We tend to measure masculinity in part through sexual experience. Teen boys don’t want to get laid just because they’re pumped full of hormones; they want to get laid because they want to be men.
This attitude creates a lot of pressure for males, and can encourage them to think of women more as conquests than human beings. Guys who wait to have sex for “too long” might feel ashamed, like something is wrong with them.
But despite the way men tend to prize the big event, having sex for the first time is a vulnerable experience. A line is being crossed, culturally and physically, and might happen any variety of ways: Badly, through abuse (given or received); well, within a healthy and caring relationship; and anywhere in between, with results varying from hilarious to heartbreaking.
Parts of Reddit are clearinghouses for personal anecdotes. We plumbed its far corners to find stories from men about how they lost their virginity, so we can take an eclectic look at the first time and see just how awesome, awful or confusing it can be.
User bearsonsays starts us off with a fairly typical, if risky, cherry-popping experience:
For adults, having sex when someone else is in the next room over and liable to enter at any moment – in this case, it was bearsonsays’ girlfriend’s Mom — is “spontaneous” and arousing. But for the horny teenager who can’t get a moment alone with his beau, friskiness under the movie blanket is fueled not by adventurousness but by desperation.
Funktapus learned early on that this kind of desperation can lead to a bad experience.
You have to be pretty desperate to plead for sex. In this case, grasping at the first available opportunity chad disappointing results.
Maybe not as disappointing as Benthos’ first time, though.
It may just seem like a funny story after the fact, but a bad first-time experience can create a lot of shame, especially for an insecure teenage boy. High school gossip after the fact doesn’t help.
But Joenorris94 suffered some real pain.
Ouch! Things are feeling better now, though:
A lot of first-time sexual experiences are fueled by intoxicants. This might help to break the ice, but especially when young people are involved, a night of reckless drinking can lead to a miserable (and confusing) morning after. Chubbybunns recounts
Hopefully he came away with an early appreciation of how booze blurs the lines of consent. Not everyone is a reckless teen when they lose their virginity. For many reasons — many stories cite social anxiety, autism spectrum disorders, or a religious upbringing — many men don’t lose their virginity until they are well into their 20s or 30s.
Lost_it_at_39 tells his story:
lost_it_at_39 adds, “Things were already better the second time and now we have a totally normal and very satisfying sex life. I’m a happy man.”
HerrGansefus finishes our cycle with a brief, simple story. We should never forget about the power of puppy love.
What about you? Do you have fond memories of your first time, or embarrassing ones? Let us know in the comments.
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