By Grace Cooper

True confession: I'm 22 and not a virgin. Given my generation's prevalent culture of "hooking up", this is not the most shocking of admissions. Still, I can't help but suspect that even though I'm not technically pure, my sex IQ is not much higher than that of a 12-year-old Mormon schoolgirl. But I guess that's just how I am. I've always done everything by the book. I started dating my first long-term boyfriend when I was a junior in high school. We were together for almost two years, but don't worry, I never put out. I wasn't supposed to be having sex then anyway. Varsity athletics, perfect grades, and college apps are what ruled my life in those days. Quite honestly, the thought of "doing it" with him never crossed my mind.

That's not to say I was a total prude. I mean, by the time senior year rolled around, I let the poor guy feel around where he wanted to and with some encouragement on his part, my hands eventually made it into his pants. The only emotion I remember from that first penile-area adventure was extreme terror. My jumbled, overwhelmed thoughts were something along the lines of "ohmygod, ohmygod, I'm about to touch a penis… what part am I supposed to grab? … ohmygod now I'm holding a penis… ohmygod WHAT DO I DO WITH IT?!?" The result of that night was extreme mortification on my part and probably the most awkward, least satisfying hand job ever given. It didn't exactly help that my first penis came in its most natural state – that is to say, foreskin intact. All I really knew about foreskin back then was that doctors remove it during circumcision, but I had always imagined that it was more like one of those flip caps you see on easy squeeze ketchup bottles, definitely not a protective tube sock of insulation. I don't know if this fact is more incriminating of my adolescent naiveté or the quality of my high school's sex education program. Whatever the case may be, I was clearly lacking some pretty pertinent information at this stage of the game.

Anyway, let's fast-forward a few years. I'm 21 and not much seems to have changed. I'm still a virgin, still playing life by the good girl rules, and – after a year and a half long hiatus – I'm still dating that same guy from high school, who just so happens to attend my university now.  Everything about us is easy and comfortable, based more on old habit than romantic love (although I didn't recognize this at the time). By now, I had progressed from giving uncomfortable I'm-not-sure-if-I'm-doing-this-right hand jobs to well-at-least-he-seems-to-be-enjoying-this blowjobs. Since we slept over at each other's houses, people assumed that, like most long-term couples on our college campus, we were having sex. Little did they know, we still hadn't done the deed. It wasn't that any condemning religious or moral beliefs were standing in our way; rather, our reasons for waiting were purely practical. I had refused to go on the Pill, as I know my body reacts negatively to its side effects, and he didn't trust condoms alone… something that actually only turned out to be true until a few months later when what must have been his (extremely) blue balls got the best of him.

Our atypically prolonged chastity was broken one fateful summer night when we were cuddling on the couch in the hot, stuffy upstairs of my parent's house, alternately chatting, watching some horrible made-for-TV movie, and making out. I vaguely remember showing him some impressive two-week long leg hair growth or something equally un-cute when suddenly the topic of conversation seemed to be about having sex.  Wait, when did that happen? As long and hard as I think about it, I honestly have no clue. The best conclusion I can come up with is that I must have dozed off a bit, or more likely, gotten momentarily absorbed by the aforementioned TV-movie's highly dramatic, highly predictable storyline and failed to register the proposed change of activity. Regardless of how it happened, there he was, telling me to shave my legs while he went to the store to get some condoms. I was still kind of confused but didn't want to admit that I missed the leg hair-to-intercourse transition (after all, this was apparently a big moment for us), so I went along with it. Besides, I think he had wanted to have sex for a while and now with his sudden complete confidence in condoms, there wasn't any reason to say no. We'd been together for years now, and I'm not opposed to premarital sex, so it made sense to go ahead with things. Still, if I had really considered my feelings towards losing my virginity to this guy, my emotions could be most accurately described as ambivalent.

About fifteen minutes later, once adequately smooth legs and appropriate protection had been acquired, we got down to business. And when I say business, that's exactly what I mean. No playing around or letting the moment build up, just efficient, get-it-done stripping and jumping into bed. This was the first time for both of us, so of course things weren't going to be perfect, but since it's pretty obvious what's supposed to go where anatomically speaking, everything got to its intended destination without incident. It was soon after this that I remember my stream of consciousness kicking in. "Huh," I thought, "so this is what it's like to have someone inside me… interesting.  I guess it doesn't really hurt, so that's good … but I'm not getting off… I'm not even in the mood to get close to getting off. I don't feel anything at all actually… just… hollow. Empty. Bored. BORED?!?"

As I continued lying on my back with my legs spread wide, more thoughts – questions this time – crowded my head… "when would this be over? Why wasn't this fun? Was I doing something wrong?" And most importantly: "how could I cover up my lack of enthusiasm to avoid hurting his feelings?"  Hindsight suggests that it might have been helpful to engage in some sort of discourse over the matter… basic questions like "Do you want me to keep going?" or "Can we try this?" would have been infinitely more useful than the grunts, feigned moans of pleasure, and heavy breathing that remained the sole means of communication between us. The uneven rhythm of pelvic thrusting continued for a little while longer until…

… it stopped. No, he didn't cum, he just pulled out after a while because he was worried that the condom just wasn't staying on correctly. "Do you need me to go any more or did I get you okay?" he asked. There, finally a question. A poorly worded but honorably intended query that made me feel like I was just a piece of routine business...that what we had just done was another thing he could write into his schedule and check off the list when finished. An indescribable knot of tension descended into the pit of my stomach and made me want to curl up in a ball and cry. Now I felt something. As he left to go to the bathroom and clean up, I rolled over to look for my panties. They were lying on the floor. As I picked them up and pulled them up over my thighs, I drew a sigh of relief. Well, at least that was over.