The First Time: What Parents and Teenage Girls Should Know About "Losing Your Virginity"

Questionnaire

Note to Parents

In this culture, few things are more difficult to talk about than sex. Adults married for thirty years often find it embarrassingly revealing to ask their spouses for what they need; and to have detailed and frank conversations with children about their budding sexuality can be even more intimidating. As many parents admit, they are at cross purposes: they want to teach about the joy and mystery of making love, yet at the same time are desperately trying to shield their children from growing up too soon. In addition, the consequences of becoming sexually active these days can be deadly, and no parent is eager to think of their son or daughter as suddenly becoming a potential target. Because of our discomfort, our conversations often stay relatively vague and ambiguous: Wait until you're older, but when you do, make sure he uses a condom.

Obviously what we've been doing so far is not effective enough. Harper's Index found that fifty-four percent of teenagers who have lost their virginity wish that they had waited longer to have sex. Looking just at young women, you find even greater regret. A Roper poll found that almost two-thirds of girls, compared with less than half of boys, said they should have waited to have sex until they were older. Infection rates of sexually transmitted disease are highest among Americans aged fifteen to twenty-five, and a recent survey of college women showed that only forty-one percent are insisting that their partner wear a condom. These statistics alone speak volumes about the tremendous need to keep the channels of communication open between parents and teens.

The good news is that parents want to have honest conversations with their children about sex. Over and over in the process of publicizing the first edition of The First Time, I received phone calls from parents asking, How do I reach my young daughter without alienating her? How can I protect her? Although they didn't necessarily have the proper information, the tools to effectively communicate, or the courage (!), parents wanted to do it right.

The first step, it seems to me, is to have a realistic picture of what the first time is for women. The stories that follow, based on interviews with more than 150 women, spell out several messages for parents to pay attention to. First, over and over women talked about the lack of sensitive communication—from parents and from partners. Most of us don't know how to talk about sex, and this was very apparent. What struck me as the most important lesson, however, was that we need to teach our daughters to be more assertive. So often, teenage girls (and all of us!) have no sense of their worth, and haven't formed a strong voice—one that can say NO! loud and clear when necessary, or one that can say, Yes, this is what I want and here's how I want it.

By being more informed about the realities of sexual initiation, parents can gain a better understanding of the situations their teenagers face and more realistically help them make healthy choices. As one mother said to me after reading the book, I told my daughter the basics by rote. That making love, with the right person when the time is right, is wonderful. You must be prepared with birth control and protection. What this mother, in retrospect, realized that she had forgotten was warning her daughter about difficult and dangerous situations she could get in, such as pressures from boys or friends, how alcohol lowers inhibitions and clouds judgment, and date rape and how to avoid coercive situations. These things her daughter had to learn from experience.

A physicist, who is raising his teenage daughter alone, called to say, "I think that the stories in this book have taught my daughter and me, about the good and bad aspects of sex. It doesn't romanticize sex or make it scary—it just gives true-life stories which have really helped us begin to talk about sex."

Hopefully you too can use this awareness to be more sexually informed and to teach your daughters and sons. With understanding, education, and communication, we can create a context in which young women—and indeed all of us—can become empowered to make appropriate choices about their own sexuality.

The First Time

How deep the need is to tell the story, to hear it to the end.

—Susan Griffin, A Chorus of Stones

One of the most significant stories a woman can tell is the experience of her first sexual intercourse. Not only is the event a traditional rite of passage into womanhood, but it is the door to one of the most intriguing and sacred sides of herself—her sexuality. Unfortunately, for many women the first time they have intercourse isn't by choice: prey to miseducation, abuse, coercion, or outright violence, they have the decision taken from them. For others, however, it is the beginning of sexual discovery and romance, independence and physical communication; in fact, many young women feel it's the first adult decision that they are able to make.

No matter what the experience—joyful or scarring, meaningful or seeming irrelevant—it can mark the threshold of the expression of our physical relationship with others. The stories we hold and the stories we tell of this time are important to us as individuals—and as girls and women trying to make sense of the mysterious and intriguing experience of sex.

Several years ago, I remember looking in bookstores through categories of books on women's issues and sexuality. There were books on masturbation, on tantric loving, on improving both heterosexual and homosexual technique. A wave of erotic literature had hit the mainstream, along with several landmark studies about female sexuality. But nothing on virginity loss except a few statistics on age of sexual initiation. With all of the books talking about the practicalities and the erotic, the emotional experience—how our heart and soul are affected by sex—was almost completely ignored.

I found it odd that in all that research, all that exploration of female sexuality, nobody had broached the topic and asked any questions: How did you feel about losing your virginity? What was it like, emotionally and physically? The subject seemed almost purposefully ignored, as though it were taboo, inconsequential, or simply a can of worms that nobody was willing to open. Our society has exploited and sensationalized sex in every way possible, yet we have profoundly neglected the engaged heart and body—and the passage that leads to or tears us away from this.

Granted, it is difficult to study and explore psychological and emotional experience. The range of variables, as well as the fear people have of revealing intimate details, make it nearly impossible. But I wanted to know what other women felt about their first time, what impact it had on their future sexuality, and how their sexual selves unfolded.

I began by drafting a questionnaire, testing it out, and revising it until it was impartial yet specific enough to get honest answers to my questions. My main goal was to create a safe space for women to share the intimate details of their stories, no matter what their experience. I wanted to provide a forum for women to express themselves, a way to talk about not only the event itself, but also how they felt about it and how their sexuality evolved as a result of it. I asked open-ended questions, which I hoped would lead each woman to an exploration of the emotional aspect of her sexuality, a chance to see patterns and turning points, beginning with sexual initiation.

Over one thousand questionnaires went out to such women's organizations as shelters, support groups, professional associations, clubs, colleges, and special-interest groups. I also interviewed women who felt more comfortable speaking than writing, from homeless women to busy working mothers.

More than 150 women from all walks of life—teachers and students, psychologists and writers, waitresses and security guards, lawyers and ministers, prostitutes and sorority members—answered the questionnaire. The average (median, mean, and mode) age of first intercourse was seventeen. Although I tried to get as broad a racial mix as possible, the overwhelming majority of respondents were white—eighty-five percent—were Caucasian. Nine percent were African American, three percent Hispanic, and three percent Asian. I tried specifically to reach minority women through a variety of organizations, clubs, and personal contacts, but social and/ or ethnic taboos about discussing sexuality might have discouraged some women from answering, as well as the fact that I am a white, middle-class woman. Many religious upbringings were represented, including Protestant, Jewish, and Catholic.

Geographically, the largest number of respondents were from California, making up 20 percent of the total. Regionally, 31 percent came from the West, 33 percent from the Midwest, 9 percent from the Southeast, and 25 percent from the Northeast; 2 percent from outside the United States. Approximately 10 percent of the respondents defined themselves as lesbians; about 25 percent have had a sexual encounter with another woman.

The lack of response from older women was particularly noticeable. Age ranged from thirteen to seventy-four, but the average age was thirty-three. It's not hard to imagine that for older women, who grew up in a very different social climate, the mere inquiry was an invasion. A few wrote to tell me so. One seventy-five-year-old white Presbyterian said, Thank you for the questionnaire, but I shall have to let you down. My friends and I were raised in a far different era—with different standards and a different moral code. There were no therapists or self-help groups. If we had any problems, we ‘shed a few tears,’ ‘thought we would die,’ and in a few days were back to normal. Sounds simple, I know. So to fill out your questionnaire just isn't part of our world. I hope you understand.

I have to just keep telling myself that these are changing times, writes a seventy-six-year-old black woman from South Carolina. My granddaughters try to keep me up on things, but sometimes I cannot believe how things have changed. The things they do, the things they talk about! I am trying to accept that it's a different world, but I'd like to keep my own story and bedroom goings-on to myself.

A sixty-seven-year-old white Catholic from Massachusetts echoes this sentiment: There are some things in life that I feel should be your very own. Also, because of my very early training to not unburden myself to others, I don't think I ever felt close enough to any woman to discuss such intimate details.

A few other women wrote back to say that they were refusing to fill out the questionnaire or talk to me. The reasons varied, but often the reactions were revealing. One eighty-year-old woman said, It happened so long ago, has been buried so deep, that to dredge it up now would be too difficult. And a young prostitute, who had agreed to talk with me about her sexual history, when questioned about her first time, said, I'll tell you anything but that. I also got responses questioning my intentions: Are you a pervert? A lesbian? or, simply, What business is it of yours?

The responses I did get were overwhelming. Something about telling the story to a neutral party gave women the guts to look at themselves and their sexuality, often with startling insight. Women exposed their secret, sexual self—a self usually reserved for intimate bedroom conversations, sessions with a therapist, or deemed too private to show anyone at all. Many women said, Thank you for asking this question, and others commented that it had been healing to write down their story; some confided things that they had never before told anyone.

Through the series of questions (see Appendix), women shared their disappointments: I should have valued myself more and not ‘given away’ my virginity to the first guy who wanted my body but not necessarily me. They shared their anger: Now whenever I see this man/boy who date-raped me, I want to punch him in the face, hurt him, and make him feel ugly as he made me feel. And they shared their growth: Finally, through making love with a caring, compassionate man, I was shown how special, unique, and attractive I was; he gave me a wonderful gift—a new image of myself.

Because of the intimate nature of the questions, all of the names in the stories have been changed to ensure confidentiality. Other identifying characteristics were also altered slightly, with only general references to where a woman was raised and her occupation or religious background.

The stories I chose to include were those that I thought shared a common thread of experience but which were also revealing of the individual. The passionate responses testify to the powerful emotions that women have about this experience. They offer a keyhole glimpse into the gamut of feelings, opinions, and beliefs women have about their own sexuality.

Because I asked specific questions about how first sexual experiences affected their later sexuality, many women took the opportunity to give me an overview of their sexual history. In general, the older and more experienced the woman, the more she told of the metamorphosis of her sexuality, a positive transformation that took place over the years. Again and again women disclosed that the older they got, the better sex was.

Often it took women years to learn about their bodies and what they needed and wanted sexually. Some women had to erase stereotypes they had held on to for decades: how their bodies were supposed to function and how women were supposed to act during sex. Other women needed to learn to trust their partner in order to communicate their needs. Age also brought about a change in women's ideas about the myths of fairy-tale romance and gave them the perspective to recreate ingrained images and relationship models to fit real life. With