Anonymous

I was 16, 17? I don’t remember. What I do remember is that my mother had spoken to me about making my first time special. Making sure I loved who I would be having sex with, making it memorable with use of the usual romantic props—flowers, candles, perhaps trying to prepare me for the fact that sex the first time wouldn’t be great, so why not use the props to have something nice to remember.

I may not remember the age, but what I do remember is that somehow I had convinced or hoodwinked my mother in order to be at a club with my friends. I remember that I always got a rush out of being admired, even more out of being hit on.

And there was this sailor. Sweet man. I don’t know how much discernment I practiced, I don’t think much. I think that I was so flattered by the fact that someone liked me, that I would have taken whatever came my way. So we hooked up, I don’t remember how. We must have been kissing in the car park, he had such a hard on.

And then he used all those old lines that I knew were bullshit to talk me into sex. His balls would turn blue, he would be damaged, how could I lead him on like this? So what did I do? I gave in. We made our way to the highly romantic toilet stall. My flowers were the khoki-painted walls covered in graffiti. My candles, the sullen overhead fluorescent light of the toilet stall. I lost my virginity to a sailor in a toilet stall in a club at 17.

I didn’t think much of myself or the occasion then, and now all I have is compassion for my younger self, yearning so much for affection and love, with all her mild rebellion, with her ‘I don’t really care’ attitude who gave herself away so early, and from then on, so consistently…