What does losing your virginity mean to you? Whether you’ve had sex or not, what kind of feelings do you associate with “the first time”?
A recent survey asked over 20,000 young people all kinds of questions about their sexual experiences and attitudes. One of them asked, “Would you say then that this first vaginal intercourse was voluntary or not voluntary, that is, did you choose to have sex of your own free will or not?”
It turns out that among 18-24-year-olds who had sex as teens, only 43% of women and 62% of men “really wanted it to happen at the time.” About 10% of women and 5% of men said they “really didn’t want it to happen at the time,” and the rest – a large chunk of both genders – said they had mixed feelings.
I don’t know about you, but I was kind of stunned by this. I mean, isn’t it kind of scary that over half of teens’ first sexual experiences are not actively wanted?
But when I really stopped to think about it, I thought about the words people use to talk about having sex for the first time: losing it, giving it up. When we see characters on TV or in movies having sex for the first time, there’s usually a ton of drama involved. It’s supposed to be meaningful, but it’s also supposed to be painful and awkward and unsatisfying. We learn to expect the first time to be bad, especially if you’re a girl. The “mixed feelings” so many young adults expressed in the survey might even be considered a success, even though they’re far from it.
This got me thinking about why so many people would have sex for the first time if they didn’t really want to. Of course, pressure and guilt-tripping from a partner are responsible for some of these negative feelings, as is sexual assault. And while these are all serious problems in their own right, I think there’s something else going on if fully half of teens say they didn’t really want sex to happen the first time they did it.
In a healthy relationship, a person doesn’t want to have sex with their partner against their will. But it’s hard to know their partner doesn’t really want to have sex if they don’t talk about it. How often do people actually take a minute before the first time they have sex to actually talk to their partner about what they’re feeling? How many people are comfortable enough with their partner to say, “Hey, I need to slow down, okay?” From the looks of it, not many.
TV and movies send a lot of mixed messages about “the first time.” And while there might be a lot of drama leading up to the first time the on-screen couple has sex, frank conversations about what turns you on are usually not involved. Characters tend to fall into bed without doing a lot of talking. Looking to pop culture for sex advice might not be the best idea, since you’re a unique individual and there’s no script for your life.
Having sex is an important decision. And I don’t just mean penis-in-vagina sex, the way it was defined in the survey. They didn’t even get into how teens feel about oral or anal sex, or what’s going on in same-sex relationships, but I’m sure the same kinds of doubts and worries come up in those situations, too.
If you’re nervous or you have questions, don’t be embarrassed, and definitely don’t ignore your feelings because you feel like you “should” be acting in a certain way. Talk to your partner about what’s going through your head. Work it out together. If the data from this survey are any indication, he or she might have doubts or feelings they want to express, too! And no matter what, remember that you can always say no, even if you’ve said yes before. If your partner respects you, they’ll be okay with it. And you’re respecting yourself – and being a responsible sexual partner – by saying what you feel.
Of course, if you do need a little inspiration to express your sex-related feelings, a little Salt-N-Pepa might help.
If you want to learn more about the survey, you can visit the website for The National Survey for Family Growth.