The V-Word

by Amber J. Keyser

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  Contents

  Epigraph

  Preface

  1. Wanting Everything by Amber J. Keyser

  2. What Counts by Carrie Mesrobian

  3. Sharing My Anatomy by Sidney Joaquin-Vetromile

  4. The First Rule of College by Kiersi Burkhart

  5. It’s a Nice Day for a White Wedding by Karen Jensen

  6. I Would Have a Heart by Christa Desir

  7. The Lion Poet by Laurel Isaac

  8. Who Needs a Map? by Sarah Mirk

  9. Power in the Blood by Molly Bloom

  10. “Openly Bisexual” by Sara Ryan

  11. Iterum Vivere, to Live Anew by Alex Meeks

  12. Ear Muffs for Muff Diving by Chelsey Clammer

  13. It Would Not Be an Overstatement to Say I Knew Nothing by Erica Lorraine Scheidt

  14. How to Make a Braid by Kate Gray

  15. Me, Some Random Guy, and the Army of Darkness by Justina Ireland

  16. My Name Is Jamia by Jamia Wilson

  17. It’s All in the Choosing by Kelly Jensen

  It’s Your Sex Life—Take Charge of It

  The Power of Story

  Resources

  Reassurance for Parents

  Acknowledgments

  Contributors

  About the Author

  About the Contributors

  About the Sex Educators

  Notes

  For all the young women crossing the threshold:

  You are brave. You are worthy. You are good.

  I didn’t know yet that desire comes and goes wherever it wants.

  I didn’t know yet that sexuality is an entire continent.

  I didn’t know yet how many times a person can be born.

  LIDIA YUKNAVITCH, THE CHRONOLOGY OF WATER: A MEMOIR

  Preface

  Virginity—it’s a loaded word.

  We women are told that virginity is something that makes us pure. Virginity is a thing to protect. A thing another person will eventually take away. It goes hand in hand with a host of other, crueler words. If we give it away, we’re called sluts. If we hang on to it, we’re called prudes. Once it’s lost, something is gone forever.

  Some thing?

  Virginity isn’t a possession locked behind a chastity belt or spread wide on silken sheets. It’s not a ripe cherry waiting to be plucked, popped, or eaten. Virginity is a state of being. Being a virgin means standing on one side of an experience, not yet having walked through the door. Crossing the threshold is far more about gaining something than about losing it.

  It feels like a big deal and in many ways it is. Sexual experiences put us in the closest possible contact with another person. Tongues circle. Thighs press and squeeze. Hands caress breasts. Bodies slide together. As our bodies merge, the boundaries between us melt away. We are vulnerable.

  Intense emotions swirl through the sexual experience. Are we powerful or powerless? Loved or used? Good or bad? The selves we bring into sex—our values, our upbringing, our history—will shape the experience. If we’re not attentive, the ramifications of having sex could change the course of our lives—pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, emotional trauma. We could also be filled with desire, thrilled by pleasure, deeply connected to another person, and empowered by the beautiful strength of our own bodies.

  Navigating this complexity isn’t easy, especially in a world where we are bombarded with mixed messages about sex: Do as I say. Be quiet. Do what I did. Stay pure. Be sexy. Make others happy. Do the right thing. I wrote this book to start a different kind of conversation. I asked smart, honest women to share their stories about first sexual experiences.

  The V-Word is not a how-to manual, urging you to run out and have sex. Nor is it supposed to scare you into abstinence. Rather, we hope that it will convince you to think broadly about the many ways women can express and respect the sexual side of themselves.

  If you decide to become sexually active, I urge you to get informed by visiting websites like Scarleteen.com and reading books like S-E-X: The All-You-Need-To-Know Progressive Sexuality Guide to Get You through High School and College by Heather Corinna. At the end of this book you’ll find many resources, including more books and websites.

  And if you decide to wait, that’s okay too.

  All the experiences in The V-Word really happened. Names and identifying details have been changed but besides that every story within these pages is true or at least as true as memory can make them. We write about straight sex and queer sex. We write about diving in and about waiting. Some of our first times were exhilarating, others disappointing, some surprising. Some happened too soon, others at exactly the right moment. But no matter the specifics of the situation, our first times stayed with us.

  We don’t intend to tell you what to do. Instead, we share our own truths and leave your choices in your own capable hands. We don’t think sex is dirty or shameful or immoral, but it’s not insignificant either. Every first time, and there are many, is something to linger over. There’s no need to rush. Good sex is ripe with giving and receiving, with mutual desire and respect. It can be a force for good in the universe and in our own lives.

  The opposite of virgin turns out to be a vast world of possible experiences, a lifetime of getting to know our sexual selves and sharing them with others.

  It’s not all or nothing.

  It’s not a direct line.

  It’s a journey.

  And along the way women have discovered that there is a V-word far more powerful than virginity—VOICE.

  Whether you say yes or no to sexual experiences, finding your voice—and using it—is the most important part of becoming the person you want to be.

  Girls get hot.

  That’s the truth.

  It’s not just the guys with their constant boners. It’s us too. We get turned on. We fantasize. We touch ourselves. Sometimes we touch each other. All this wild girl horniness is perfectly normal. Humans are lots of things—thinkers, nurturers, fighters—but we are also sexual beings.

  Our bodies are magnificent. I don’t mean what they look like. I’m talking about what they do and how they feel. Fingers seek the soft-hard-rough-smooth skin of the body. Limbs entwine with arms-legs-hands. Our bodies provide us with so much pleasure, sensations that many of us come to know at a very early age, as I describe in the first story.

  1

  Wanting Everything

  Amber J. Keyser

  I had a kid’s body—no hips, hardly any breasts, hardly more than pubic hair peach fuzz. I’d never had a period or a boyfriend or a date for a middle school dance. It was the summer after eighth grade and I was abuzz with physical desire. I’d known for a long time that it felt good to touch myself, and years earlier I’d played kissing games with neighborhood girls, but now, as I careened toward puberty, my body was a constant source of wow.

  When it came to sex, I had zero experience but a lot of book learning. We had moved the summer before seventh grade. Among my mother’s discarded books on a garage sale table, I found my textbook—an explicit memoir by a sex-loving prostitute. Heart racing, I’d pinched it off the table and snuck it to my room, reading and rereading her bawdy accounts of sex with both men and women. Her uninhibited attitude painted sex as a healthy and positive part of adult life. If it felt good and everyone wanted to do it then anything was a go
.

  By accident, I discovered just the right way to ride my bike so that the seat vibrated against the mound of my crotch. It seemed my panties were always damp, and I masturbated often—in the bath, in the hot tub, in my bed at night. I imagined what it would feel like to have oral sex. But in this stew of horniness, I also worried that something was wrong with me for thinking about sex so much. I watched the girls at school that everyone said were doing it. Were their bodies constantly on fire like mine? Or was I freak?

  But arousal was constantly sneaking up on me. I crushed on actors in movies, characters in books, and Jason, a gawky boy who lived down the street. At school, Jason and I ignored each other—he, no doubt, because of my bottom-rung social status, and I because that’s what you do to avoid humiliation in the halls of middle school. After school, we were less frosty. With a handful of other kids, we rode bikes through the golf course at the center of our neighborhood, infuriating men in plaid pants, and played tennis on the old, cracked courts. Jason and I snuck away to kiss in the tunnel at the neighborhood playground.

  I wasn’t thinking about having actual sex with him but the kissing sent heat coursing through me. I wondered what it would feel like to have him touch me. When my younger cousin crashed her bike and Jason carried her home like some knight in shorts and sneakers, I wished it were me bleeding at the knees and leaning against his chest. I took every opportunity to hang out with him, waiting to be alone, wanting more kissing.

  Toward the end of the summer, I was house-sitting for an old lady who lived in a condo nearby. One day I dragged Jason and two of our friends along with me to check on the dog, and there they were—empty bedrooms, open beds, and not a single chance of discovery. A surprise, believe it or not.

  I hadn’t planned any of this.

  There was no forethought, no real thinking at all.

  My brain had vacated the building but my body was full speed ahead.

  We paired off, our friends upstairs and me and Jason in a guest room with white carpet, a red bedspread, and tacky furniture detailed in gold paint. His lips were as soft as I remembered from the playground, his face pre-shaving smooth. We had our clothes off in moments. How did that even happen? My memory is a blur of color and texture. We slid into the cool sheets like otters sliding into the water.

  What I remember is wanting everything.

  His touch sent sizzling waves coursing over my body. This was nothing like when I masturbated. This was the best thing I had ever felt. My skin was electrified where we touched. Thigh to thigh, chest to chest. His arms around me. My hands in his hair. He smelled like boy and awesome.

  I slid down under the covers, my cheek against his taut belly. And there was his penis. Hard inside but shockingly soft and smooth on the surface. I put my lips on the velvety end of his penis and took him in my mouth. After a while—who knows how much time passed—we changed places. And his mouth was hot and wet on the slit of my vulva. The new best thing ever.

  When we were face to face again, we did not talk. We did not think. We did not consider protection or consequences. We were far too absorbed in good-yes-slick-hot-more-now to ask ourselves if we were ready. Instead we went to work figuring out how our parts fit together.

  The problem was the parts.

  Like mismatched puzzle pieces, they just wouldn’t go together no matter how we twisted and writhed. His aim was terrible, and though I was aroused, my prepubescent body was also tight and unaccommodating. In the midst of this conundrum, our friends knocked on the door, ready to go. We scrambled, slightly dazed, out of the bed and back into our clothes. Jason and I hardly spoke, pretending, instead, that nothing had happened.

  A few days later, his best friend asked me if we’d had sex. I didn’t know what to say. Had we? There was no penetration. Nobody came. I shrugged, noncommittal. He smirked, and I felt dirty. My brain kicked back in and with it came shame and worry.

  What kind of girl did that kind of thing? Was I a bad person? How could I have gone so far without even thinking about pregnancy or disease? What if Jason had been less tender and had pushed me beyond what I could do?

  These were the thoughts that could have, and perhaps should have, accompanied the yearnings of my body.

  My brain finally caught up with the rest of me.

  Jason and I never did anything like that again. In fact, I didn’t do anything sexual with anyone else for a long time, and I was seventeen before I went all the way through with penetration. But I often remember Jason and the lovely, rich pleasure we shared in each other’s bodies. We were young, that’s true, but was it really so wrong for us to kiss and touch and explore in a way that made both of us feel so good?

  I don’t think so.

  Did it count?

  I wasn’t sure if my explorations with Jason counted as sex. I’d always thought that losing my virginity had to involve penetration. But what about two women? If they’re intimate with mouths-hands-vulvas and it feels great, is that sex? What about the straight couples who decide that they don’t want to go all the way but everything else—all the other ways we can be sexual with each other—is considered okay? Are they still virgins?

  It’s common to talk about sex like it’s binary. You’ve had it or you haven’t. But what if sex is a spectrum of behaviors? In that context, the idea of virginity doesn’t make a lot of sense. We humans don’t have a sex switch that gets flipped from off to on, where it stays for the rest of our lives. Being sexually active means just that—you’re participating in sexual activities with someone else. Maybe that happens for a while—weeks, months, years—and then maybe you step back from sex and move into abstinence for a time.

  All along the way you get to make choices about what you want to do and when you want to stop. Sex isn’t all or nothing, and, as you will see from Carrie’s story, first times can sometimes surprise you.

  2

  What Counts

  Carrie Mesrobian

  When it happened the first time, we were looking directly into each other’s eyes. His blue eyes above me, me looking up at him, my childhood bed, the middle of the day, the shade open to a blue sunny sky. It was late spring and we’d been together since fall.

  When he pushed his dick into me, it didn’t hurt. We had a condom. I wasn’t surprised. He was slow. I was ready. We had agreed to do this.

  It was a lot like I’d expected it to feel. The same kind of pressure with his hands and fingers, really, only this time his hands were on either of my shoulders.

  But something was wrong. It felt merely okay, not as intense as his fingers had felt up there. Nothing within me ached in happiness, like I’d been led to believe. I didn’t feel changed. I knew we were both crossing over, from being virgins to being . . . not virgins. Whatever you call it when you’re on the other side.

  It felt like the way you might say the word “oh” when someone says something you don’t care about.

  Like, Oh. Hmm. Well.

  Like, Huh—that’s what that space is for.

  Like, Never used those muscles in my thighs in quite that way before. Interesting.

  Like, Maybe it gets better, the longer it goes on?

  Finally, he interrupted these thoughts.

  “Can you move your hips, maybe?”

  He sounded embarrassed for me, so I moved my hips.

  Then he moved with me and it was a little . . . different. But not by much. And, unlike everyone always said about it being over quick? It wasn’t. It just kept going. Moving. The same bland way.

  I suspected this was because I wasn’t doing it right. Or I wasn’t sexy enough. Or I’d done something else wrong.

  Yet, I didn’t lie or pretend that it felt good. I couldn’t fake a feeling I didn’t have, because by this time I knew I loved him: that was real. We’d said the words to each other, many times.

  Except, this sex was also real. Something we’d put off and waited for and worried about. And after all that, it still wasn’t good. I’d told him the truth about so many t
hings but I’d never thought to tell him that, in my mind, having sex with a guy meant his penis would push some magic button inside me. That it would all feel so good and overwhelming that I’d lose control. There’d be no wandering thoughts. No questions.

  Instead, I was staring up at him, my face blank and still, wondering when the miracle would occur.

  He finally pulled out and chucked the condom. Nobody came. It seemed clear to me that this was a bad, horrible thing. I must be a bad, horrible thing. What guy has sex with you and doesn’t come? Again, this wasn’t a possibility in the stories I had heard about first sex. I was disappointed afterward, but not in the way I’d imagined.

  We broke up a few weeks later. I don’t know if the relationship had run its course or the sex was as depressing for him as it was for me. Later I heard that he told people we’d never done it. That it didn’t count.

  The reason things ended was sadly dull: he stopped being in love with me. There wasn’t anything wrong with me, he said. He thought I was beautiful and cool. The problem was that I was just one person. And he was young and the world was big and full of lots of other people.

  After we broke up it took a while to disentangle ourselves. We had friends in common and we couldn’t let go of the physical relationship, either. I missed hanging out with him, laughing with him. Finally, I had to cut it off completely for my sanity.

  But when I was especially sad and missing him, the memory of that first sex wasn’t what pulled me back. Though I didn’t like how he phrased it, I knew what he meant when he said it didn’t count.

  Instead, the scene that made me feel his loss so keenly wasn’t the sex at all. It was way back at the beginning of knowing him. Something that I didn’t think would have counted in the first place.

  It is November, one of those days when the dark comes on so quick. We are in my house, nobody there but us. A rare intersection of space and time and privacy. We can act like adults. We don’t have to sneak or worry.