‘Losing’ your virginity, we’re told, is usually a bleak event. It’s an experience of loss, as its name suggests. So
what if it had a different name? How about ‘gaining your sexuality’, or even ‘gaining your power’? Doesn’t that
suggest it can be something quite different? Fun. Pleasurable. Empowering, even. Because it’s not always bad.
When I was 15, I told my mother I was going to stay with a friend, then went to the house of a boy I’d met
a few weeks before. He had dark hair that fell across his face and, when I arrived, he told me his parents were
away before taking me to his bedroom at the top of the house. I’d been making myself come since I was nine
or ten, when I first discovered the momentary wild escapism of having a wank, but I’d never had a boyfriend
or slept with anyone. At school, I was shy and worked too hard for boys to be interested. But this boy was 19,
four years older than me, a friend of my older sister, so I didn’t seem weird to him. I seemed ripe. He f*cked me
and I came, twice, in quick succession. I knew that feeling, but more unfamiliar was his face, so close to mine,
the weight of his body pressing me down, which meant, even though it felt nice, I could not move.
He was kind, though, handing me tissue to wipe the cum off my leg. It might have given me an
unrealistic sense that sex with someone you don’t know pays out an endless source of immediate orgasms.
In some senses, it was the easiest
sexofmylife.I thenstartedhaving
sexwithboysatschool,orolder
brothers of my sister’s other
friends.Sexwasusuallyorgasmic
and,mostofthetime,nobigdeal.
It mademefeelI wasopening
newdoorsinmyhead.Having
sexwitha boyrequirednomore
emotional commitment than
standingoutsideandsharing
acigarettewithhim.Italmost
makesmelaughwhenI lookback
atit now:I hadnoideait would
neverbethissimpleagain.Sex... T HE FIRST T IME
butit doesn’tnecessarilycreateconnection.Sometimes,thethrillofnaked,
unknownskinwasenough,butoftenit wasn’t.Therewas
lotsofsexinmytwenties,that’strue.But,lookingback,
I wonderhowsexcanreallyberewardingwhenyou
don’ttrulyknowyourselfandarebreakingupinside.
I wasstrugglingwithaparticularlyacutefamilytrauma
butI don’tknowa singletwentysomethingwhoisn’tcoping
withsomekindofexistentialcrisis,evenif that’ssimply
learningtoliveindependentlyforthefirsttime.
Myrelationshipwithmymothernowinvolvedregular
visitstothenursinghomeshelivedin.I lefteachvisit,during
whichsheneitherrecognisednorcouldsayanythingto
me,carryinga heartfullofgrief,guilt,rageandconfusion
aboutwhathadhappened.Withsex,I couldshut
myselfina darkboxofdesirewhereonlypainofmyown
creationcouldhurtme.Lifehadtaughtmethatmakingfriendswithpain,
seekingit out,wastheonlywaytosurviveit.Once,tracingthetattoos
onthebackofa manlyingnakednexttome,hetoldmeheburgledhouses
foraliving.I didnotlikehavingsexwithhim,buttheideaofthepainhe
carriedwithhim– otherpeople’spainoflossandviolation– turnedmeon.In my twenties, sex changed from the fun recreation it had been in my teens.
This was because my emotional life was so unstable. That powerful sense of
self I’d experienced had been ripped away when my stable, loving family
imploded, dramatically and tragically, after my mother had an accident that
left her in a coma for months. When she awoke, she was profoundly mentally
and physically disabled. The place that was ‘home’ ended, and sex became
my refuge, the new place I ran to for comfort and validation. I wore tight jeans
and was brave and adventurous. I wished my hair was less frizzy but I knew
that my round, ripe bum was something boys in real life liked, even if all the
girls in magazines and films were thin and tall. Of course, sex could be fun;
it was drunk, free and easy. It was plentiful. But, honestly, it was rarely good.
That intense cocktail of adrenalin and pheromones creates excitement,Sex... A ND GRIEF
” WITH SEX,
I COULD SHUT
MYSELF IN A DARK
BOX OF DESIRE
W HE RE ONLY
pain of my own
c reation
COULD HURT ME ”84 ELLE.COM/UK^ May 2020