Monday, August 10, 2009

Still a Virgin, But En Route to Slut

On spring break of my freshman year, I had a mild sexual experimentation on a tour bus. I say mild because now, from a grown woman's vantage point, it seems mild and normal. But at the time, it was bewildering. Not normal. Evidence that something was clearly wrong with me.

I had no sexual filter, no sexual context, no sexual education, no sexual role models.

All I had was a deep desire for my first real boyfriend. To my 18-year-old mind, it was a long overdue rite of passage. I was supposed to have a boyfriend. Something was clearly wrong with me that I'd never had one.

I'd been devastated when Valentine's Day had come and gone with no sweetheart to sweeten it up.

I'd confided my feelings to one of my new, few college friends: an equally rare low-income black girl with the smarts to get into Yale – and the unmitigated gall to accept the acceptance letter. She was quirky, quiet, slow-moving ... and deep. Deeply intelligent, but without the type-A competitive fire that animated me and most of our classmates.

Deep had chuckled at my angst. "Maybe you need to stop being in love with love."

Huh?

Of course I was in love with love.

I had a perfect Catholic idea that I would find The Boyfriend who would quickly become The Husband, and together we'd spit out 2-7 kids. On our 50th wedding anniversary, we'd toddle down the main aisle during mass to celebrate our living embodiment of the Sacrament of Marriage.

This dream was absolutely, positively inconsistent with the reality that transpired.

In a desperate, lonely attempt to make friends and fit in, I'd joined the Yale Gospel Choir on its spring-break bus tour. A few days in, I ended up sharing a seat with Med School.

Med School was 8-10 years older than me. A nice guy. From Michigan. Average attractiveness. A future anesthesiologist who'd chosen anesthesiology as his specialty because it paid well enough to offset the gazillions of dollars he now owed in student loans.

My looking-for-my-first-boyfriend mind calculated, "He's nice, he'd probably treat you right, and wow – he's even a doctor."

To my surprise, and probably his, I grabbed his hand underneath the blanket that covered us.

Holding hands gradually led to him stroking my fingers and my wrists. Then stroking my breasts over my sweatshirt, then gradually and tentatively, stroking me under my sweatshirt and over my bra, then inside my bra. Not to mention stroking the Down South place over my jeans.

A soon-to-become-familiar sexual tug-of-war played in my head.
I deserve to be touched. I shouldn't feel guilty. I'm not doing anything wrong.

Followed by:

What are you doing? Why are you doing this? Why do you seem to have a thing for older men whom you don't find physically attractive?

That night, Daddy visited me in a nightmare yelling, "Sin, sin, sin!"

What bothered me was that I didn't know Med School very well and I didn't feel a strong attachment to him, yet I had willingly engaged in a purely physical encounter.

It was time #3. My first sexual experimentation had been with 40-something Johnnie Walker when I was 16. Shortly thereafter, I'd shared my newfound familiarity with oral sex with one of my childhood friends, after dark in a local park. After those two experiences, I'd sworn that the next man who touched my body would be someone I was either madly in love or in lust with.

Med School didn't fall into either category, so I felt a guilty sensation of eww and ick that caused me to self-consciously avoid him for the rest of the tour and the rest of the semester.

(Virginity Diaries Part 1 of 11: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Lessons Learned 1 2 3)

10 comments:

Zanna said...

It is all about experimentation. For guys it is part of their initiation into adulthood and for us girls it is something to be a shamed of!

peacewesttt said...

whoa .
ive never seen a blog like this so i just wnana give you kudoss .
it aint your fault. sexual things are fun, and i guess you got caught up .
pardon me if i read and comment all your blogs lol

magdaayuk said...

I enjoy reading you. I hope these posts are therapeutic for you to write;)

Bri said...

Again, I enjoy reading your blog. Great voice...and I think you're really pretty.

O.F.C.J. said...

We all make mistakes. We all make mistakes. We all make mistakes. ...the ultimate sin is not to learn and keep repeating them. You seem to have learned, no? :)

O.F.C.J.

yours truly said...

wow you blog is really fascinating and I admire the raw openness. It's almost like reading a book on coming of age. great post. and I think when you're a young female, you're only human wanting affection from someone in a sexual way. learning from mistakes is the important part.

Don't Be a Slut said...

To all the new faces, hello and welcome!

To all my old blog homies, welcome back. Sorry I've been away so long. The new job is going well but kicking my ass schedule-wise. I finally feel like I'm getting back into a groove with my blog, thank God.

And yes, it is interesting how boys are given freedom to explore and girls are given guilt and shame.

Anonymous said...

Hey, thanks for stopping by my blog, I just relocated, playing a little catch up...

You are such an excellent writer! Do you get tired of hearing it? lol...Every time I read your blog I feel we had so much in common...on to the next one...[blog post]

Anonymous said...

"I'd been devastated when Valentine's Day had come and gone with no sweetheart to sweeten it up."

...story of the last 3 years of my life.haha I'm 16 going on 17 and I'll be in university this autumn/fall n I'll still have no relationship/..... experience. I feel like there's sumthn wrong with me!!

I totally feel you and love your writing and we seem to both be in love with love

http://inlovewiththeidea.blogspot.com/

jenny said...

I was browsing the net and your blog caught my attention. Good read!


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