Sex is pervasive...better moderate that

I remember when I was a virgin, and all my friends weren't, save for one. My friend, who I'll call Sam, and I decided if we hadn't had sex by 17 we would simply, do it. You know, just find someone, a boy, a crush or someone like that, if we didn't have a boyfriend to do the job. To be deflowered was the goal. You know all of our friends were active, some for several years already. We felt like old maids. The end of junior year we made this pact and went our ways that summer.

I was 16 and wanted a summer job. My mother said I would be working for the rest of my life and to just take it easy. (Maybe she was the original moderate in my life). Although it didn't help with the cash flow, I seemed to manage and had fun with my friends...going to House parties at Mendel and Soul Queen and wherever they were at the time. I was still solo however when we were getting close to returning to school for senior year. I liked some boys but there was no boyfriend to speak of so "becoming a woman" was looking quite impossible.

I'll never forget the day Sam called me toward the end of the summer. She was happy to announce that she had been hooking up with a guy from a summer program we were involved in a couple years back and that they had done THE DEED. She described to me their amazing rendezvous'...there were ice cubes and oral sex and lots of long languid sessions that you could only imagine reading in a Harlequin. I was stunned, titillated and depressed all at once.

I returned for senior year and went about my business...of virginity. When my friends told me of their exploits there was a part of me that just could not relate. I feigned understanding something only experience can teach you and I failed pretty miserably. It was like an invisible wall was always there when the girls in my clique talked about their boyfriends and the things they did together. I was often an outsider looking into a world I pretended to know.

Before I go on, don't get the wrong idea. I had boyfriends and had done the heavy petting thing. I just hadn't gone all the way. I mean, I had friends who had been engaging in the act since we were 11 so for all practical purposes I was coming late to the game as they say.

Then over Christmas break I met a freshman at Northwestern. A more mature man. Not someone I went to the same school with and I knew I'd met my mark. Sounds crazy now to think of him that way, but he was perfect in every way for the fait accompli. Or so I thought...

We began to see each other on weekends...mainly hanging out with friends. It was February and soon I would be 17 and I was already the last of my kind. I had decided my birthday would be the day I kissed my ass goodbye.

At a friend's house we began to make out in the basement. While a few people hung out in another room, we made our exit and went somewhere quiet. I was nervous. As we began to kiss I knew this could be it--the moment. He asked me what was wrong. Nothing I said knowing full well at the time, everything was wrong. Where we were, even who I was with. Someone I'd known for a few weekends between December and February? Too thoughtful for my own good and if I wanted to lose my virginity I sure wasn't going to get there from where I was then in my mind. So I masked my concerns and continued this journey.

At some point though I couldn't keep it to myself. WRONG. All wrong and so I stopped the process. I couldn't do it. The words in my head were so strong that I managed to save what was left of my virginity. I can say with certainty there wasn't "penetration". But it was as close as close gets. The kind of close where the guy is so mad at you he figures out just then that you were a virgin.

So, there I was. Still a virgin and having to go back into the world - or at least my friend's basement- and pretend as if nothing had happened. But everything was different. I knew I had almost lost something precious to me to someone I didn't love and who didn't love me.

I suppose I have more to say about sex, and I'm sure in the future I will. But for now, let me add that later I did lose my virginity and it was basically okay but it was with someone I loved and had known forever. And the sex became better...and better...and the love well, that's another story. But at least I know the difference and I did learn that sex is something that needs moderation, or you'll end up hurt or hurting someone... but love, you can give it by the oodles, and that's what I consider sexy.