Can i lose my virginity to myself

No, you cannot lose your virginity with a tampon. Horse riding won’t do it either. The fact that some of these myths prevail is part of the reason I’m betting the second most common sentence that goes through someone’s head after having sex for the first time – straight after, “Was that it?!” – did I really just lose my virginity?

Part of the problem with the eternal question of what “counts” as losing your virginity is that there’s no comprehensive, realistic definition of what sex is. Not really.

Most people understand virginity to mean the first time a person has heterosexual vaginal intercourse, but this is an incredibly narrow vision of human sexuality. It’s a bit silly, not to mention offensive, for instance, to suggest that only straight sex is real sex. Or to tell women that losing their virginity is based on whether or not they have a hymen (an invented association). For young people raised on abstinence-only education who think that having oral or anal sex doesn’t count, the confusion over virginity isn’t just a rhetorical issue but one with health implications. The question can also present a painful conundrum for those who are survivors of rape.

When I wrote my 2009 book The Purity Myth, I found that there is no widely accepted medical definition of virginity. I spoke to historian and author Hanne Blank, who noted that she scoured the best medical libraries in the US and found that there was “no diagnostic standard for virginity”. It’s a concept that’s more cultural than medical – an outdated idea that’s been used more to shame than to mark sexual initiation. But still, people want a way to mark the first time they’ve been sexually intimate.

I’ve suggested in the past that perhaps a person’s first orgasm with a partner should count as losing their virginity. This seems like a pleasure-based standard that puts the power of “virginity” back in individuals’ hands, so to speak. But I’ve since been taken to task – rightly, I believe – because this is not a definition that includes or is sensitive to the large number of people who don’t orgasm from sexual activity.

So where does that leave us? Heather Corrina, founder of the sex education website Scarleteen, has written that she wishes the concept of virginity would just “go away”, but she understands that it won’t, and so answered a young woman’s question about whether or not she had really had sex in the best way I’ve seen to date.

“If you want to ‘count’ this experience as having something to do with virginity you can,” Corrina wrote. “If you do not want to count it as something to do with your virginity, you get to do that, too. The same goes with sex: what sex is or isn’t for any of us varies because we’re all so different and so are all of our sexual experiences. We don’t all have the same bodies, identities, sexualities, sexual opportunities or the same sexual relationships. So long as the way you define sex feels true to you and your experiences in the moment, then that’s your right definition.”

If we want to attach meaning to a “first” then surely we should be the ones who decide what, exactly, that first time was.

Of course, the problem is that while we can (and should) deride the idea of virginity as outdated and useless – or tell young people that they can decide what it means for themselves – there is still the problem of how everyone else views virginity.

Across the world, virginity has a stranglehold on the way people think about sex, sexuality and – most dangerously – women’s value and moral worth. There are still virginity tests, purity balls, and the ever-present idea that good women are chaste while women who aren’t are somehow bad, dirty, or used goods. It’s not enough to say that virginity shouldn’t mean anything; we have to find a way for that argument to have meaning and impact.

Perhaps it’s a matter of more doctors coming out of the woodwork to explain that no, hymens don’t mean anything, or that virginity is a subjective experience. Maybe young people should refuse to mark their first sexual experience, or lawmakers should stop equating sexuality with deviancy. So long as white wedding dresses, American pie movies and the Republican party exist, I don’t have much hope that virginity will lose its grip on the public imagination though – in the US anyway.

But here’s the good news: for those who do mark the first time they have sex, it’s getting better (for women, at least). A recent broad study, conducted over 23 years and following nearly 6,000 young people, published this summer in the Journal of Sex Research, found that women are enjoying their first sexual experience more today than in years past. That seems a lot more important than what exactly happened in bed that made the experience a “real” one.

There’s a first time for everything and the chances are, unless you’re some wonderful fluke of nature, any debut attempt will not be the best. Driving lessons, cooking a meal, karaoke – practice makes perfect. And what else can instill as much fear, dread and... anticipation as popping your cherry in the bedroom?

There are two camps when it comes to stories about losing your virginity. Most of us have a cringeworthy tale to tell – not that all of us will admit it, of course. That teenage, macho bravado is hard to let go. And that’s the other perspective, the ones who were amazing, lasted for hours, everybody came at the same time and it was the stuff of legend. Sure, bro.

No one is guaranteed a perfect first time, but you can at least prepare to make the best of it.

Is it the right time?

Why are you doing this? Because you feel you should? Or because you really want to? There’s a lot of pressure on guys to be “always on” sex machines who can’t go ten minutes without thinking of nailing someone, but the reality is different. No need to spend years analysing your motivation, but there’s a lot to be said for being ready in your own head.

Who?

There can be a lot of sentimentality attached to losing your virginity. Should it be someone you love, a special person you’ve known for years? Or is it about getting it out of the way as soon as possible – a quick bang with another on a drunken night out? It depends how you feel about it. Just make sure whoever you’re doing it with knows you want to have sex and, crucially, feels the same way. No need to say it’s your first time if you don’t want to – although it may be obvious when you try to stick it in their ear or something – but unless you’ve chosen somebody quite noxious to do the deed with, they’re likely to be very understanding if you do. Nobody wants someone else’s first time to be a disaster or emotionally scarring. Apparently.

Where?

While a knee-trembler round the back of the pub makes a good story to tell the boys (or so I’ve read), it’s not going to result in a stellar experience. No need for full candlelit opulence on a dirty weekend or anything, but the place you do the deed should fit the following criteria: it should be clean, comfortable, private – you do not want to get caught at it by a flatmate or parent – and available as long as you need it. A bed is a good start. Change the sheets beforehand, please; you don’t want to become the punchline in someone else’s anecdote.

Setting the scene

You don’t need much apart from low-key lighting and central heating, but background music can help take the pressure off. Remember, “background” is the keyword here; your tunes shouldn’t take over. It may be tempting to make a sexy Spotify playlist but if every song is about humping, it’ll be very distracting. Any genre is fine as long as you don’t find yourself rapping along with Jay-Z or mimicking Mariah’s vocal acrobatics. Background!

Accessories

The very first time you have penetrative or oral sex it is usually pretty straightforward and rudimentary, but it doesn’t have to be kink-free. If you’ve agreed with your partner you’re going to try some stuff, make sure all accessories have been vetted by the other person. You don’t want to scare each other off. At the very least, you will need some kind of protection – condoms are a good one to start with – and lube. What, lube?! Yes, really. Even if you’re so wet for it you could sell tickets to your underpants as an indoor surfing arena, the other person may need some encouragement. No harm in having it on standby. (Water-based lube if you’re using condoms, btw; so avoid petroleum jelly. Use KY, for example, instead, otherwise your condom will start to rapidly decay and then you’ve a whole other load of problems to deal with.)

Foreplay

Do this. Yes, you’re excited to get to the “main event” but you should use this opportunity as a kind of tester – like smearing a stripe of calico sunrise paint on your kitchen wall to see if you like it – and take the opportunity to hone your skills. Check the other person likes it, get some feedback and give your own. If anything, foreplay can be even trickier to perfect, so get your schooling while you can.

Technique

Try all kinds of positions until you both find one you like. It sounds like a cliché, but once you’re in the moment, it all does kind of come naturally. By listening to your body and your partner, and being totally aware of one another, you will soon learn what works and what doesn’t. Nobody’s expecting you to be a perfect ten from the off, but as long as you’re not deathlessly jackhammering away like you’re drilling for oil, or listlessly waggling it about, you will soon find the rhythm that suits.

Boom!

As Phil Collins famously droned: “I’ve been waiting for this moment for all my life”. And, boy, haven’t you. So, yes, there may be a slight issue in that you... lose your issue quicker than anticipated. If you shoot your shot before you’ve even taken aim, don’t be disheartened; it really does happen all the time. If your pride can take it, make a small joke of it – don’t flay yourself alive, though – and chill for a bit, before going back to foreplay and having another go. Perhaps it would help if you orgasm through foreplay instead and then try again later, assuming you have all the time in the world and not 20 minutes in the stationery cupboard. Some people say if you think of something deeply unsexy – the big roundabout at Hemel Hempstead, a chef’s fingernails, a home appliance – then you can delay ejaculation, but I’m not sure this is a risk worth taking unless you forever want to associate your first penetrative orgasm with, say, a fridge freezer.

Emotional aftermath

So you’ve done it! Congratulations! You can tick that off your to-do list, but it’s not over. How you act now may well shape your sex life for a long time. Be realistic about your emotions – you may feel completely detached and see it as no big deal, or you may feel what seems a puzzling attachment to the person with whom you lost your virginity. Other guys might tell you the masculine way to deal with having sex for the first time is “f**k ‘em and forget ‘em”, and sure that works for some, but there’s nothing shameful or unmanly about having emotional depth. Obviously it depends who you do it with and what your relationship is like, but it’s not unusual to overthink, or make more of that first time than it actually was. Hopefully, that person will be kind and respectful of your emotions; you should try doing the same. It’s worth remembering that having sex with someone doesn’t mean you get the automatic right to do it again and it’s only a proper relationship when both of you are into it, and consent.

The next time

This will be even better, promise. But, still, don’t forget the lube.

Read more:

10 things to do after sex

How to act on a date without seeming creepy

How to flirt: a guide for the modern gentleman