A letter to the teenager who 'took' my virginity. I want to say thank you.

It's not that the act itself was incredible. 

The setting, for a start, was not romantic. 

A bobbly, mustard-yellow bath towel spread across a single bed in a draughty spare room, upstairs and two doors to the left at our friends’ friends’ parents’ house. 

We had exactly half an hour. 

“They’ll be back, you better be quick,” said the enabling acquaintance, with a smirk. We nodded, but didn’t make any eye contact. With her. With each other. We were holding hands though, as the door closed behind us. And then we laughed. 

Teenagers don’t have anywhere to have sex. No space for privacy, no stretches of time between doors being flung open, no languid mornings, no afternoon delight, no hotel-room keys.

Teenagers have attics and cellars and rumpus rooms, places where distracted adults rarely go. They have parks at dusk and maybe beaches and sand dunes, and later, they have cars. They have snatched time before mum gets home from work, before the little brother bursts in, before they have to leave to be home for dinner. 

Teenagers have to be wily and efficient about sex. 

And so it was with us. A party of sorts, with a circle of close friends. The parents out until 10, oblivious to the underage carnage that was happening on their carpets, on their back deck, in their spare room. The cider bottles. The ciggies. The condoms. 

You and I had planned this. We’d talked about it. We had been together for eight months. It felt like a long time. A serious amount of time. We kissed, we touched and groped and stroked, but I don’t remember anything more. Not until that night. 

The classic hetero sex paradigm – the act was the destination: P&V. We knew no different. We knew no better. Yet.

“Are you sure you want to?” you asked, as we lay on that scratchy towel. Affirmative consent in a time before those words had been put together. "You sure, sure?"

I wanted to. I really, really wanted to. That’s what I remember more than the act – my desire. My slippery, desperate desire. We were 15 and I loved you. LOVED YOU. I thought you were beautiful, with your long slender fingers and your big, rockpool eyes. You were tall and it made me feel safe. You were funny and it made me feel smart. You were cool and it made me feel special. 

Most of all – although I had no idea, then, what a lottery I had won with this little truth – you were kind. 

Kissing you had become my favourite thing. A pastime better than netball, football or even school discos, more fun than shopping with my best friend, than singing along to my favourite song at the top of my voice, better than wrestling with my dog, better even than writing in my diary. Kissing you was better than chocolate. Better even, than a Flake. 

As the kissing became more urgent, the impatience for 'what's next?' became too strong to suppress. The feelings just wouldn't... stay down.  

And so tonight was the night. The party. The spare room. The absence of parents. 

Oh, I wanted to.  

I was nervous. Of course. And so were you. You said you'd done it before. Once. We had no idea then, but we lived in a profoundly innocent time. No phones. No porn at a tap. No ever-present cameras. Only magazines under beds, only passages in "dirty" books. Only "sexy scenes" in French movies. Only, maybe, an older brother's mislabelled VHS tape. 

We kept our tops on, even as we tore at the zips of each other's jeans. We wanted to get to the destination.

Of course, it was not great. It was not fireworks and waterfalls. It was fumble-condom-s**t-yes. It was push-gasp, push-gasp, push-push-gasp, until it was over, quickly. Our breath passed between us at a quickening rate until it stopped, held, and came rushing out of your mouth in a tumbling groan. 

But what came next, in the dozens of times we "did it" between the night on the towel and the inevitable day you broke my heart, were explorations of everything else. And it all began to make sense, to justify my desire. 

You see, the reason for this letter, the reason for the thank-you, is simple. My first time didn't result in a climax worthy of a scene in one of those French films. Certainly not. 

But tenderness was there. It was there that night, and in all the stolen moments that followed. 

The very first things you asked, in the after. "Are you okay?" "Did you enjoy that?" The way you handled the clumsy honesty of, "It was... fine, but..."

Your growing interest in what would make the experience better for me. Now, and next time. A path began to be spoken out loud towards that perceived holy grail – the female orgasm. And we got there, plenty of times. 

***

Such tiny graces shouldn't be anything to be thankful for. Giving your partner the basic human dignity of mutual enjoyment should be table stakes for any sexual interaction. But what I've learned, in the years and years since, in all the conversations with all of the women in my world was that it was rare, what happened between us. Too many first sexual encounters were entirely devoid of consideration. 

They felt absent from the picture, at best. Their trust was exploited, as standard. Their bodies were violated, at worst. 

The stories in the middle are the most common – it was lacking passion. It was lacking care. And certainly, their pleasure never came into it. 

Of course, let's not sugar-coat it. You did break my heart. About 10 months later, you stopped being at home when I called. 

A pre-mobile world, where I had to talk to your mum, every time. Oh, the humiliation of the days she spoke to me over and over again. "I'm sorry, darling," she began to say, at last. Lovely woman, your mum. 

And then you told me, face to face. You liked someone else. 

My teenage world collapsed, and whenever I consider how young is "too young", it's not the yellow towel I think of, it's the narrow, sheltered little shoulders that tried to carry that rejection around and pretend it wasn't crushing me as I watched you holding hands with your someone else. 

It felt un-survivable. But it wasn't. 

And now I'm writing to thank you because what I know for sure was that my first experience of love and sex made the rest of my life – and now more of that is behind me than in front – easier, better, healthier. 

It meant that I could distinguish, and quickly, the men who cared and the ones who didn't. And that, usually, I could get away from the latter in time. Not always, but usually.

It meant I learned sex was something I should like. Not something to be taken from me, but something that should bring me joy. Not fear. Not insecurity. Not pain. I learned that lesson hiding under duvets in our school uniforms in the window between school home-time and adult home-time. I learned it in spare rooms at teenage parties. And I learned it from the enormous split-faced grin you'd give me when you'd made me happy. 

I learned that the pleasure should take me out of myself, not further inside. That I wasn't a performer, but a director, in my sexual story. 

So, thank you, teenage boyfriend, for all of that. 

But not for that bit where you dumped me for someone else. F**k you for that.

xxx

*The author of this piece is known to Mamamia but has chosen to remain anonymous to save the blushes of once-teenage, now middle-aged people. And their parents. 

Image: Getty + Mamamia. 

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