Female, 14, New York
The story of when I first had sex with a man and the story of how I lost my virginity are actually different stories. The sex with the man is typical and boring so instead I am going to tell the story of how I popped my cherry.
I was fourteen and had recently struck gold when I found out how to give myself an orgasm. My ventures into masturbation had been non-penetrating up until that night, but like anyone exposed to any addictive pleasure, I looked for a dragon to chase.
I had inherited my room from my older sister who had moved away to college. There were many phallic objects to choose from, but my sister’s collection of Classic Coke bottles drew my attention. The neck of one such bottle seemed small enough not to do any damage but large enough to qualify as a dragon.
The Coke bottle stood at attention on the floor while I straddled it. After a few up-and-downs, I had an orgasm and finished the exercise unscathed. I concluded that having something to wrap my kegels around while enjoying spasms is much more ideal then just tickling the kitty. I hopped into bed excited that I discovered a new technique within the creative hobby of masturbation. I should have just stayed in bed and fallen asleep, but then I wouldn’t have this story to tell.
I decided to do it again. So once more the bottle stood at attention. This time I felt a little more adventurous so I increased speed and doubled up on the rhythm. But like all zealous and inexperienced teenagers, I had abandoned caution. At one point the bottle slipped out, and as I came back down it hit my pubic bone and bounced its way inside at an aggressive speed and angle, ripping through my hymen.
I had remembered hearing about bleeding once your hymen is broken and how sometimes there can be a lot of blood. Sometimes women panic, but it is actually normal and there is nothing to worry about. But I hadn’t accounted for my hymen breaking under such reckless circumstances, so I immediately didn’t think it was normal.
It was dark in my room, so I didn’t see but felt warm blood gush down my legs. I thought I was going to die. I threw on a robe and stuffed a towel between my legs. I knew I needed help. I went out into the hall and called downstairs for my twin sister but there was no answer. Alas, the only person home was my poor father.
The unsuspecting man was in the shower when I knocked on the door and opened it a crack, asking if I could talk to him right now, because it’s really important. Like a good father, he told me to hold on for one second. He got out of the shower and put on a white towel that he had to hold together with his hand.
He was sitting on the toilet when I came in. I honestly don’t remember what I said, but he definitely understood that I broke my own hymen while masturbating. My father sighed deeply and rubbed his temples. He told me that I was going to be fine. I didn’t think he understood the damage I had done to myself so I showed him the blood-soaked towel so he would realize the emergency. He looked at it and still assured me I was going to be fine.
All I had to do was wear a pad and not put anything else up there in the meantime. I realized that this emergency was not an emergency and that I had traumatized both of us for no good reason. We both sat there in the bathroom silently for a moment. But then the awkwardness became unbearable so my father tried to remedy the discomfort.
I cringed as he told me stories about sex and blood from his experience. Like when he was a teenager he had dry-humped a girl until his penis bled, some of which got on the girl’s jeans. He also told me that his one girlfriend, who had lived with us, was a virgin when they first had sex and it had looked like a massacre scene. My fingernails dug into the palms of my hands. I was mortified and I felt sorry for both of us.
I don’t remember exactly how our exchange ended, but eventually I was sitting downstairs in the kitchen by myself, eating pasta. I had put on underwear and a pad. I felt like crawling into a hole somewhere. My brother came home and sat down at the table with me. I remember thinking he has no idea about the horrific event that just happened to me. And then I burst out laughing. It startled my brother and he asked me what was so funny. I continued to listen to him while smiling.
This has happened to me a couple of times. When I am so mortified that I can’t imagine life beyond that moment, because of the embarrassment that I have to carry with me, but then the whole thing turns into a comedy, which makes life easier, as though it were some kind of evolutionary mechanism. Without this mechanism, embarrassment would drive human beings off cliffs in herds, like lemmings.
That following weekend I was staying with my mother. I pulled her aside and told her my humiliating secret. My mother did something she does only once in a great while that always entertains me. Her face turned red and she covered her mouth. Her whole body shook and very little noise came out of her except once she took a deep enough breath, she squealed with laughter.
My mother got on the phone with my eldest sister and told her the story. My Coke bottle incident spread through the family like wild fire. I remember lying on my grandmother’s bed the following Christmas Eve with a large group of my female cousins, recounting the story while they all laughed. My sister Elizabeth (the previous owner of the Coke bottle) told the entire floor of her dorm room. I was visiting her once and a guy I had never met handed me a can of Cherry Coke.
I like the idea that I lost my virginity to myself and not to some dickhead.