Let's talk about sex, baby

(Spoilers: if you don't want to know my sexual history, you might wanna skip this week)

This post includes details about my first sexual experience (and other subsequent encounters). I’m uncomfortable writing about this, so… if you’re uncomfortable reading about it, you may want to skip this week. I won’t mind if you do…

I had a meltdown this week in therapy.

We’re taking a break from my Navy-related trauma, and trying, instead, to address my past relationships (another area of my life I’ve never talked about before).

I’ve known for some time that I have… difficulty approaching the opposite sex. I always assumed it was because I stopped maturing somewhere in my teen years, and so I just don’t know how to connect with adult women the way I really want to. It turns out, that assumption is more correct than I ever could’ve anticipated.

The first time I had sex, I was fifteen years old. It was clumsy, and awkward, as every boy’s first time is… but it was also frightening, and intimidating… and it left me with deep feelings of shame, regret, and remorse.

The girl I was with was my girlfriend, so at least we were in a relationship. But she wasn’t a girl who I loved. She was just… somebody I really liked making out with, and wanted to go “all the way.”

I’d had plenty of girlfriends before her. (I had no problems getting girlfriends in high school.) And I knew all about making out, and getting hot and bothered — but I never went below the belt. Partly because it was just wrong in my religion, but honestly, mainly, because I just didn’t want to… because I knew, intuitively, I just wasn’t ready.

But with Luana, I told myself that I was ready (or, at least, that I wanted to be).

I was already masturbating, so I knew what that part of it felt like, and I kinda just figured sex would feel like that, only somehow better… I had no idea what I was getting myself into…

The day came, and I knew I was gonna do the deed, and I thought it was gonna be amazing.

But in reality, it was cheap and tawdry, and it left me feeling like I’d just done the worst thing imaginable, and like I’d turned myself and my girlfriend into a couple of dirty animals.

You see, my first time was the antithesis of romantic, safe, or “sex promoting.” We had sex in the back of my friend’s van, during our lunch break, while she drove around the neighborhood with probably 6 or 8 of our best friends along for the ride.

(We were on the floor behind the back row of seats, so… I’m pretty sure none of our friends saw anything.. and anyway, I used my trenchcoat as a blanket so if anyone did look over the back seat, at least they wouldn’t see Luana’s nakedness… so I guess that one gesture counts for something…)

As a hormone-filled, fifteen-year-old boy, I thought it was going to be pretty awesome — up until the moment of truth. When I entered her, my body and mind were flooded with hormones, thoughts, feelings, sensations, unlike anything I’d ever known. It was so intense and overpowering, I lost all control, and I was finished before anything even began.

In that first second I thought this was incredible! But as soon as all the feelings overwhelmed me, I panicked. I became afraid, and confused, and I didn’t know what was happening… and I didn’t know if I liked it or not… but by then, there was nothing I could do about it.

We finished and I felt… empty.

I didn’t know what I had done. I was scared of all the things I’d felt. In just one act, I convinced myself I had sinned so horribly against God that I could never be forgiven.

I wanted to take it all back.

I felt dirty, and ashamed… and I thought the way I reacted to it all meant there must be something wrong with me! Because, in my world, what other fifteen-year-old boy would respond to having sex with fear, confusion, and shame?

(Looking back, I’ll bet a lot of them do… but certainly when you’re around your teenage friends, talking about sex, no boy ever admits that it was awkward, or uncomfortable, or that it made them feel afraid or dirty.)

So I did the only thing I knew how to do: I shut down. I withdrew from my girlfriend (literally, and figuratively), and I put on a face that made it look like I was cool… but inside I was a mess, and I knew it.

Later that night, while I was hanging out with some of our friends (Luana wasn’t with us), something broke inside of me and I started sobbing uncontrollably. I knew it was the shame and guilt I felt around having sex — but, again, fifteen-year-old boys don’t cop to shame and guilt. I couldn’t stop crying though, so I just told my friends I didn’t know what was wrong, but I was just really upset… and I think they bought it.

A week later, I still felt dirty and shameful, and so I broke up with my girlfriend (thinking that it must be her fault I felt this way). And I tried to bury all my feelings, and act like everything was fine…

My next girlfriend, Carrie, turned out to be the love of my life. (Well, of the first part of my life, anyway.) I knew I loved Carrie the moment we met — even though she was dating my best friend, Nathan.

After Carrie and Nathan had broken up, and sufficient time had passed (and I made sure Nathan was cool with it), I started dating Carrie. Our first kiss was incredible! And reminded me of all the things I wanted romance to be, and that were not a part of my first sexual experience with Luana.

So, I went back to making out… but I made sure I kept sex off the table for as long as possible… because I didn’t want to get hurt again… and I didn’t want to make Carrie a “dirty girl.” (Because good Christian boys are taught to stay away from dirty girls… since they’re basically like, the devil incarnate.)

Carrie and I dated for over a year and a half before I was ready to have sex with her — and when I finally did, it was beautiful, and romantic, and it made me feel all the things that I think sex should…

But shortly thereafter I felt guilty again, and I kept it to myself, again. And a few months later I was making out with Carrie’s best friend, and our relationship was over. (Really, really bad idea, by the way, to ever make out with your girlfriend’s best friend… but at seventeen, how was I supposed to know?)

Next came Catherine. She was a couple years younger than me, and was a virgin. And depending on how closely you interpret the Bible, I ruined her within the first few months of being boyfriend and girlfriend.

I liked Catherine. I don’t know if either of us ever “loved” the other… but we liked each other plenty… obviously. (I’ve never had sex with a girl I didn’t at least like…) But by the time I started sleeping with Catherine, I’d learned to turn off all the emotional side of sex, and just enjoy the physical.

The problem is, in a long-term relationship, y’all need the emotional aspect of sex… or the physical act will destroy you. But emotional intimacy had damaged me so much with Luana and later with Carrie (who broke my heart when our relationship ended… even though it was probably actually entirely my fault, when I started making out with her friend instead of her… I can’t really blame her, now, for not sticking around for that).

I really did love Carrie, though. To this day I know she was my first love. Sometimes I wish she’d been my true love… but nothing can make something become what it isn’t. Suffice it to say she’ll always be in my heart — she’s just not the main player, anymore.

But when I was with Catherine, Carrie still held a larger piece of me than Catherine ever did. (I’m so sorry I put you through that, Catherine. I was young, and hurting, and didn’t know.)

The physical act with Catherine was… well, it made me forget everything else, at least temporarily. And it felt really good to not think about everything else. So good, I became dependent on Catherine’s sex. Addicted to it, maybe.

That’s probably a good way to describe it, actually, because when we were having sex I felt like everything in my life was perfect. But when I came down… I was anxious, depressed, angry, paranoid, mistrusting, afraid… lonely… codependent…

Before our relationship ended, I had given all control over to Catherine. I was entirely dependent on her willingness to let me have sex with her, because it was the only thing that made me feel good… but inside, I knew it was all lies. I knew it was destroying me (and her, but I’d become too selfish to be able to acknowledge that), and I just couldn’t quit. I couldn’t walk away from the relationship that I knew was killing me.

And this whole time, from Luana, to Carrie, to Catherine (and to the handful of girls I’ve had very short encounters with since then), I’ve never talked about sex with any woman I’ve been with.

I’ve never asked what she likes or doesn’t. I’ve never asked if she wanted sex or was ready for it. I never told her if I thought I was ready for it or not. I never made sure we were emotionally connected, and ready to have sex with each other.

I’ve kept all my thoughts, feelings, questions, curiosities, and insecurities around sex, all to myself, for fear that if I ever spoke them out loud, I would embarrass myself or “gross out” the woman I was with (since good girls don’t have sex to begin with, but if they do, they certainly don’t talk about it, think about it, or enjoy it, the way men do).

Plus, even today I’m kind of afraid that if I admit I like sex, God is gonna come down and be like, “What you talking about? You’re not married son; you’re not supposed to even know what sex is!”

And, truly, I do believe sex should be reserved for marriage. My life just didn’t go that way, growing up.

I don’t know 100% why I never talked about it, but certainly the fear of God played a part, as did, I suppose, the fear that if I talked about sex with a girl, it would turn her off, and make her not want to have sex with me… so the only solution to my teenage mind was to not talk about it, but almost sneakily get a girl so turned on by making out that maybe it would just “happen” sometime when she wouldn’t be able to control herself.

Plus, everything I’d internalized to that point told me sex was dirty, and shameful, and having sex before marriage was the worst possible thing I could ever do in God’s eyes — and good girls don’t have sex unless they’re tricked into it, so…

I’ve never had a healthy view of sex, or sexuality… and I’ve thought, my whole life, that I had to keep my unhealthy view to myself, so that no “good girl” would ever know that I’m some kind of pervert or deviant, all because I actually like having sex.

Now, all that said, my hope going forward is that I will wait to have sex again until I’m married… in part because it’s what my faith demands, but also because, for me, it’s such an incredible bonding experience, I don’t want to share that with just anybody. But quite honestly, until today, I couldn’t even verbalize that much, without fear that simply mentioning the word “sex” would make me dirty, or shameful, or insecure…

Or that it would bring up all the unresolved trauma that comes from having some messed up thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and experiences, around sex, and never thinking I could share any part of it with anybody, without fear of serious repercussions.

So, yeah… I have problems approaching the opposite sex.

Which, I would try to just live with, anymore… except, I really want the emotional intimacy that comes with having a healthy sexual relationship…

And until I work this trauma out… I’m never gonna have that.

And that makes me wanna have a meltdown, every day of my life.