Your Definition of “Safe” Sex is Wrong

I.          Mrs. Lears places dildos on every other desk and hands out condoms. “Please take turns practicing. I’ll demonstrate here.”

White hair, athletic blue and pink tracksuit, and crinkling eyes concentrate on the task. We all watch her desk with half anticipation and half horror. She unwraps the condom and with ease, puts it over a big black rubber dildo. “Safety first,” she adds, like safety was at the forefront of our teenage girl minds.

I go first at my desk, on a wooden dildo that is as tall as my forearm. The condom is sticky with lubricant, and my fingers aggressively push down at the round fold until the dildo is half covered.

Safety first.

II.        “Come home with me!” Finn whisper shouts over the loud music at Fiction. The eighteen-plus nightclub is a place where you could find forty-year-old men groping teenage and young adult women as well as a variety of other interesting characters. I am over the moon that I spotted Finn's blue eyes and sharp jawline amongst the crowd. My friends urged me to go, and here we are, dancing and making out like some scene from all those college movies.

I’ve been wanting to kiss Finn since age fifteen. Oh, the secrets that time holds unassumingly. And now he wants me to go home with him!

This is my answer. This is how I make myself available to men of all ages. Once I stop being a virgin, the world will be my oyster. I’ll be free of these uncomfortable society constraints. I’ll be ready for when my prince charming finally comes around – of course, assuming it isn’t Finn. I don’t think it is…

So, I have to get this right. “I can’t! I work tomorrow!”

Finn’s smile turns into a wince.

I jump in before he can get hurt, “This week! Are you free Wednesday?”

“Sure!”

“Okay, I’ll call you!”

III.       Wednesday morning, I can’t think of anything else. How wild? I am bathed, and clean, I hope. I have been reading some ladies websites as well, for research. 

I am awed that I will lose my virginity to Finn. Years ago, we met at camp and he was one of two of my crushes that fateful summer. Omelie, a pretty blonde girl who was bisexual like me and Finn, funny and spontaneous with dark hair – ended up sneaking out to make out on the last night. Which was strange, because on the second night of the two-week camp, Finn had put me on his shoulders so I could better see the beautiful constellations lighting the night sky in white. It still is the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me, even flashing forward three years into the future. Teenagers.

Well, screw Omelie now, as I’ll be screwing Finn.

IV.       I walk into my lecture hall and greet a new friend, who saves me a seat kindly although we only met last week. A month older than me, Abbey has been with her boyfriend for the last two years. In way of greeting, my nerves cause me to lean in and blurt, “I’m pretty sure I’m losing my virginity tonight.”

            Abbey’s eyes widen and her soft laugh comforts me. “Hey, to you, too! Congrats!”

            I blush, happy to see her warm reaction. My chair feels too small, and behind my eyes I play a loop of Finn and I kissing. Luckily, Abbey is smart, and she pulls me back to reality.

She tells me she’s happy for me and I confess to her the details of the proceedings. Like, “Finn doesn’t need to know I’m a virgin until we’re already in bed together, right?” or my favorite, “Does it really hurt?”

Abbey listens adeptly and answers appropriately, even as the professor starts bartering for the class’s attention. My mouth falters when she gently grabs me by the arm, towards the end of my ramblings.

            “Vicky,” she says, her brown eyes pouring into my own. “Make sure you’re being safe.”

            I nod, embarrassed. “Oh yeah,” I assure her, “Condom and everything. I know.”

            But Abbey doesn’t relent back into an easy conversational tone. Instead, she leans closer and says, “Look, that stuff is important, and I’m glad you have it, but there’s something else more important.”

            I wait, completely unsure of what she will say next. Maybe it was a bad idea to share such a secret with a new friend?

            “Make sure,” she says, staring at me like she can see my past, present and future, “that everything you’re doing is something you want to be doing.”

            Still embarrassed, I brush off her seriousness with a lie. And that says a lot, because I hate lying. “Yeah, of course, I get it.”

Nonetheless, she insists. “Anything you do is because you want too, alright? That’s the kind of ‘safe’ I mean.”

“Oh,” I nod along, trying to pretend like I know what she’s saying. After all, I’ve never had sex before, something that was really starting to get on my nerves. I imagine it much like the physical act is but with someone I trust. Someone like Finn. I lie again. “That makes sense. Thank you.”

Eventually, we can’t keep ignoring our professor. The last of that conversation is the “Good luck!” Abbey sends me off with and the secret smile we share as we part ways.

V.        I am in a bed with a fellow teenage boy, and Finn is as worthy to my trust as I anticipated him to be. This puts me at ease, even though stepping into his college dorm makes it all feel real. Finn appears calm, already having set up some neon decorative lights and his room spotless.

We smoke some weed, which helps to take the edge off, and I confess to him that I am a virgin, under cover of the ambience of his room. Then, well, then the sideways salsa begins. He stops at one point, and asks me if we can change positions. My bravery falters. This is all so new and he is being very kind, just as expected, but what if I don’t like that? What if it hurts me?

I remember Abbey’s words: “Anything you do is because you want too.”

“Sure,” I tell Finn, and for the first time since the experience started, I decide to trust myself. “But if I don’t like it, we go back to this.”

He nods, accepting the terms and conditions gracefully. I can see the sweat beginning to slide down his forehead. I think he is enjoying himself, and I find my blood running hot with confidence. It doesn’t matter anymore that I’ve never had sex. What matters more is that I am in control of this new experience, and that Finn listens to me. 

After that? Well, after that sex becomes a much easier game, because Finn understood that any sign of a ‘no’ from me meant exactly that: “no”. It turns out I don’t like the other position, which is okay, because we find new ones together. I am on cloud nine, and not because the sex was that great. I don’t think first times are ever that great. Instead, it is because I only did anything I wanted to do. Could I apply this to other places in my life? Could this be the secret ingredient in happiness?

I don’t imagine there to be any other definition to ‘safe’ sex truer and more important than the one Abbey gifted me with. Honestly, Mrs. Lears should take notes.