Though told from a perspective that’s highly male and (the author admits) fairly inexperienced For Guy Virgins: Basic Things No One Told Me About Sex” from http://www.succeedsocially.com has some highly useful information about the nuts and bolts of having sex for the first time with someone else. I’d be much harder on him for his general cluelessness about women’s perspective if not for a) the fact that for all the focus on women’s virginity there’s woefully little practical attention paid to men’s first times, and b) his clearly stated disclaimer:
I’m … a 26-year old guy writing this for other young guys so I’m going to be using slang terms. If that’s not your thing then feel free to hit the ‘Back’ button. Maybe you’re just here for the writing on conversation and making friends and don’t think a website on shyness and social skills should have this sexually oriented stuff in it. The thing is sex and young, dorky guys overcoming their issues are pretty connected.
As with maybe too many men (and increasingly women) these days, he learned a little too much about sex from Hollywood movies or while while masturbating to pornography.
What amuses me in movies now is what you could call the ‘instant penetration.’ You see it all the time if you look for it. A man and woman will be in their underwear, or even fully clothed, in some sexually charged situation. Maybe the woman is sitting on the man’s lap (both in their underwear remember), or the man is standing behind the woman. The camera is focused on their faces. Then the guy will make a little movement, the woman will gasp, and then they’ll close their eyes and start moaning, the implication being that the man achieved vaginal penetration off-camera. Yeah, not that quick and easy in real life. You’ve got to move your clothes out of the way, line things up, the guy has to be hard enough, the woman needs to be pretty wet, and often the man has to guide his penis in with his hand. Otherwise it’s a much more awkward procedure.
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Also, when you watch porn you can mistakingly associate the visual act you’re witnessing with the sensations you’re giving yourself. For example, say you have a thing for titty fucking scenes in porn. And let’s say as you’re watching, you’re masturbating in a fast, intense manner. You know your body so of course it’s going to feel good. But actual titty fucking probably doesn’t feel like your fast, intense, just-right wanking. The true physical sensations may or may not be your cup of tea.
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In porn the positions are all about making the sex visable to the camera and to give you a good look at the woman’s body. In real life concerns such as being close to each other often take precedence.
I love that last one, by the way. Evidently a lot of young men, knowing no better, pull out to ejaculate on their partners even though it’s a pretty significant step down in sensation from coming with and/or inside one’s partner. (Note: men’s partners opinions vary widely on this, from finding it totally hot to utterly degrading. Check first m’kay?)
There’s also some earnestly practical advice about positions, women’s natural lubrication, erections, penetration, orgasms and timing, minor injuries, condoms, and messiness.
With some variations her vagina will seem like a straight tunnel that you can easily go in-and-out, in-and-out of. With other variations you’re mostly inside her, can only thrust a little, and you’re more grinding pelvises together.
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It runs out at some point and she’ll get dry, and eventually uncomfortable, during sex. Sometimes you have to pull out and apply some lube. At other times you can keep going for a bit and she’ll get wet again.
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If it’s not hard enough you’ll have a hard time putting it in. It’ll tend to bend or slide out of the way instead of penetrating. However, if it’s slightly soft and you manage to get in it, you can often get it harder quickly once you start thrusting.
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When the girl is on top the angle of her vaginal tunnel can give you problems and you can’t really see what you’re doing. It’s best if she guides it in herself.
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In many cases you’re not just going to cum instantly as soon as you start pounding away, you have to find the speed, angle, depth, etc. that feels good for you. It’s not automatic, just like you can’t just masturbate in any random way. You have to do what’s effective for you.
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If she’s riding you and you slip out she can come down on your dick. Usually it gets bent a little and hurts for a minute. At the worst you can rupture the tissue and take a trip to the hospital.
You may get scratches, bruises, pulled hair (purposely this time), and bite marks. That’s cool.
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[Condoms] smell bad.
Sometimes when you’re inside the girl they’ll bunch up in weird ways and feel strange.
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If you have a good session, when you’re done you’re going to be sweaty, red faced, tired, and a bit out of it. Your hair will be messed up, gross stray hairs will be stuck to your skin, the girl will have a bit of white lubricant running out of her cootch. You’ll have a bit of cum dribbling out of your dick. There will be at least one condom wrapper on the floor, the sheets and pillows will be all over the place, and the bed will have a wet spot on it. If you cuddle afterwards you’ll start to stick together and it’ll feel gross when you pull apart. It’s great.
Could we use an equally blunt exposition from a young woman’s perspective? You bet. Could we use a third entry on, like, things that do and don’t work for one’s partner? Um, yeah, that would be another major, and welcome, departure from a masturbation/porn orientation.[1] And so this piece functions better as the “don’t plug your waffle-maker into the wall while standing in the bathtub” section of the manual rather than the main “how to make really wonderful waffles” sections. But for a young man who’s about to have real-life, messy, sweaty, sticky, and generally wonderful sex for the first time, or for his partner whether she’s more experienced or not, it’s all pretty good to know.
[Footnote #1: I really am interested in similar first-timer’s perspectives for women and take-care-of-your-partner-too posts. Put them in comments if you’ve got them. Thanks in advance. —fl]
Hat tip to Bacchus of Erosblog.
Submitted by 1282 (not verified) on Sun, 2007-04-01 05:32.
If you cuddle afterwards you'll start to stick together and it'll feel gross when you pull apart.
OMG! This one had me laugh... No, I won't put myself as giving advice or view from the woman side... my first time is too far for me to remember... All I do remember is that it wasn't very interesting... Poor, poor me.. ;-))
[Yeah, it's kind of weird that we don't expect our first time playing tennis to be the most fulfilling time ever, the first party we plan to be the most memorable, the first job we get to be the most successful... anyway, why we're supposed to believe the first time we have sex is supposed to be the most special is a little baffling. Thanks, SeaRabbit. --fl]
Submitted by 1282 (not verified) on Sun, 2007-04-01 07:28.
Figs
What a wonderful post! This guy deserves a lot of credit for going from whatever illusions he had to start with (porn induced or otherwise) through to the realities and still ending with 'It's great'. I don't think it matters much that it's written from a male perspective - even a lot of the 'mechanics' he talks about would be useful information for inexperienced women as well as men. The self-deprecating way he compares real life to porn would tend to make readers already self-conscious about their lack of experience feel more comfortable.
I really liked the optimism that suffuses the whole thing. That last 'It's great', after a litany of just how not great some aspects really are, made me laugh, and think that this man's really clued in about why sex can be so very wonderful.
[You've just said everything I was trying to say, Janeway, only a lot more clearly. And when you notice he's posting for peers on a "how to fit in socially" site it's just such a big step. Thanks. --fl]
Submitted by 1282 (not verified) on Sun, 2007-04-01 09:12.
Great post, Fig.
You asked for first-timer perspective from women... The things that really stand out in my mind are the nervousness (he made it better by making me laugh), the fact that it was a lot more sweaty than movies (which, let's face it, we get a LOT of information from) was surprising and that my legs, afterwards, felt like I had held the splits for hours even though I hadn't. It was just that particular type of stretching.
Submitted by 1282 (not verified) on Sun, 2007-04-01 10:21.
Figs,
I forgot about the 'first time' request part.
It's weird, but when I tried to recall it (many many MANY years ago), I can remember extraneous details, such as what I was wearing, where we were, what he was wearing, for Pete's sake, even some of the conversation. But I can't remember what the actual sex was like. This tells me that although it was obviously not earth shakingly good, it wasn't bad enough to keep me from trying again!
[Yup. It's funny that way for me too. I remember most of just before, and quite a bit of after, but not really that much of the actual moments of intercourse. (I'm wondering if it's because we don't really have a vocabulary for sexual sensation the way we have for, say, tasting wine.) Thanks, Captain. --fl]
Submitted by 1282 (not verified) on Sun, 2007-04-01 14:20.
I remember snippets much like everyone else, but mainly afterwards thinking "Oh, is that it?" Not earthshaking either then, but like janeway it didn't stop me from trying again! I do also remember being worried about contraception, it having been drummed into me how easy it was to become pregnant. I had visions of a stray sperm managing to find the way past any barrier ...
[Oh yeah, I remember that! My first time my partner came but I didn't -- forshadowing an inhibition that eventually got me my first vasectomy at age 21. (Even after my reversal when we were *trying* to get pregnant I was always hyperconscious about it. And therefore glad to get snipped again after our last planned child was born.) Thanks, A. --fl]
Submitted by 1282 (not verified) on Sun, 2007-04-01 20:00.
first time 14 years ago - really awful. We were both inexperienced, though had done the various non-penetration activities for a while. It was realy awful because I didn't know my hymen was unusually thick, and it didn't break. (The nurse at the clinic where I went for my Pill prescription either didn't notice or didn't care to mention it.)
It hurt an awful lot, he blamed me for complaining (apparently it was *supposed* to hurt or something), we were both really unhappy, and slept apart. There was a frightenly large splotch of blood on the blanket when I woke up.
I went the next day to make an appointment with a gynecologist to get surgery (something like "hymenotomy").
Sex got better over time, but continued to hurt for a while until we both learned that it takes a while to get sufficiently lubed. The memory of that pain stays with me, and has contributed to some attitude problems I have concerning sex.
I'm surprised - it still hurts to think of it. This blog (among others) has helped me a lot.
Thanks, Figleaf.
["...until we both learned that it takes a while to get sufficiently lubed..." Aha! Excellent example of the kind of advice that would be great for first-timers to know ahead of time, Swan! And another great example of something nobody seems to worry about in porn. Almost everyone has heard you can't just "go at it" till you're sufficiently lubricated. But at least at first almost everybody, though, *doesn't* know you can't just go at it *even when you're ready.* Yes, *you* might be wet, but chances are *he's* not. And even when you're wet, especially if you're lying on your back, you may not be very wet at your entrance, nor at the fringes of your labia. Pushing yourself down too far on him in one stroke, or him pushing too far into you, can "squeegie" it away. Hmm. Actually I think I'll stop here and do a post about it instead. Thank you, Swan! p.s. Yikes! Sounds like a fairly harrowing first time all around -- thick hymen, cluelessly unsympathetic partner, bloodstained sheets, the works! --fl]
Submitted by 1282 (not verified) on Sun, 2007-04-01 22:12.
The funny thing is, I can relate a lot more to the article you link about the physical guy virginity mechanics than to that other article he links at the end about the social implications of being an "older" male virgin. That other article ... a) Virginity's already a terrible monkey you have to get off your back in college? b) Don't worry that she'll be sure to figure out you're a virgin because there are enough sexually experienced self-centered jerks with poor technique that she might think you're just a self-centered jerk instead? c) The first time is all about you, so it's OK to be a bit selfish, and also to lie about how experienced you are? None of these ideas would have occurred to me. I assumed it was normal that lots of people of both sexes would arrive at college still virginal, that it was worse to be thought self-centered than to be thought a virgin, and that it wasn't ever OK for me to be selfish about sex, including the first time.
On the physical side, for a woman, the main thing I'd say is that nearly everything you read says the first time will hurt; what's not so often said is that there's wide variation in that initial pain, with some women apparently having no pain even the first time, others taking a number of tries to get to painless sex, and there's not usually a lot of suggestion that anything you do might lessen the pain of that first time any.
[Earlier this afternoon I read that 60% of high-schoolers in the U.S. have had intercourse by grade 12, so it's almost, but not quite, a safe assumption that by college your partner's probably not a virgin. I'm actually going to agree halfway with both you and the author about first-time selfishness. First, it's ok to be selfish your first time if you *let your partner know it's your first time!* If nothing else, telling them will increase the chance that they'll help you make it a more positive experience. Second, it's ok to be selfish *unless it's your partner's first time too!" That said, the author gets very low marks for propagating the idea that most guys are self-centered jerks. Men have an extraordinary capacity for rising, or sinking, to meet expectations. So why set them low?!?! Finally, you're right that there are a number of ways to improve not only first but subsequent times for both women *and* men. Based on Swan's comment about lubrication I'm now composing a post about that right now. Thanks, Lynn. --fl]
Submitted by 1282 (not verified) on Mon, 2007-04-02 04:50.
Figs
I think you should cut the guy some slack. My experience, with my own child(ren) and through my job at a college, is that most college students have not left off the self-centeredness of childhood, at least in their early college years. I don't think he is or was really selfish, just not particularly mature. Which puts him, rightly or wrongly, in the majority of both male and female college students.
[My gripe with the guy (now articulated in a follow-up post) isn't that he was selfish or even immature. What bugged me was his belief that a woman's first time is *supposed* to hurt. And that therefore he didn't have to do anything special to make it work for her. It's sort of like taking the statistic that only 35% of women come regularly during intercourse to mean there's nothing you can do to improve your or your partner's chance of having one. When some fraction of the remaining 65% almost certainly have problems only because one or both parties accepts the statistic as immutable law. Thanks, Captain. --fl]
Submitted by 1282 (not verified) on Mon, 2007-04-02 19:10.
60% isn't that overwhelming a majority, though (and back in the dark ages when I was in school, it was more like 50%). So there's something troubling about the idea that guys are already thinking they've desperately got to get that virginity monkey off their back by college, particularly when women are getting a very different message. In this case, I don't blame the guy (who is, after all, a young guy who's trying to persuade other young guys that being a virgin in college, regrettable though it might be from his point of view, isn't the end of the world - so I'd more criticize him for some of the other stuff than for that point). It's more that I see something troubling in a culture that sends messages to young men that are so at odds with the messages that get sent to young women. It was especially worrying (and this is the point where I would criticize him) where he got to the point of saying, well, maybe you have to pretend to be more experienced than you are, in order to finally get laid. That a guy would feel that, already, in college, doesn't speak so well about the messages we send to young men (the messages we send to young women, of course, have their own drawbacks).
[Agreed, on all points, Lynn. An assumption that "everybody else has done it" is a terrible, terrible reason to pursue sex yourself. And, based on that assumption, believing you have to pretend you're experienced further reduces the odds your experience will be a good one. Plus... there's just something horribly foolish about a near-majority of a local population all running around trying to get laid... while pretending they've already been... because they believe everyone else who's pretending they've been actually have been. I mean, how's that been going? Thanks! --fl]
Submitted by 1282 (not verified) on Sun, 2007-06-03 10:13.
The first time I had PIV sex, it was somewhat frightfully painful. I wasn't able to let my partner stick it in me at all the first few tries, over a couple of days. Eventually I got the idea of trying it with me on top, where I could control it, and I was able to do it. These would be my tips for a woman trying it for the first time:
1. Use lubricant, no matter how wet you are. There's no telling if the wetness is in the right places or not. This goes double or triple if your partner is wearing a condom, which he probably should be. In that case, just put lube all over the damn thing. Use the good kind if you can get your hands on it. Of course, oil-based things are bad news with condoms, but I'd also avoid KY jelly and, if possible, go with a silicon-based lube. (BUT do not use lubricant as a substitute for being turned on!)
2. If he starts entering you and it hurts real bad, speak up! Don't for a minute think you have an obligation to "let him" hurt you. You have plenty of time and opportunity to try different positions, or try it a whole different day, and if your partner doesn't understand this, educate him or get a new partner.
3. If he's fucking you and you get tired of it, or you feel sore, or just would rather not continue, go ahead and call it to a halt. There's no harm in this, a man will not die if he doesn't get to "finish", and fucking is about everyone's pleasure, not just his.
4. If your partner is also a virgin, and possibly even if he isn't, positions are going to be really awkward in the beginning. Even though it seems like it should be "instinctive," it's really not obvious exactly how to move right.
I guess this is really a specialized case of my general sexual advice for people, which is, don't try to make it like movie sex, with everything all smooth and successful. Don't be cowed or embarrassed. Be free-spirited, willing to try different things, and remember that your partner is just another person. Keep your sense of humor. I really think this type of attitude leads to much better sex long-term.
[Well put, Tam. Have you considered starting your own blog, by the way? Your comments here have been pretty consistently interesting. Thanks. --fl]