Yeah, I was once the real-life version of the guy from the movie “The 40-Year-Old Virgin.”

Well, minus about 16 years.

But “The 27-Year-Old Virgin” doesn’t roll right off the tongue as well. Besides, in modern times, having to endure virginity until one’s late 20s when one wasn’t seeking to be celibate is still pretty sucky. Or lack of sucky, as the case may be, since it’s not like I was limber enough to suck myself. But, getting back to the point, while I’ve now been sexually active for the nearly 14 years of my marriage, and the nearly two years leading up to my nuptials, I spent my prime years of quick refractory period, limber body, and ceaseless energy with no lover other than my right hand, and no other companion but my imagination, magazines, porn videos, erotica novels, and the like.

I hated it. Despised it. Loathed it.

But in hindsight, I’m kind of glad it worked out the way it did. As with so many things in life, when we have the benefit of hindsight, we can see all the positives, and by that time we’re no longer in the painful reality of the past. So who cares? Does it really matter that I once went without, now that I’m getting sex pretty regularly? No need to glumly dwell on the past. I’m having the orgasms now and giving them out, and they’re no less lovely for coming late in my life. Better yet, I know I came to my wife knowing with nearly 100% assurance that I was STD-free.

Yes, my first full-fledged lover is also my current wife. You can make fun about how old-fashioned that is, if you like. You can, if you so desire, roll your eyes and think, “He only married her because she was the first woman to put out for him and he was desperate, thinking no one else ever would.”

You’d be wrong. As for the first notion, while I was raised Catholic, I never had any aspirations to save myself for marriage. I fully intended to do some fucking before I got into the honeymoon suite. I figured if I ever got past the geeky/nerdy/shy walls separating me from soft womanly nekkidness, I would clock in some significant sex hours before saying “I do.” (Hell, one of the reasons I took cooking classes in junior high was because I planned to be a bachelor for a long time before settling down, and figured I didn’t want to eat like shit while I was still living alone and playing the field.)

As for the second assertion that I married for the sex—please. Sure I was a nerd. Yes, I was painfully shy and awkward when I tried to get a date. But I wasn’t a fucking fool. Not then; not now. I’m not going to yoke myself to a woman I don’t love just to get sex. My right hand can’t make me miserable, but a bad marriage sure could—along with stripping me of my money and my dignity along the way, if a divorce became necessary. I was desperate enough for sex by my late 20s I might have been willing to date a woman with seriously negative issues just to pop my cherry and get some bedroom experience, but I wouldn’t put a ring on that finger.

Besides, let me tell you something: I could have gotten more sex with someone other than my-love-who-popped-my-cherry. You can point to my previous years of non-boudoir activity to refute that claim, but I can tell you something: When I finally lost my virginity, I gained confidence. I walked with a little more swagger thereafter. Was I still a nerd/geek type? Sure. Was I still “the nice guy” to most women? Yup. But something changed, one of the big things being the knowledge that I could make it not just past first or second base, but get all the way to home (in my opinion, the only thing baseball is good for is sexual metaphors). I suspect a lot of people who lose their virginity early, or who ended up paying a professional for the honor (something I was close to doing) don’t have that same kind of empowerment. I’m not saying sex can’t empower you under such circumstances, but in my case, it was a true rite of passage, and a very huge step in my sexual maturation—in a way that it isn’t for most people, I suspect. It’s like the person who spends their whole life shlubby and housebound and then gets in shape and climbs a mountain. It changes you. It changed me. I knew I could replicate that success. It just happens that I ended up falling in love with the woman who claimed my virginity.

And this brings me to another thing about having my first sexual encounter well into adulthood. I think I was better prepared. Sure, I would have enjoyed getting my sex on earlier, and I would have certainly gained more field experience. But frankly, while my first time with full-fledged sex was a bit fumbling, it wasn’t a failure. I didn’t last very long, but I also didn’t come the moment I entered the holiest of holies. Also, I had some sense of where the parts were from many years of seeing pictures and videos of women having sex, and from reading erotic tales. I mean, let’s face it, you can say all you want that book learning doesn’t equal real-life experience, but book learning put me way ahead of any acne-ridden teenagers with more hormones than common sense in the bedroom, who’s only having sex because they feel they must, and are armed with misinformation from most of their peers. In fact, the first time I got intimate with my lady (on the second date), I didn’t go for sex. I licked her out until I made her come, and I didn’t ask for a damn thing in return. I showed I could give her pleasure, and I sat tight, knowing that if I had gotten that far with her, the next date was going to involve sex. It did, and I didn’t embarrass myself.

Unlike the first time I tried to have sex, (maybe a year before I met my future wife) when after several dates involving lots of lips action and touching, but nothing south of the equator, I finally got into the bed of the woman I was then dating, and then, filled with anxiety, failed to maintain my erection. So we ended up cuddling instead. And then her dog got revenge on me by pissing on my pile of clothing on the floor during the night, forcing me to go home the next morning wearing my girlfriend’s sweatshirt. All of which, along with the fact she had been on the rebound when I asked her out anyway, might have contributed to her going back to her former boyfriend before I got a second chance to make love.

But you know, that wasn’t a relationship that was great for confidence-building anyway. I met her through a personals ad, she was a really busy person and lived nearly an hour away from me, she had several animals (most of which weren’t entirely sane), and like I said, she was on the rebound from a guy she cared about. We got along really well, but it didn’t feel like I had broken through my wall of shyness, given that we met through an ad. None of which really made me feel confident, though we maintained a friendship after she went back to her ex. With the woman who would become my wife, on the other hand, I approached her with no expectation that she was even looking to date (so I was going in cold), and although I asked her out in an entirely geeky and awkward manner, I did have the balls to approach her without any signs she was the least bit interested. That was huge for me, and the fact she said “yes”, much less actually enjoyed my company on our first date, was a huge ego boost. Having the self-control to get her off on our second date and wait until the third to bed her, and not be rendered limp from anxiety, probably had a lot to do with all that lead-up. I was making my way, as a man, and choosing my path. I wasn’t wildly trying to lose my virginity, and I wasn’t with someone whose heart and feelings were divided.

And so, I didn’t simply lose my virginity at the age of 27. I completed my metamorphosis and became the complete man I desired to be. I found within myself the self that I had never been able to tap before. I got out of my own way and worked with the personality and skills I had, instead of hoping to score despite them. I made them tools instead of letting them be handicaps.

My wife would sometimes fret that my sex life was lacking for the absence of multiple partners before her (an issue that will soon be resolved now that we have an open marriage), but she had it wrong. I didn’t lack for anything. Because in the end, in my opinion, sex is about the quality more than the quantity.

Just as losing my virginity was more about the attitude than my age; more about the timbre than the timing.