms and the ride home was strange and silent. We are
still close to this day.'
'It's about what feels
right': Mei, was born in China in 1991, in China before moving to America as a
child. She lost her virginity at college.
'I grew up with strict
parents, perfect grades, and not surprisingly, a very conservative view on sex,
alcohol, drugs, and the like.
'When I went to college,
I immediately started to date Jamie. He was everything that my old life was
not. He smoked and drank, and didn't think any of it was a big deal.
'After we had dated for
two weeks, I decided to have sex with Jamie. Thinking back on it now, I wanted
something to erase all the stiffness and Chinese-ness that had defined my life
for 19 years.
'Jamie was also a
virgin. We didn't really know what we were doing. I was tense and nervous, and
it hurt like hell. After a few failed attempts, we gave up.
'We stayed together, and
spent many days and nights just enjoying each other’s company. Then one night,
when we were fooling around, I knew then that this was how it should be.
'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.
'It's about what feels
right, and being with Jamie felt right.'
'If you were
intelligent, you knew the anatomy, but we courted disaster all the time:' A
British man, who does not wish to be named, was born 1942, and lost his
virginity aged 16 to his now wife.
'There was no formal sex
education in schools. You can tell people a lot of stuff and draw them diagrams
but they’ve still got to actually experiment.
'I met my wife when she
was fourteen and I was sixteen. She was extremely outgoing and
anti-authoritarian and one thing quickly led to another. We used to I dance
together a lot, still do in fact, if we get the chance and we can stay
upright!
'She came to my house a
lot. My parents were out all day and the place was always empty.
'I had a whole floor of
the house for my records and books and we would go up there during the day for
hours without any interruption. Nobody thought for a moment what we were doing.
They’d have been horrified if they’d known.'
No comments:
Post a Comment