Ida Tin’s “Dear Men” Series: Part 3 of 29 – First Sexual Experiences

First Sexual Experiences – this post is for the Men. It’s part of a series on what it feels like to have a female body.

See comments for link to the introduction.

How do I write about what it is like to have sex for the first time? Surely, that experience will be wildly different for everyone. So, I really need your help here, ladies.

I also realize that I don’t know my girlfriends’ stories that well. I’ll ask them. My mum told me hers recently, and I was glad she did. It wasn’t that much fun, but she did find lots of joy in sex later.

Here is what I know: we are fed through popular culture a lot of ideas about what it feels like, what it should be, or what it could be like. There’s the version of immediate, orgasmic wonder all the way to the brutal, bloody, teeth-clenching, waiting-for-it-to-be-over experience. I think both are quite unrealistic.

Mine was romantic, with a boyfriend who was also a virgin, in a safe setting, and it was entirely consensual. I was pretty impatient for it to finally happen. Physically, it wasn’t very easy, and it took a few honest tries before it really worked. My mum had supportively put some condoms on the table a short while before. I was shy to admit it was my first time and didn’t tell him until we had been together for a while. Having figured out the mechanics didn’t mean it was amazing sex, though. Emotionally, it was great, but getting to a truly fulfilling sex life was a many-year process with different partners.

For some, the ideal is to have just one sexual partner and then figure out how to make sex work no matter what. To me, that seems like a hard challenge, but for many, this is their reality. Whether they end up with a satisfying sex life, I don’t know. And if sexual satisfaction is a priority for these women is also an open question.

It is a journey to go from the first erotic experience to intercourse (or what ever line you consider to be sex), and having a partner or partners along the way who can go at the girl’s pace seems like a helpful ingredient to developing a healthy sex life. There are many steps along the way with cuddles, fumbling, and almost-situations.

Her own exploration of her body is an important part of her discovery of pleasure too. Not all cultures welcome girls touching themselves, but I’d guess that many probably do anyhow. I’d hope they do.

For many young women, imagery from porn, combined with being drunk or having taken drugs, might very well be part of their first sexual experiences. Or they may be around people who are intoxicated and not as attuned to their needs as one could hope.

The first time is important, but so are the second and third time, and all the other times too really.

-This post by Ida Tin is shared on LinkedIn and is republished here with her permission. The SheSight Team has not made any changes to the content.