My First Time

Male • 20 • Honolulu, HI

I lost my virginity at the age of twenty in a room in the hotel where my mom worked. My guess is that my girlfriend did it because she thought she owed it to me, even though she had no interest in it any longer.

I didn't choose to stay a virgin until twenty. I went to an all-boys high school, and was somewhat shy, so I didn't mingle with girls much. Aside from a few kisses at parties, I hadn't had much experience at all. After high school, I grew my hair long, and started going to clubs and eventually DJ-ing and working at a record store. So I had an epically cool facade (working at a record store was the coolest thing you could do at the time) and no knowledge of how to make it work for me. The media often says that men are at their sexual peak at eighteen; I sometimes joke that no one will ever know how good I could have been.

I'd been dating Liz for a few months. At first she'd been a waitress at the club I went to all the time; later, she worked at the record store. She was a little older and had come from California. She became my first girlfriend. She gave me my first hit of E, introduced me to tequila poppers and Long Island iced teas, and will forever appear in my mind when I hear Van Morrison's "Into The Mystic."

Our dates had mostly been conversation and making out in my car. She knew I was a virgin. We had talked about sleeping together, but she said that she didn't want my first time to be in the car or with her roommate in the other room. 

One night, in a park across the street from the bar where we drank, I said something without thinking first. A thought crossed my mind, and I felt so comfortable with her that I said it out loud: I marveled at how different we were and wondered if we were just together out of convenience. The look on her face was a mixture of hurt and confusion, and although we didn't fight about it, I realized that I shouldn't have said it. 

A few days later she said that she needed to go home to San Fran for a little while. I suggested getting a room at the hotel so we could hang out together for the day before she left. My mom worked at the front desk and while I'm sure she suspected what was going on, I assured her that my girlfriend and I just wanted to have some time together since we didn't know exactly how long she'd be gone.

In the middle of the afternoon and in the space of a few minutes, I lost my virginity. My recollection of it now is that it wasn't very tender. What I remember most distinctly (and what overshadows the whole memory, I'm sure) is that when I was done, she didn't ask me how I felt. For all her previous concern about waiting to make my first time right, she barely said a word. 

She left the next day and I never saw or heard from her again. 

My sexual life since then has been somewhat similar — lots of great conversation and good making out, only to end up sleeping together once and never again.

Female • 16 years old • Israel

We became friends right from the start. We found that we had the same cynical and sexual sense of humor.

Female • 22 years old • New England

"I can't tell you how glad I am that I never signed that 'True Love Waits' pledge."

Male • 15 years old • Washington DC

"I had never planned to lose my virginity to a guy—let alone Rob. I planned to pretend to be straight for as long as possible."