adolescent girls, in fact—regret their first times. Many decide to just “get it over with.” 2 Many speak of their first time as “disappointing,” because the myth around losing one’s virginity, of how special and meaningful it’s supposed to be, rarely matches the reality. Many wind up date-raped or lose their inhibitions via alcohol.
Because it is so socially unacceptable for a girl to want sex outside marriage, she will often create fantasies around losing her virginity, such as believing that she is in love or that her relationship with a boy matters much more than it actually does. According to a series of surveys by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Seventeen magazine, 50 percent of girls ages 15–17 believed that they would marry their first sexual partner. 3 While boys get the luxury of just trying their damndest to get laid for the first time (laden with their own cultural pressures about losing virginity, of course), girls have to devise rituals around it. They must be in love, or they must do it after a romantic night at the prom. They have to wait for the timing, the mood, the meaning, and the guy to be just right. Some girls tire of this eventually. If things don’t line up the way they planned, they wind up just getting it over with. The truth about the first time is that 23.4 percent of first sex experiences are one-night stands, and about two-thirds of U.S. teenagers who’ve had sex wish they’d waited longer. At the same time, 26 percent of teens think it’s embarrassing to admit they’re virgins, and more than half believe that their peers think that having sex by fifteen is socially acceptable. Most believe that their friends have already done it, even when they haven’t. 4
So why do girls lose their virginity? Most do so because they are simply curious; they want to know what it’s like, and they want to know if they will change in some essential way. So much hoopla surrounds girls and sex that one can see how they would believe that they might be changed. But often that belief leads to disappointment or deflation.
Lola lost her virginity because, she said, she wanted to. She was dating a guy a grade older than her, and her friends were dating his friends. Her friends had already started having sex, so she wanted to, too. Her biggest fear was that her boyfriend would decide he could just find someone else who would have sex with him if she didn’t. So, one night at his house while his parents were downstairs, they had sex.
She made him light a candle first—some small part of the romance she figured she needed to not judge herself later. It was, in fact, a detail she always included when she told friends her story about losing it, hoping they wouldn’t judge her, too. It was quick, she told me. He used a condom. She didn’t feel much pain or see any blood, which had happened to a few of her friends. Then it was done. Afterward, she went to the bathroom and stared at herself in the mirror thinking, You’re not a virgin, you’re not a virgin, you’re not a virgin . But she didn’t feel any different. Lola had it easy in some ways. She knew she wanted to lose her virginity, and she just happened to be seeing someone who—even though she may not have been in love with him, and he with her—was kind to her and responsible enough to put on a condom.
Lola’s story is probably no more typical than a different sort of first time, one where the girl is date-raped, or pressured into it, or drunk. Alcohol is a common gateway to lost virginity, and although some wake up the next day upset with themselves that they got drunk and went all the way, others have confessed to me that they got drunk for exactly that reason.
Nikki told me she got drunk one night because she wanted to lose her virginity. Later on, she wound up puking in the bushes outside her friend’s house, but she said there was no other way she could do it without her peers thinking she was a slut. She didn’t have a
Because it is so socially unacceptable for a girl to want sex outside marriage, she will often create fantasies around losing her virginity, such as believing that she is in love or that her relationship with a boy matters much more than it actually does. According to a series of surveys by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Seventeen magazine, 50 percent of girls ages 15–17 believed that they would marry their first sexual partner. 3 While boys get the luxury of just trying their damndest to get laid for the first time (laden with their own cultural pressures about losing virginity, of course), girls have to devise rituals around it. They must be in love, or they must do it after a romantic night at the prom. They have to wait for the timing, the mood, the meaning, and the guy to be just right. Some girls tire of this eventually. If things don’t line up the way they planned, they wind up just getting it over with. The truth about the first time is that 23.4 percent of first sex experiences are one-night stands, and about two-thirds of U.S. teenagers who’ve had sex wish they’d waited longer. At the same time, 26 percent of teens think it’s embarrassing to admit they’re virgins, and more than half believe that their peers think that having sex by fifteen is socially acceptable. Most believe that their friends have already done it, even when they haven’t. 4
So why do girls lose their virginity? Most do so because they are simply curious; they want to know what it’s like, and they want to know if they will change in some essential way. So much hoopla surrounds girls and sex that one can see how they would believe that they might be changed. But often that belief leads to disappointment or deflation.
Lola lost her virginity because, she said, she wanted to. She was dating a guy a grade older than her, and her friends were dating his friends. Her friends had already started having sex, so she wanted to, too. Her biggest fear was that her boyfriend would decide he could just find someone else who would have sex with him if she didn’t. So, one night at his house while his parents were downstairs, they had sex.
She made him light a candle first—some small part of the romance she figured she needed to not judge herself later. It was, in fact, a detail she always included when she told friends her story about losing it, hoping they wouldn’t judge her, too. It was quick, she told me. He used a condom. She didn’t feel much pain or see any blood, which had happened to a few of her friends. Then it was done. Afterward, she went to the bathroom and stared at herself in the mirror thinking, You’re not a virgin, you’re not a virgin, you’re not a virgin . But she didn’t feel any different. Lola had it easy in some ways. She knew she wanted to lose her virginity, and she just happened to be seeing someone who—even though she may not have been in love with him, and he with her—was kind to her and responsible enough to put on a condom.
Lola’s story is probably no more typical than a different sort of first time, one where the girl is date-raped, or pressured into it, or drunk. Alcohol is a common gateway to lost virginity, and although some wake up the next day upset with themselves that they got drunk and went all the way, others have confessed to me that they got drunk for exactly that reason.
Nikki told me she got drunk one night because she wanted to lose her virginity. Later on, she wound up puking in the bushes outside her friend’s house, but she said there was no other way she could do it without her peers thinking she was a slut. She didn’t have a
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