Losing My Religion

I was 16, in love, and was more sure about losing my virginity than I had been about anything in my life, up to this point. I didn’t realize how it was going to change my life, though. Up until I had met ‘the one’, I was part of the “True Love Waits” club. I had date two other guys before Jason, both were nice guys who didn’t really ever talk to me about sex. I had made out and had heavy petting sessions with them, but they both honored my commitment to my oath. When I met Jason, he was older than me and experienced, he was ok with my wanting to wait, and was even willing to wait with me. I started falling for him, and things progressively got more and more hot and intimate.

Around Valentines Day 2002, I started re-examining my stance on waiting to have sex. I was going through a phase of exploring religion and finding that being Christian just because my friends were was not where I wanted to be, and branched out to find (and re-discover) other ways of thinking about life, the universe, and everything. I rediscovered Wicca (which has a very positive stance on sex) and started to read more about it. Around this time, I also declared my love to Jason and was wanting to take the next step with him. I was already on birth control, my aunt who I lived with had taken me to the doctor months earlier when he and I had first started to date, and I was feeling very good about making this choice and taking this step. I felt that I was mature enough to have sex, I knew a good deal about my body and what made me feel good, and hey, Spring Formal was coming up, what a perfect teen movie cliché.

I knew a lot of girls who were a lot younger than I was when they had sex the first time, but I was the first in my group of friends. So telling them I had decided to take the plunge had set them all a twitter asking me questions, and giving me their opinions, and telling me what they all knew about sex (which was very little and mostly based on movies and books they had read!) Ya know, the whole “Its gotta be special, and have rose petals, and in a hotel suite, and oooh it will be amazing!” I was also still believing that having sex the first time was going to be an orgasmic experience, and be simple and wonderful. I was mislead by media on that one. When the day of the dance finally rolled around, my friends and I got ready, and the three of us went off to the dance. Jason was picking me up later, and we were going to go grab dinner, and well, do it. We ended up down on the water front that night and did in fact do it, and while it did hurt, and I did bleed, and I didn’t have an orgasm, it was wonderful. It was loving and kind, and we laughed about stupid things like a sail boat out in the water that looked like it was going to capsize. I got home to the many questions from my aunt and friends, all of which I answered with “we went out for ice cream” and a big grin. My friends knew what I meant, and my aunt was none the wiser.

I didn’t walk right for what felt like three days. I was sore, but I was happy I had made that leap in life, and glad I was changed forever. I was no longer the virgin who clinged to god, but the woman who had found her sexuality and a new found love for nature, and was exploring the world around her. Jason and I continued to have sex, and grow in our relationship, but like most teen relationships we split up (though we had an off again on again thing for years, but that’s a story for later). I was heart broken, felt jaded, but was ok in the end.

I can look back at everything surrounding losing my virginity and can honestly say that I do not regret it. I prefer to say that I didn’t lose anything, I know right where I left it, and I found something more. More understanding of my body, more understanding of relationships, and a new level of what love can be. It urged me to reassess my religious and philosophical views, and it lead me to take a step closer into adulthood. If I had the choice to go back and change it, I wouldn’t. It wasn’t movie perfect, it was real life perfect (for me).