Lost My Virginity At 23

Terribly boring. You sound like nails on a chalkboard, no wonder no one has tried to get close with you. This is down there with the worst TC articles, for sure. 

really well written! i wish you all the best with the next bits! 

I lost my virginity at 23 with a man I didn’t love either. You capture how I felt exactly. 

Erin! This is similar to my first time (also with 23)! And altough the millstone weight isn’t there anymore there is still some weight around your neck: how will it be with the next one?

Thank you for this.

Were you drunk? Would it hurt less if you were? Genuine query.

I lost mine at 21, and unluckily for me my chosen guy invested the act with way too much significance. It was hard on him. I’m glad Joe knew the score.

I loved this! It’s pretty similar to my own personal history (minus the being in love with a teacher) and current status so I really appreciated you sharing your thoughts & introspection throughout everything.

Your story touched me because  I can identify all too well with how one guards their virginity safe, with the thought to only be given away out of love to someone worthy. Please don’t feel too discouraged. From experience let me tell you that once the pain of the notion of your first time spent may not be forever, once time separates you from that incident you can see it as an interesting experiment, a page out of your life. I think there is a lot of heavy preoccupation with first times but what really matters is the last times. When you realize this is the person I’d spend the rest of  my life with, that pales all other comparison. And that is special if not more so than a first. If you’re lucky to find your first last and only thats even better, but if not ,  thats all good too.  

Oh my gosh, good to know I wasn’t the only one worrying myself about the Esther Greenwood plight. That shit HAUNTED me.

I’d been on the other side of this and always felt vaguely guilty (even though we were both in our twenties and talked about what we were looking for beforehand), so I really appreciated reading something so candid from the devirgined perspective. I’m still not sure if that makes me an asshole for being so patronizing in my own mind to an adult virgin, but thanks for writing this and sorry ladies everywhere for the weird shit I’ve done (both in my head and in the world)!

I was also 23….two months shy of 24!  You are not alone, believe me

I both relate and not relate to this post. I too am a late bloomer in the sense you are taking about. No first kiss, first smoke, first sexual experience but I almost have a sense of pride that I’ve never done those things. I also feel like I’m defending my virginity but I want to be defending it and don’t want to give it up. It’s one of the few things in this world that I can call all mine and absolutely no one elses’

um… you’re not a late bloomer.

Sarah Lawrence whooo!  GO GRYPHONS.

Enjoyed this good, honest article.  TC needs more of these. I first came across TC when I was looking up a weird situation someone I knew was going through (living with ex boyfriend), and fell in love with that article. The rest I read on TC just wasn’t as good until this one. Maybe because I also know someone going through this. But this article is good. :)

Thank you!

This is perfect. My story was the same, only I managed to up the timeline to 20. But I’m almost 23 now and it’s still the same. Thank you for this. 

I completely relate to nearly all of this! First kiss at 21, lost my virginity last summer at 23. I was in love with the guy (he was my first serious boyfriend at the time) but I don’t honestly know if he was ever in love with me. We never did say it after 9 months of dating. I don’t know if we were both afraid, or if he just never felt it. Something always stopped me though. Sex does change things. There were times I felt obligated to do it, there were times where I thought I should be enjoying it more than I was … but then there were those rare, magical times where everything felt right and good and it all made sense. Thanks so much for sharing this story. This is why I love TC.

24 for when i just lost mine recently, thanks for sharing your story. i feel it is definitely a loss in some ways, noted by fact that i lost it to someone who already had some number of partners in her life, but it almost feels like an overwhelming sense of empowerment in many ways i have never felt before giving this part of my life to somebody else. it only gets better : )

Had my first kiss at 17, lost it at 19, with the same guy that I never loved. No regrets though, since I was prepared that firsts aren’t always going to be good. Although I spent a week looking for physical changes after losing it. Great article.

i really, really love this. i’ll be 23 within the next 2 weeks and i’ve yet to lose my virginity. i’m pretty much the last virgin of anyone i know. i’m just glad to know i’m actually not the only one. i guess it just happens when it happens. thanks for sharing this.

23 is the new 16. That said, I lost it at 25 to a guy I was really attracted to. It was primal, something that just had to happen. We’ve been together for more than a year now.

It makes me sad that anyone would think their virginity is something they have to get rid of “just to get it over with.” Why would anyone want this experience?

Sometimes I don’t remember why I’m still defending mine and perhaps this is society getting to my head – why wait till you’re that old to enjoy something in life, especially when you’re in your prime time now? I just met this guy four months back and almost lost it to him over a rough night and I still wonder how it would have been like to just stop defending my virginity and give in to the moment.