Trust Me, Your High School Sex Was Nowhere Near As Awkward As Mine

Sex is awkward. When you get two sweaty people and mash them together there is bound to be some…interesting moments. When those two, sweaty people happen to be high-schoolers whose only carnal experience is with each other? Well, that’s just bound to be a recipe for disaster.

My junior year of high school was surrounded by a great many things. Pre-college applications, being the lead in the school play, and (of course) getting weird with my first serious boyfriend. Prior to him everything I knew about sex I learned in articles I snuck reading Cosmopolitan when my mom wasn’t paying attention or from the dirtier chapters of The Horse Whisperer we had passed around the bus for closer examination. There had been a few awkward fingerings in the woods or under blankets at parties but no actual sex; he was the first.

This boyfriend and I were trying pretty much everything that either of us were comfortable with. I read in Cosmo that you should surprise your man with a trail of clothes when he comes home from the office; that’s exactly what I did between seventh period when I was off and eighth when he was, and before his mom could come home from work to catch us in the act. He heard about the “come hither” motion you’re supposed to make with your fingers? He gave it his best go. 69 is the latest? We were going to be greatest.

There was something about doing it in “non-traditional” locations that seemed to really get my high school boyfriend’s gears turning. Behind the set of the musical? Hot. In the passenger seat of my Buick LeSabre? Super hot.

He had been pushing for us to have shower sex since the third or fourth time that I let him get a couple thrusts in on top of me. Something about the idea of us having standing up sex while water poured down on us was incredibly hot to him. We’d try a new position and even as he’d be panting and sweating in new sex ecstasy he’d mention how much he wanted us to take a shower together. I wasn’t necessarily opposed to the idea but the thought of potentially looking like a drowned rat with Covergirl running down my cheeks next to my perfect, adorable boyfriend was just not super exciting to insecure, high school me.

Eventually though, I caved.

My boyfriend was at least 6’1” and a scrawny little dude. He definitely had some pounds on me but didn’t have the upper body strength that face-to-face, standing sex would require. I was, and am, barely 5’1” on a good day. The height difference was real. If our…parts were a puzzle, his were meeting at my bellybutton and that was not going to get a whole lot done.

Now let’s also take into consideration the bathroom where this all was about to go down. His mom was obviously not super concerned over what would happen if HGTV showed up at random one day. The bathroom had probably not been renovated since 1982. The linoleum was cracking, there was fuzzy crème cover on the toilet seat, and the tub/shower combo set into the far end of the wall was a beautiful, salmon pink with a tulip print shower curtain. Hot, right?

So there we were, two kids with over a foot of height between us, trying to figure ourselves out beneath poor water pressure. For whatever reason me turning around never occurred to us. I sure wish it had; would have saved me a lot of headaches. I was flexible thanks to dancing, sure. But even putting my leg above my head didn’t really help the fact that there was still over a ruler of vertical to make up for.

That’s when I had the brilliant, beyond brilliant idea to attempt to balance on the almost non-existent ledges that reside on the ledge of tub and in the wall that the tub has been set into.

But water makes things slick and the second he got even a sliver into me I shook and slipped and, in the words of Fall Out Boy, went down swinging.

And by down, I mean DOWN.

I slipped down that salmon tub like a banana peel and knocked myself clean, blacked, LIGHTS OUT.

Lucky for me I ended up not having anything serious occur; but the 30 or so seconds that I was out were plenty enough to send my boyfriend into a panic.

I came to with a ghostly white boy, sweating (or maybe it was the shower?) and ready to throw up over me. It was combination of fearing that his delicate girlfriend was seriously hurt and also worrying that his mom would come home from work to find a naked 17-year-old conked out in her 80’s-tastic bathroom.

To his credit, my bf did his best. He wrapped wet and bruised me up and carried me down to his room where I put on his sweats, a t-shirt, and we watched Scrubs until I felt well enough to drive the LeSabre home. We never did have successful shower sex, but I did walk away learning two crucial things that day.

One thing being that height differences are no laughing matter when the elements are also in play. And two? Listen to your gut but don’t ever listen to Cosmo.