Advice from three of our guy friends. This week they answer the following: “Virgins — turn off or turn on? A challenge, or too much of a responsibility?”
Gay Single Guy (Daniel): My best friend told me once that with the first virgin you deflower, you become a cherub; the second, an angel; and third, a seraphim. She obviously loved the challenge and frankly, so do I. But it isn’t so much because you are “taking someone’s innocence” (over-romanticized rubbish that is anyway), but the mentor-like aspect of it that’s so exciting. Like a great sex partner, one needs to be trained, and a virgin is the blank canvas to make him or her a firebrand in the sack to suite your and his/her naughty needs!
Straight Married Guy (James Glazebrook): The fact that I’m being asked this question suggests that virgins are something I should have “done” — so to speak — but never have. I was a late bloomer (I could legally vote before my first time: yet another thing I’ve never done) and when I did finally make some sloppy stabs at sex it was with girls with much more experience. Maybe I was an especially awkward lay, but if other virgins are anywhere near as nervous, ineffectual, and just plain unsexy as I was, then I don’t see the appeal. I suppose it might be different for a maiden, in the sense that if a woman is paralyzed by first-time nerves, she can probably get away with just lying there and letting her more experienced male partner do the work. This would be much harder for a virgin guy to pull off — unless he found an incredibly active and understanding female to pop his cherry — and thus the risk to reward ratio is way off kilter. All of which is to say, I suppose, that it’s not really my thing, no matter who’s holding the V-card.
Straight Single Guy (Mark Luczak): Incredibly, I have actually just begun a courtship with a woman who has as yet waited for, well, sex of any kind, really (further evidence that my life continues to be a running Seinfeld episode), so I guess I have some, uh, first-hand experience at the moment. I don’t know that either “challenge” or “responsibility” are quite the right words for it, but at this age (early ’30s for us both), the issue is present enough that there are definitely pressures and self-consciousnesses on both sides.
I like to think I’m unselfish enough that I’ve been sensitive to her perspectives on everything (she’s not waiting for marriage or because of religion or anything like that, she just hasn’t found someone she’s comfortable with yet), and it’s actually really flattering that she’s been so open to communicating about everything thus far, let alone that I could eventually be that person to share it with (both her first time, and that level of intimacy in general).
Sure, there’s the aspect that some things will be completely new to her [insert joke about me being the best she’s ever had], but really, it’s not too dissimilar to the usual aspects of two people just being new to each other — so far, some things are awkward or funny, some things feel a little mechanical or clinical, and some things are totally hot! Virgin or not, it just feels good right now to have found someone to connect with in a certain way emotionally and communicatively already, and that has only served to complement the journey on the physical side. Bottom line, we’re both just pretty excited for whatever comes next!
Our “guys” are a rotating group of contributors. This week’s Straight Married Guy is James Glazebrook of Manflet; our Gay Guy is one-time stripper and sex columnist Daniel; and our Straight Single Guy is Mark Luczak, a tech geek at Carnegie Mellon University. To ask the guys your own question, click here.
