Barely Legal
The other night I had amazing sex with my husband. It felt like pleasure was shooting out my toes like rays of light. It occurred to me that if life is suffering, the other side of the coin is that life is pleasure. I grew up with a lot of Zen koans and the idea that life is suffering always felt depressing to me. Another interpretation is that life includes suffering and there is no way around this but I would add that life also includes pleasure and we should enjoy the shit out of it because odds are suffering is right around the corner! In the same way that we tend to run from suffering, many of us also run from pleasure and are taught from a young age not to trust our own joy or ecstasy. We see this diminish in children over time, going from complete uncensored pleasure in the simple things to learning to behave themselves, sit still, and dampen their enjoyment.
I want to live in a world where children are raised to enjoy their bodies and have a clear attunement to their own sensations and what is true for them from the inside out. So I’ve decided to over-share with you and tell you about some of my embarrassing first times as a way to clear the air and release some of the conditioned secrecy, guilt, and shame around sexuality. Much of this writing is from my sexual autobiography project written when I was 19 and kind of a ding-dong. Reading about these experiences now often feels sad but also funny and there is some great learning to be had here. These short stories, snap-shots of my life, are how I learned from the inside out what feels good for me (often based on what felt bad), and how to live a life where I am deeply nourished by pleasure and trust the sensations of my body to guide me. There must be a way to guide children towards what feels good for them, like deeply soul nourishing, and not just leave them out floundering to discover what feels bad.
As a mother of a rambunctious 3-year-old and pregnant, I’m fully invested in creating a world worthy of my children. I want them to enjoy their bodies and have great sex that brings them joy, satisfaction, and ecstasy one day a long long time from now. I want them to know how to take care of themselves and how to care for others. Looking back at all the crazy shit I did it’s clear that I bumbled into the world of sex with basically no accurate information, with a lot of fear, and weird assumptions I had learned from movies, magazines, dumb kids, and sex-ed in school (now kids have to contend with the internet!). I traveled by myself and had a lot of bad sex before anyone told me that I needed to masturbate to get to know my body so that I could communicate with my lover, that it was my responsibility to know my own pleasure, to move and make sounds and ask for what I want. I was full of fear thinking sex would cause diseases, pregnancy, and addiction. I went into sex thinking that a penis could “give me” an orgasm, that it was the man’s job (or teenage boys’) to know what I needed and I was merely the recipient. I waited until I was 18 and then got it done so that I wouldn’t be the last one to do it.
Sharing this gives me hope that we can change some of this so that sex is not a taboo subject full of shame, guilt, and secrecy. It can be beautiful! It can be wonderful! And it can be shitty, but the more we know ourselves and have awareness of the intricacies of our bodies and minds, the more empowered we are to say “yes” and “no,” to be clear and go towards what actually lights us up. Let’s do this!
I’m hopeful that if we teach our children to know and love their bodies, if we model this behavior, and if we teach them about sex in a clear way, free of shame that they can have a life full of healthy pleasure and take care of each other. May the next generation know more! May they enjoy their bodies and make the world more beautiful one orgasm at a time.
So here goes... Don’t judge me, I was a wild child.
*Most of this was written when I was 19. All names have been changed.
“Whether it’s a politician telling you to ‘just say no’ to sex, a support group urging you to admit that you’re a ‘sex addict,’ or a teacher warning you that ‘boys are only after one thing,’ you’ve got to stay on your toes to keep your sexual self-esteem intact.”
-Good Vibrations Guide to Sex, Winks & Semans, 2002
Ghana, West Africa
When I was 17 I lived in Ghana and everyone wanted to marry me. Even pregnant mothers proposed to me on behalf of their unborn sons. Walking down the street I was ogled like a sex goddess. It was like being a combination of Marilyn Monroe, Brittany Spears, and ET. The stares questioned, “you’re sexy and beautiful, but what are you?” Babies sometimes saw me and burst into frightened sobs. I was the first pale yellowish tan creature they’d ever seen.
Blue Balls
My host mom while I was living in the capitol wanted to set me up on a date with her personal trainer. I can’t remember his name now, but he had a lot of muscles. He wanted to take me to this music venue on a rocky cliff over the ocean. There were stairs down through the rocks so you could get to the beach. The ocean was filled with trash but it was beautiful with a refreshing salty breeze. There was always reggae playing or being performed. The trainer bought me some beer, rolled a joint, and made me laugh. I remember I’d been reading a romance novel at the time, which made it difficult to pay attention to him because the sound of the waves kept making me imagine things. I was still a virgin at the time, but the wild imagery about the ravishing guilty passionate love on a lost desert island, had me captivated and distracted. We kissed barefoot in the sand and the waves rushed up undetected, soaking the bottoms of our pants.
He wanted to have sex with me right there on the public beach and I was almost loose enough to do it too, but not without a condom. I mean I was young and dumb, but I didn’t want to get pregnant or any of the other scary diseases I’d learned to fear from sex-ed. He didn’t have one so we walked around for 45 minutes looking for one at “convenience” stores. The poor guy finally got one and I just didn’t feel like it anymore. I asked him to take me home and he did. He kept calling, but I was moving out of the city to live with a different family in a farming village and wanted nothing to do with him. He was the first man who had ever done anything with my vagina.
“For the erotic is not a question only of what we do; it is a question of how acutely and fully we can feel in the doing.”
-Uses of The Erotic as Power, Audre Lorde, 1978
The First Try
I lost my virginity one drunken night in a cabin listening to the Grateful Dead album “American Beauty” in the Volta Region of Ghana, West Africa. Charlie was from Connecticut. That’s where his girlfriend was. He flew back to her the next day. He said, “I wanna fuck you hard so when you’re sore you remember me.”
I remember lying there trying to enjoy, analyze, experience. I remember wondering why people did this so much. What was all the fuss about? We fucked about three times. I never came near orgasm. It wasn’t as painful as some horror stories I’d heard from friends. I figured I must be one of those select few who just don’t like sex that much.
Then there was George. He was the one who I’d actually wanted, Charlie was just more assertive. I’d been so naive to think that Charlie didn’t see my femaleness. He said he loved his girlfriend. I should have known what he wanted when he moved out of George’s cabin and into mine.
Second Try
George seemed relieved when he found out Charlie and I had done it. It took off the pressure of deflowering me. George and I had explosive chemistry. I was certain that sex with George would be different because our kissing was so fiery and fresh. But George must have had some deep-seeded guilt or denial of sexuality because he couldn’t really get or stay hard, or get off.
Needless to say my first tip toes into the world of sex were disappointing. I didn’t really want to do it again. I found out that many of my friends had felt let down by their first sexual escapades too.
For Yourself
Susan has been the therapist for everyone in my family, even my grandpa, and my brother’s two best friends. She lived with my parents at a Buddhist monastery in the mountains, when they were young. When I returned from Ghana, we went out to dinner to catch up. We went to an Italian restaurant on the water. She gazed into my eyes and said, “You’ve had sex.” I was astounded and asked, “How can you tell? Do you think my mom can tell?” She laughed and said, “You just seem different. And no, I don’t think your mom can tell. Was it any good?”
I blushed and told her that it hadn’t been any good for me. She explained that it’s really important that both people have a good time and that the sex is not over until everyone is happy. Directly after dinner, we went to Barnes and Noble to buy me a sex book. Susan bought me the book For Yourself, The Fulfillment of Female Sexuality by Lonnie Barbach. Never before had I felt so encouraged to masturbate. Masturbation is the answer. Explore yourself! It makes sense that you should know what’s going on down there before you give free rein to an outsider.
This book really did help me, because I’d always thought that sex would just come naturally, like I’d know instinctually what to do. I didn’t feel this at all, so realizing that there were tons of books written by and for other confused people was a huge relief. It was helpful to think of sex as something to learn about. It was empowering to realize that I needed to guide my own experience and that no man would have magic powers or psychic abilities to know exactly what I needed if I didn’t know myself. I had blindly believed that men would just know what would feel good for me and that it was not really my responsibility.
“The cleavage between reason and passion is an ancient theme but no anachronism; it has endured because it speaks to the deep human experience of a divided mind.”
-A General Theory of Love, Lewis, Amini & Lannon, 2000
Golden Grass and Sloping Hills
Paul and I met at the Mill Valley Video Droid in 2005. We were both working there. I was 17 and he was 25. I was a pretentious high school student who’d just traveled to Ghana for a 5-week exchange program and decided that only Ghanaians knew how to live and I must live there in a village for the rest of my life. He was a lost college dropout with a talent for opera singing but a passion for cinematography. I was only working there to earn enough money to leave. He was taking a break to ponder his existence. When we met, I was still a virgin. I’d thought about sex. A lot. Some of my friends had started doing it, but I hadn’t yet found anyone who didn’t invoke a gag reflex at the thought of their thingy poking me down there. We didn’t have sex until the next year when I was 18 and had returned from Africa. Barely legal. Although by then I’d had sex in Ghana, Paul was the first who felt like a lover to me.
When I returned from Ghana the second time to the video store, the flirtation with Paul began. He hadn’t looked that interesting to me when I first met him but he was witty. We were funny together. Great banter; back and forth biting. He finally asked me to go to a costume party rave for the summer solstice. He picked me up in his truck and drove to his friends’ house-boat in Sausalito, where we painted faces, took ecstasy and then drove to the city. All night we shook and shimmied. Paul kept coming and going into different rooms, while I stayed in one place dancing in my strapless red princess dress. Finally, he came and danced with me. I love dancing. He asked me if I wanted to hear him sing. I’d been begging him for weeks. It was the first time I’d ever heard opera live, sung to me. My knees got weak and he had to catch me, with his arms around my waste. That’s when he kissed me.
When we left, the sun was just peeking up and I said I wanted to go somewhere beautiful. He drove up Mount Tam and I told him about a field where we could walk to watch the sun rise. We rolled around in the tall golden grasses being kissed by new sun rays. Beneath us were the clouds, ocean, and sloping hills, all lighting up.
He told me he wanted to take me somewhere he could undress me and I explained that I didn’t like sex very much. Then I went out to dinner with Susan and changed my answer to needing about 3 days to read a book and get back to him. After reading For Yourself my sexual experience improved a lot, but it still took some practice to have an orgasm with another person.
First Taste of Pleasure
It wasn’t until Joe that I tasted the potential thrills. He had a tiny penis and thought that I was faking my excitement. He found something in me that I didn’t know I had. Joe had never brought a girl to orgasm before me. He’s from a tiny Mormon town where he lost his virginity to his high school sweet heart. They’d been dating for six years when Joe and I met. I was not the first girl that Joe cheated with, but the others had been one-night affairs. He claims that his girlfriend doesn’t know about any of the others, or what it feels like to orgasm. Six years with one tiny penis and no experience with any others.
Looking back I think this may have been my first sexual experience that didn’t hurt. Joe’s penis was small enough that it felt gentle and I could follow the feelings of pleasure and slowly let them grow.
A couple years later, Joe came to visit me before I was traveling to Ghana for the 3rd time. He wanted to marry me. I really thought about it. I knew it wouldn’t go over well with his family. I knew I was too young and not Mormon and would not have enough babies to be considered successful in his culture. I sent him all the parts of this story that I wrote about him, so there would be no secrets. When I got to Ghana I started a relationship with an old friend and still thought I might marry Joe when I returned. We were supposed to meet at Disneyland. When I had malaria for the second time, he called to tell me he was marrying his high school sweetheart, had told her everything and could never talk to me again. My sweet African lover held me while I cried about another man.
“Another important way in which the erotic connection functions is the open and fearless underlining of my capacity for joy.”
-Uses of the Erotic as Power, Audre Lorde, 1978
I’ll leave you with a few more answers from: “What’s the difference between Sex, Fucking, and Making Love?”
There’s no separation between fucking, having sex and making love. They are the same impulse. Assuming uniqueness is assuming light without energy, water without liquid. Magnificent intercourse is the proper expression of all three. Sometimes concurrently, always instinctually, each partner must move within the impulse, taking their cue from the moment. It is impossible to know someone else’s experience. They say they fucked you. They say they don’t know what it was. They say you made love. They may lie. All that can be known is personal experience, the part of the impulse you choose to embrace. Having sex is fucking. Fucking is making love.
-Joe, Ex-lover
It’s not something I’ve put a lot of thought into. Making love is more of a shared experience. You want it to be with someone your interested in. Sex you can have with anyone. It’s a broader term, more scientific. Fucking is almost the opposite side. Often times alcohol is involved. Maybe I can go a little longer and do all the things I want to do.
Paul, Ex-lover
References:
For Yourself, Lonnie Barbach, Penguin Books, New York, 1975
A General Theory of Love, Thomas Lewis, M.D., Fari Amini, M.D., and Richard Lannon M.D., Random House, New York, 2000
The Good Vibrations Guide to Sex, Cathy Winks and Anne Semans, Cleis Press, California, 2002
Sister Outsider, “The Uses of the Erotic as Power,” Audre Lorde, The Crossing Press, New York, 1978