First Time Secrets

Wes wrote in recently with this question:

Samantha — I’m not just a virgin, I’ve also never had a girlfriend and never been kissed. I don’t understand what’s wrong. I’m 19 and just finished my first year of college, and I’m more popular than I ever tought was possible for a freshman at an Ivy League school — I have friends, including plenty of female ones, in practically every social circle, the most influential upperclassmen and professors know me, my writing is going to be nationally published this fall in the Weekly Standard and New Republic (I’m embedding in Iraq and writing about it), I’m at the top of my ROTC battalion, and even if I’m no model I’m plenty good looking.

People are fascinated by me — but I’ve never known a girl to have a crush on me and I’d have no idea what to do if one did.

I feel like a fraud — professors, students, senators, and soldiers alike treat me as a respected equal, but I’m not at all, I’m just a kid carrying around this huge, sad secret that I don’t even know what a girl feels like.

I don’t know what to do…if I just keep doing what I’m doing, I can see that I’ll keep moving up in the world, but I’m terrified that all that will come without my finding a girlfriend. I can’t turn 20 like this…the only friends who know my secret tell me to just get drunk and hook up like everyone else at Princeton, but that just seems wrong, and besides, I want to really enjoy my first kiss — I can’t be drunk.

What is wrong? I’m smart, I’m confident, I’m never unkind to anybody (unless they’re a complete jackass), my female friends tell me that I’m just perfect the way I am…but clearly I’m not — I’m 19 and have never been kissed. Help!

Wes, you sound like a great guy, and from your description, you sound like the kind of guy lots of girls lust after. You’re well-connected socially, you’re at a prestigious school, you’re going to be published, and you probably look pretty hot in your uniform.

First of all, don’t stop doing what you’re doing with your life. You sound like you have a lot of dedication and passion, and a lot of interests — and in the end, that’s one of the most important features that will make you a great lover and a great life partner for the right girl. And I’m glad you don’t want to just get drunk and hook up. Sure, it’s what a lot of people do, but your first times for everything (first kiss, first time making love, first love) can be so much more meaningful if you treat them like something special.

I find it really interesting that you say, “I’ve never known a girl to have a crush on me,” then follow that with “and I’d have no idea what to do if one did.” I’m willing to bet that more than one girl HAS had a crush on you — but frankly, Wes, you’ve dropped the ball before she had a chance to get closer to you. Don’t feel bad about it; you’re not stupid and there’s nothing wrong with you. You simply don’t know what to do with that initial spark of attraction. If you fan it, it will grow into a flame. And if you leave it alone, it will go out.

It sounds like you believe love and sex are things that are going to “happen to you.” Like winning the lottery, or getting hit by a car — an event that you don’t control or influence, that simply comes along and, well, happens. Most of us start out believing that attraction and sex are like that. But they’re not.

Desire and love aren’t like a Cupid’s arrow that gets shot from one person to another. They’re a connection that forms by passing back and forth between two people. At first, that connection can be incredibly delicate — it’s eye contact, or a sidelong glance that lingers a second too long. Glance back at her, and you give that connection a chance to grow. If you start sweating and look away and pretend you didn’t see her, well, that’s it for the connection.

Wes, I’m sorry to say that if you simply continue to wait for it, it’s unlikely that any girl is ever going to kiss you, no matter how many impressive achievements you rack up. What has to change? Well, you need to find a girl YOU want to kiss, then let her know that that’s what you want. Not by marching up and saying “I want to kiss you,” but by checking her out in a subtle and non-threatening way. If she doesn’t look interested, don’t pursue it. If she does, take the next little step. Make some conversation. If your conversation goes well, ask her if she’d like to do it again over coffee or something.

I get the feeling from your letter that you feel like a girlfriend is an achievement you’re “supposed” to have achieved by now. While it’s true that a lot of people your age have experimented with sex and may have even fallen in love a few times, the fact that you’re single certainly doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. You’re busy with other things! Don’t go looking for a girlfriend because you’re supposed to. If you feel like you have love to give, and you’d like to receive a little love from a girl you fancy, then it’s time to get out there and make it happen.

Remember, Wes, it’s not all about you. You may think you’re fascinating, but that’s beside the point. (And makes me worry that you might come off a bit arrogant — make sure you never tell a girl that “people find me fascinating” or she’ll think you’re a dick.) To get affection, you need to give it out — real affection, not just a false display. If you want to be loved, you need to learn how to love others and show them that you feel that way. You need to be ready to take the risk of loving someone without them returning the favor. Once you can do that, you’ll be ready.

I just read a story by Kate McGovern published in the New York Times called My Virginity Went from Choice to Burden. Among other things, she talks about the embarrassment of being 25 years old and having to admit to a nurse that there is no possibility she is pregnant:

I definitely was not pregnant. Pregnancy, in fact, was a scientific impossibility for me. Not because I’d had a slow month or two (though this was what I implied to Sabrina, with a carefully calculated roll of the eyes) but because at age 25, quite by accident, I was still a virgin.

For a lot of us, virginity is something you want to keep until you’re ready to give it away as a sort of special gift. For others, it’s a burden that just gets heavier with every year that goes by.

What’s virginity to you? Choice or burden?

I receive dozens of questions from virgins everywhere and instead of just answering them all personally (which I do), I decided to share some of them with you.

Maybe you’ve got the same question but are afraid to ask or maybe you just like reading sex advice. Either way, here are a couple of questions readers have sent in:

I am ready to have sex for the first time, but I don’t think my boyfriend is ready to take my virginity. What should I do?

Both people have to be ready to have sex. If things were reversed and it was your boyfriend who was ready but you weren’t, then I’d say you should wait. And that’s what I think you should do in this case as well. Wait until your boyfriend is ready and don’t pressure him to become ready…he’ll get there on his own.

Choosing when to have sex for the first time is a very personal decision and it takes a different amount of time for everyone. There are a lot of other fun things you can do together in the mean time. Besides all the physical stuff, make sure you and your boyfriend are comfortable talking to each other about sex. A little communication goes a long way! Good luck!

If there are other girls out there who have experienced this, please write in and tell us what happened!

What should i do the period of time before losing my virginity…like shower minutes before or where perfume and stuff?

Well that’s an interesting question. There are lots of things you should do to prepare for losing your virginity much further in advance than minutes before (like getting condoms, or even grooming yourself “down there”).

It’s not necessary to shower minutes before or load up on the perfume (too much perfume can be a little gross actually). As long as you have showered that morning and put on deodorant, brushed your teeth, etc. then you should be good to go (as far as smells are concerned).

There is an entire chapter in The Guide to Losing Your Virginity dedicated to getting ready physically.

So keep those questions coming virgins. There are no stupid questions! Asking them shows you care about yourself and your (potential) partner - and that’s the way it should be!

Last night I watched a great show on MuchMusic (Canada’s version of MTV) called “Music Is My Life.” The show features young people who have been inspired by music to achieve a difficult goal or even just live through a bad situation — as they tell their stories, you listen to the music that played this role in their lives. Great show.

Last night’s episode featured a girl named Desiree. She’s 22 today, and when she was just 17, her doctor told her that she had HIV. She caught it from her boyfriend.

Desiree is an amazing girl. She continues to deal with the reality of living with HIV, and spends a lot of her time traveling and talking to other young people about HIV, AIDS, and the myths and misconceptions people have around sex and STIs (sexually transmitted infections).

I was impressed and humbled by Desiree’s commitment to helping others avoid the mistakes she’s made. She reminds people that yes, you can get an STI the first time you have sex, and that using a condom is still one of the most effective ways to protect yourself and your partner.

And most of all, I was impressed by her attitude to her own illness, and to life in general. She’s not preachy or angry or bitter — she’s friendly, positive, and takes a lot of pride in her role helping others.

Here’s Desiree’s story on living with HIV. (While it’s available on the show’s homepage, anyway! Also note that you may have trouble viewing this outside Canada — something to do with MuchMusic’s lawyers.)

Please remember that just because you’re young, or just because it’s your first time, you can still catch a life-threatening STI if you don’t play it safe. You deserve better. Learn the basics and know how to protect yourself.

Do you know what HPV is? Lots of people don’t, even though the human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted viral infection in the world today.

In fact, most people will get HPV at some point in their lives. It usually clears up by itself, though — and since most of the time it causes no signs or symptoms, most people never even know they had it!

Other times, though, HPV causes genital and anal warts (ugh!), and certain high-risk types of the HPV virus can even increase your risk of cancer. There are over 100 different types of the HPV virus, with over 30 of these being sexually transmitted. (The “good” news is that only 13 types are considered “high risk” types of HPV.) Don’t freak out if you do catch it — HPV is not a disease and most of the time it causes no harm.

So how do you catch HPV? Through skin-to-skin contact during a sexual encounter — even without any penetration. Which means that even virgins can catch it!

If you do catch it, there is no cure. You can’t take antibiotics for a virus (just like you can’t take antibiotics for a cold, which is also caused by a virus). But remember that most times it clears up on it’s own, just like a cold. If you do end up developing genital or anal warts there are many treatment options available to get rid of the warts. The warts usually aren’t painful; they are mostly just embarrassing.

So what should you do? Protect yourself so you don’t catch it.

And how can you do that? Let’s look at three things you can do:

1. Know the sexual history of your partner

The more people your partner has had sexual contact with, the higher the risk they could be infected with HPV or another sexually transmitted infection. If it’s the first time for both of you, of course, there’s no risk — as long as you’re both being honest about it being your first time.

2. Use a condom

Condoms significantly reduce your risk of catching HPV, but they aren’t 100% effective. Remember, HPV is transmitted through skin-to-skin contact, and you’ll be having plenty of that whether or not you actually go all the way. Still, you should be using condoms anyway to reduce your risk of other infections and unplanned pregnancy, so this is a good idea anyway.

3. Get vaccinated

The jury is still out on this option. As you may or may not have heard, there is a vaccine for women called Gardasil which is available to prevent the four most common strains of HPV associated with genital warts and cancers.

Because it’s new, the vaccine is still being tested. Like any medication, it can have side effects — and until it’s been around for a while, we won’t know whether the risks from those side effects are worth the benefits. Still, it’s worth looking into, if only so you can get educated and make up your own mind about whether it’s right for you.

The vaccine, called Gardasil, is given as three injections over six months and is kind of pricey — currently $360 for all three doses. It works best when given before you have any contact with HPV… so the best time to get vaccinated is while you are still a virgin and haven’t been engaging in skin to skin genital contact with anyone.

Even if you do choose to get the vaccine, remember that you should still get regular Pap tests. These tests are the only way to detect abnormal cells in your cervix that could potentially develop into cervical cancer. It’s all part of being a woman, and it’s really not as scary as it sounds! It takes about ten minutes and doesn’t hurt at all… and speaking from experience, it’s actually much less painful than a visit to the dentist can be.

There are a lot of people out there who have never even heard about HPV, even though it is estimated that at least 75% of Canadians will have at least one type of HPV infection in their lifetime and there are approximately 6 million new cases of HPV every year in the United States.

Now that you know what it is, consider the HPV vaccine for yourself (or your daughter), use condoms to reduce your risk, get regular Pap tests and educate others about it. The Canadian website HPVInfo has more good information on the subject.

Hi! I’m Samantha, and this is my new site!

I’m really excited about launching this. It’s taken a LOT of time to put together, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what happens next.

I got the idea for First Time Secrets when someone close to me told me she was planning to lose her virginity. She needed some advice, and I told her pretty much what I knew about the topic. And then we started looking around online — and I was amazed that there are so few sites with good information specifically about this topic!

Anyway, it seemed to make sense to put it all in one place — so that’s what I’m doing now. I’m hoping that this site will be a great resource for anyone who is thinking about having sex for the first time, and looking for real, useful information about how to do it.

While I was getting this information together for my friend, I heard an incredible number of really sad stories about people’s first times. Some were friends, some were new acquaintances. I seem to have a talent for getting people to open up.

Anyway, many of them had never even told their stories to ANYONE — I was the first one to hear them. And it made me feel really sad, and angry, and wish that they could have known even a fraction of what I’ve learned.

That’s what inspired me to write the “Guide to Losing Your Virginity.” It’s an instruction manual for your first time! Cheesy, I know, but it’s also got all the information anyone needs to make good decisions their first time, know if they’re ready for sex or not, treat their partner well, and just have some good sex right from day one without worrying about pain, pregnancy, diseases, or even just crappy sexual technique that turns their partner off.

Basically, it’s a set of instructions for having good sex, right from the start. You can click here to learn more on the First Time Secrets homepage.

I’ll be adding to this blog as things progress, and I’ll try to make this site helpful and fun and a place that people like to drop by and visit. I’d love to hear from y’all! Drop me a comment on this blog or an email here:

samantha *at* firsttimesecrets *dot* com

To great first times,

Samantha