Throughout my life, I have constantly been pressured to have sex for all the wrong reasons. I have been sexually jaded to the point that I no longer have much of a sex drive at all (though I do think some of that could be physical). The fact that I chose at a young age to wait until marriage to lose my virginity (not for religious reasons, just moral) certainly didn't help matters much.
I have a vague memory of being a teenager and having a very healthy and robust sex drive. I remember trying constantly to get my high school boyfriend to spend some time alone with me, yet getting nowhere. He was a messed up individual and I don't blame him for that, I just wish he wouldn't have strung me along for as long as he did and then complain to the entire school what a frigid bitch I was, only to save his own reputation. One day he loved me, one day he didn't, the next day he didn't know and didn't want us to see other people, but touching me was still off limits. I actually remember being the sexual aggressor on more than one occasion with him and it getting me absolutely nowhere.
When I finally dumped him in my senior year of high school, I thought that I had moved on to better things with 'Jason.' We had been friends for a long time and I knew there was chemistry there, yet he was so full of chaos and instability that by the time we were alone, I was completely turned off. After he stood me up for my senior prom, the chemistry was pretty much gone and the scars never mended. It took years before I was able to be alone with a man again.
College came. I moved away from home. I made new friends that didn't know anything about me or my past and assumed I was a cool laid-back kind of girl with little or no baggage. I dated, but never did anything with anyone. Touching was off limits and I was shoved out of a lot of cars and kicked out of a lot of house-parties for this reason. I learned to be strong, I learned to carry pepper spray, I learned how to puncture a man's penis with a stiletto heel if necessary, I learned that punching an overtly amorous date in the face didn't work half as well as focusing on his kneecaps. Most of all, I learned that anything sexual was bad and must be avoided and that the notion of 'healthy sex-drive' was really just an old joke.
Then came Dan. God, I can't even begin to explain the chaos that is known as Dan. I had totally convinced myself that he was 'the one.' Damn, I was stupid. The sheer manipulation that I endured (willingly, I hate to admit) now makes me cringe. I still get sick to my stomach when I think of just how far I was willing to go with him. I remember thinking on a few occasions, "Even if it never works out between us, I would still want him to have my virginity. That seems like the right thing, doesn't it? ... Doesn't it?" My conscience never answered me on that one. I'm thankful. After returning home from a gynecologist visit one day, he was waiting for me in my apartment (secretly, but at the time I thought he was just 'surprising' me. bullshit.) He actually said to me, "So if they put something up inside of you, that means you're no longer a virgin, right? So we could have sex now, right?" The sad part: He was a twice-married 45 year old man with three children. Nowadays, he is still stalking me and sending me emails asking whether or not J. and I have had sex and if J. is really any better than him. Then he tells me that he is having sex with lots and lots of women and they are 'doing it' a lot. I guess I'm supposed to be hurt or impressed, I'm not sure which. Hearing a now almost-50-year-old man use the phrase 'doing it' as a weapon? Most of the time, I am just amused.
It took a long time to get my head screwed back on after Dan. A long time. (I still have nightmares, but it mostly has to do with the stalking issue.) Fortunately, right in the middle of the Dan-break-up-stalking-harassment-chaos, I decided I was sick of being alone on New Year's Eve's and was tired of Dan's shit and got on an internet dating site. Within one day of putting up my ad, I received an email from a nice, funny, mild-mannered (and stable!) engineer in Detroit. Three weeks later on Y2K, J. showed up on my doorstep after a 5-hour drive and lots of phone calls. I remember coming home after our dinner and evening out and watching Kentucky Fried Movie together and old MSTies that J. had brought with him in an old gym bag until nearly 6am.
We were alone on the couch watching movies and the tension in the room was thick enough to choke us both. He was horribly nervous and I was horribly afraid I was going to be manipulated into doing something I didn't want to do. Eventually, we kissed, we held each other and then.. that was it. We surprised each other that night by confessing that we were both virgins and that was that. From then on, we knew there was something special about our connection and we just went with it and didn't force a damn thing.
That was three-and-a-half years ago and to this day, we are still waiting until our wedding night. Neither of us regrets it, half the time we don't even think about it. We know it will happen someday and that's fine with us. It's so wonderfully blissful to be able to put on lingerie and have a romantic evening with someone that respects me for who I am and not what I'm going to do with him. There's never any pressure, it's just us and our creativity and that's enough. It's almost magical that we found each other, especially after the age of 25. I mean really.. what are the odds?
It's funny how life can come full circle sometimes. How living with regrets and shame and manipulated guilt can actually be the catalyst to something you never dreamed of... knowing that there's someone else out there that's waited as long as you and doesn't regret it and will continue to wait until the time is right and not a minute too soon.