The Guide to Getting It On (87 page)

The Realities of a Girl’s First Time vs A Boy’s First Time

Here are some things that people usually don’t mention that would be good to discuss with your partner before the two of you have intercourse.

By the time most people lose their virginity, boys have had a few years of masturbating under their belt. A lot of them will have tried to jerk off while using lube, so they’ll at least have a remote sense of what intercourse might feel like. Girls, on the other hand, aren’t encouraged to explore their bodies. So while a lot of guys will know what an orgasm feels like, fewer girls will have masturbated before their first time. Nor will their bodies have experienced anything like a penis inside of it. A tampon, maybe, but the chances are good that your boyfriend’s penis will feel different than a tampon; hopefully it won’t have a string on the end of it.

What this means is that unless you have a favorite dildo, your vagina will undergo more changes during your first time than your partner’s penis will. This doesn’t need to be a negative, it’s just different.

Another thing to consider is that for most guys, the only love-making education they’ve had is what they have learned from watching porn. Porn actors will be the first to tell you that porn was never meant to be used for sex education or as a model for having sex your first time. Porn never shows couples talking about what they want to do. They never discuss what feels good and what doesn’t. It’s all magic in porn and everyone pretends to have great sex all of the time.

Couples in real life usually spend way more time kissing and caressing each other before they have intercourse than porn actors do. Real-life couples get to enjoy each other’s bodies from head to toe instead of just focusing on each other’s genitals. And the last thing a first-time couple should ever attempt is a hard pounding fuck like they do in porn. Easy does it is the way to go. You’ve got plenty of years ahead to have sex like a porn star. For now: tender and loving, yes; porn-star wannabe, no.

Preparing Ahead for a Most-Excellent Journey

“It was very hard to do, but I waited until I was 18 to have intercourse. It was with a guy who cared deeply about me, which made my first experience very fun and comfortable.”
female age 36

Most people’s first time is awkward and unplanned. It doesn’t need to be that way. Hopefully it’s a time you will remember with fondness—the beginning of a most excellent journey.

In Addition to This Chapter

If you’d like more information about intercourse, check out Chapter 23:
Intercourse—Horizontal Jogging
. But for your first time, you’ll want to keep it simple because there are different priorities and different challenges. Just reading this Guide’s Chapters 14 and 15 on handjobs, finger fucking, and oral sex will put you years ahead of the game.

Who To Do It With Your First Time

Not many of us are still with the person who we lost our virginity to. While we might have been in love with them at the time, our perspectives and romantic interests often change.

“I would have waited until I was in college. I would have saved myself years of painful, uncomfortable, inexperienced, or hurried sex. And while it just felt good to be close to the guy, I realize that I haven’t thought of him in years. Girls, you ain’t missing nothing!”
female age 32

Think about the difference between a crush and a friend. A friend usually has to earn your trust and respect, while a crush automatically gets it because of the way they look or act. The chances are good that you will still have your friends in a year’s time, but you will probably have blown through your current crush and you might even gag at the mere thought of the person.

This isn’t to say you should ruin a good friendship by having sex with a friend instead of with a romantic interest. But worse things have happened. At least try to make sure that your first lovemaking partner is someone who has the qualities of a friend.

Doing It Sober

Please, don’t do it your first time drunk or stoned. While this is often how it happens, every survey on first-time intercourse is chuck full of horror stories from virgins who did it drunk. It seems that the couples who do it sober have a much better and more satisfying time.

Advice for Girls

This part of the chapter is written mostly for women. Hopefully, guys will read it as well. One of the keys to having good sex is knowing your body well enough to be able to say “That feels good” or “Let’s try something else” in a way that a lover can understand. This is a skill that can take years to perfect. Even women who have been around the block countless times still keep discovering new things about their bodies. So consider yourself at the start of an exciting journey that will last for much of your life.

Girls who masturbate might have a bit of an advantage their first time, but if you haven’t masturbated before, not to worry. It can help a great deal if you’re able to feel inside your vagina before you have intercourse for your first time. So wash your hands and get some water-based sex lube or use your own spit. Saliva is water-based and can work well if you don’t have sex lube.

When you’ve got at least a half-hour to yourself (good luck!), or when you are tucked under the covers in bed, start exploring up and down your body with your fingertips. Spend some extra time on your neck and chest and on the area from your navel to your knees, except for your vulva and vagina. If it makes it more fun, pretend it’s a guy’s fingers instead of your own.

Once your fingers have explored up and down your body for at least ten or fifteen minutes, you might start to focus on the area between your legs. Let your fingertips glide up and down and around your vulva, which is the outside part of what’s between your legs. For illustrations, see the Chapter 7:
What’s Inside a Girl
and Chapter 15:
The Zen of Finger Fucking.

While one hand is exploring between your legs, there’s nothing written in stone that says your other hand has to be tied to your side. At the very least, see what it’s like letting it rest on a breast.

When you think it’s time to venture inside, get a finger good and wet. Slowly inch it inside your vagina, which is an opening that’s buried toward the back of your vulva. It’s where tampons and penises go. The emphasis should be on “slowly.” You want to feel what your finger is feeling, as well as what your vagina is feeling.

At this point, some girls will want to put their finger in farther; others might be feeling a little overwhelmed, especially if they’ve been raised in a household that was not safe or supportive of their sexual growth. If you are in the “go for it!” group, let your finger keep going. And remember to keep asking yourself what your vagina is feeling. If you are so inclined, you might try adding a second finger. Given how a penis is most likely wider than your finger, two fingers is a nice goal.

If you are in the group of girls who might be starting to feel like enough is enough, then this is a good place to stop. Just letting yourself go this far might be a really important step. If you can, try to go just a tiny bit farther next time, but don’t be discouraged if you hit a personal wall. Maybe it would be easier to have your partner read this and ask him to explore you with his fingers, although only if he has good enough judgment to know the difference between a finger and a penis!

If and when you feel ready, you might practice guiding a tampon or small, tube-like vibrator into your vagina when you are lying on your back. Also practice doing this when you are squatting, as if you were in a girl-on-top position. Don’t assume for a moment that your partner is going to have a clue where the opening of your vagina is. Be ready to help him guide his penis in, unless you don’t mind if it ends up in your belly button or bum.

If all of this seems too overwhelming, maybe it’s not the right time in your life to be having intercourse. There are lots of other ways that you and a partner can enjoy yourselves sexually without a penis going in your vagina.

The Importance of Feeling Sexually Aroused

A lot of guys would be happy if a partner suddenly grabbed their penis and started playing with it. But women don’t always do as well with surprise dives for their crotch. One of the reasons is because when a woman is sexually aroused, her genitals grow as much as a penis does. But most of the changes are on the inside of her body, so you can’t see all of them. This includes more blood flow around the vagina so it straightens out and puffs up more. This will help make it ready for an incoming penis and it will help intercourse feel better. It can often take fifteen or twenty minutes or more of kissing and caressing for a woman’s vagina to become ready for intercourse. And that’s before you have oral sex if you are going to have oral sex.

Another good thing about letting yourself become highly aroused before having intercourse is it helps change the way that direct contact with your clitoris and genitals will feel. For instance, touching or kissing your clitoris might feel painful if you aren’t aroused, but it can feel exquisite twenty minutes later after you’ve become more aroused.

Hymens Don’t Pop

The majority of women who have taken our sex survey did not experience bleeding during their first intercourse. Nor did their hymens (or cherry) pop. That’s because it’s a myth that hymens are supposed to pop or tear their first time. To understand more about your hymen, please read Chapter 8:
The Hymen
.

During their first intercourse, some women don’t feel a thing hymen-wise, others feel a stretching or a sting, and some feel a level of pain that you might when you get your ears pierced, or worse. But if you do the exercises with your fingers ahead of time, the chances are good you won’t feel discomfort. And if you do feel pain, ask your partner to stop.

If you are getting a gynecological exam before your first intercourse, it can be a really good idea to ask your gynecologist if your hymen has become stretchy enough for intercourse. If not, your gynecologist can give you some estrogen cream that you can rub on it which will help it become more elastic.

Now, for advice for members of both sexes...

Pillows and Lube

Two accessories that might really help with your first time are lube and pillows. You have no idea how much a carefully placed pillow under a woman’s rear can help with the angle of penetration and with her ability to spread her legs. This can allow her to better relax her legs and her vaginal muscles.

As for lube, put a few drops on the penis and a few drops in the opening of the vagina and you are good to go. If you don’t have lube, spit can help. Just make sure things aren’t dry before you try to have intercourse.

Go Slow and Ask!!!

After you’ve made out for a long time and are ready for intercourse, do not just ram the penis in! Start with the head gently pushing against the rear or bottom of the woman’s labia. (It can be very helpful if she guides the penis to her vaginal opening.) If she is okay with the head pushing slightly into the opening of her vagina, then ease it in just a bit more, and ask again.

Once the penis is all the way inside of the vagina, just keep it there—don’t start thrusting. This is the first time the woman has ever had a penis in her vagina. She should spend as much time as she needs to adjust to it being inside before there’s any thrusting. This can be the most important moment of your first intercourse. It will be the only “first stroke” that either of you will have in your entire lives. Stop and savor it.

Also keep in mind that a nice sensation can result if the guy pushes his pelvic bone against the woman’s while his penis is all the way in and does a slow circular motion with his hips. This may help stimulate her clitoris. She can hopefully guide him with her hands on the sides of his butt.

Orgasms, Anyone?

“Be choosy. Take your time. Touch and explore everything.”
female age 36

About 80% of guy have an orgasm their first time, where it’s usually less than 20% for girls. One of the things we’ve learned after reading thousands of women’s sex surveys is they usually don’t orgasm from thrusting alone during intercourse. They usually need to stimulate their clitoris with their fingers or by grinding it into their lover’s pubic bone.

If you are a guy, your orgasm during intercourse might not feel as intense as when you are jerking off. After all, how many times has your penis been in your hand, and how many times has it been in a vagina? When you masturbate, your fingers put pressure on the part of your penis that helps get you off. Vaginas don’t have fingers. Also the sole point of contact when you are masturbating is your hand gripping your penis; with partner-sex, your whole body is feeling her whole body.

Or how often have you had an orgasm while supporting your body’s weight on your arms or elbows? And if you wank to porn, there can be a big difference between staring into a partner’s eyes and staring up the crotches of porn actors. It often takes time and experience to put lovemaking together in a way that beats beating off. Give yourself time. The chances are, you’re not the only nervous one between the two of you.