How to Lose Your Virginity ...And How Not To (17 page)

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Running home I jumped this three-bar wooden fence and as I stepped on the top plank it snapped, sending me down into the mud. Everything was against me after that horrible event, even nature.
Mack, 27
Sheffield, England

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YOU FUCKED CATHY CAPPIZIOTTI.
Tom, 34
I had been distressed for the entire summer after I graduated high school because I wanted to get laid before I turned 18 and I was to turn 18 that November during my first semester in college. I figured there was no way I was going to get to college and in just two or three short months convince any of this new pool of women to sleep with me, so I needed to get laid before college.
I had a friend who tried to help me out that summer setting me up with various girls, all this nonsense. Nothing worked. He even tried to convince his own girlfriend to sleep with me. That poor girl had to say she was on her period for like three months straight. College starts, the 18th birthday comes and goes in early November, I go home for Thanksgiving break and I’m all down in the mouth about my big failure; I’m 18 and still a virgin.
I’m hanging out with some friends who were in the class behind me and there was one girl there: Cathy Cappiziotti. For my group of friends, Cathy had been the object of our abuse for the last six months of my senior year of high school ‘cause she had gotten this huge crush on a friend of mine. She sent him a letter saying how she was all crazy about him and included the lyric to The Eagles’ song "Desperado," "Come down from your fences," you know, "…let down your defenses." Like she was really trying to get to this guy by saying you’re so closed up but I know there’s a warm heart in there somewhere. And for this very earnest gesture she of course earned all this abuse from me and my friends, this totally callous group of asshole guys.
And so we were sitting around at this party, a bunch of nerdy guys and her. All the guys were bitching about how we couldn’t get any women. She was sashaying around the room talking about, "Well I have sex all the time. It’s great. I feel sorry for you." And we were just like, "Fuuuck you." Everyone started heaping abuse on her but it was all pretty weak because what could we say? For all the shit we were talking, she was getting it and we weren’t.
I just got disgusted with the whole affair and I went and I sat in the next room. Cathy came and sat down next to me. I had been so condescending and awful to this girl for so long that what happened next was completely beyond my grasp of psychology at the time. I don’t even understand it now but she asks me, "You’re lonely, aren’t you?" And in a moment of drunkenness I said, "Yeah… I’m fucking lonely and I’m sick of this." And she said, "Well, why don’t we?" I told myself, "Well I’m not gonna fuck her. She’s got great tits but she’s a little heavy for my taste," ‘cause like I’m such a fucking find. I’m this skinny guy, fucking big wimp and nerd and so I said, "Maybe I’ll play with your breasts." I was such a callous asshole.
Of course I do end up fucking her. It happened pretty suddenly and the other guys are banging on the door like, "What the fuck is going on in there?" And of course I didn’t have a condom but she said, "I’m on the pill. Don’t worry about it." I’m drunk, I’m 18, I’m like, "OK." I was like so wigged out about AIDS, this was 1989 and at that time we were brought up to believe everyone was going to die of AIDS within five years. So I walk out stark naked and go to the bathroom to wash my dick off in the sink. "Gotta get it off. Gotta get the shame off." Like I was Lady Macbeth, incarnadining the sink with blood.
I walk back in there, and I’m 18, of course I’m ready to go again in spite of my own fears. So I fuck her again and when I come out the guys had put all these kitchen products outside the door, like Saran Wrap and Ziploc bags and tinfoil. We had this friend named Chris who told us this story about some girl who wouldn’t let him fuck her because he didn’t have a condom, so he was like, "I used a plastic bag man, it worked perfect." In honor of Chris they threw all that stuff out there as a joke.
Obviously I had totally caved to this girl. I got dressed and I came out all pumped up. Everyone was like, "Way to go. Got the monkey off your back," except for my best friend who was all about principle and sticking to your guns and stuff. We left her there and we went out walking around the neighborhood trying to find beer somewhere. I said to him "Man I can’t believe I just fucked Cathy Cappiziotti." This was like my best friend but we were always competitive with one another. Now I was sort of one up on him a little bit, but he wasn’t congratulating me or anything. All he said was, "I’ll have four words for you in the morning." And the next morning I woke up out of my stupor and he’s standing over me and he says, "You – fucked – Cathy – Cappiziotti." That’s all he would say to me.
That next morning I regretted it, but in a way it was just like this perfect drunken stupid thing. I was supposed to be this big intellectual whatever and she was just like some average girl, but all that bullshit you connect with of finding the right girl, that magical connection, that doesn’t mean anything. Looking back now, if I saw her today I’d say "thank you".
A DAY OF INFAMY
Ryan, 23
It was 9/11, the 9/11. I was a freshman at Waldorf College in Forrest City, Iowa. There was this girl I really had a crush on and she kept crying because she had family in New York.
We were both theater students. She called me up because she was far from home and she needed a friend. I went over there and I was like, "Yeah, it’s really fucked up." This is really awful but I said to her, "I don’t want to die a virgin." But come on, I thought the whole world was coming to an end. So we fucked in her bunk bed with her roommate asleep right there on the top bunk. She was hot and one of the most sought-after girls in the school, but she was taken. She had a boyfriend of four years and they broke up after he found out.
I feel real bad that I used other people’s tragedy to get me laid, but I’m very thankful for it. Like in a way it’s wrong to thank the terrorists for a bad thing that happened but it got me laid. And now I’m a firefighter so that’s pretty fucked up too.

Chapter 11
"MEN CAN BE SUCH PIGS."

There is probably not a woman out there (or man for that matter) who has at some point held pretty low opinions of the "stronger" sex. Guys can be creeps. Some are even proud of it.

NOM DE PLUME
Phoebe, 21
I'm from Austin but moved to Minnesota for nine years then moved to Carson City, Nevada, to live with my grandparents for six years, where it happened. I had a perm and really pasty white skin. I was a freshman in high school and I had never known popularity but when I entered high school life I found out that this senior boy thought that I was cute. I hung out with all of his friends and we started dating.
It wasn't until later that I found out the senior guys had a top ten list of the "hottest" freshman girls. It was a deflowering list and I was number two behind two girls Jen and Haley, tied at number one. The boys were too indecisive, I guess, to settle on just ten.
So this guy came up to me after school one day and I had no idea who he was. I wasn't really concerning myself with any boys, and I was a good girl. He comes up to me and he goes, "Hi, my name's Luther," like nice to meet you kind of nonchalant. He gives me his number and we hang out a few times.
Luther comes over to my house and, mind you, I had never even seen a penis in my life except for either maybe my dad's or my grandpa's. We were watching American History X in my bedroom. My grandparents were out at choir rehearsal for our church.
We're doing the whole make out thing and he starts trying things, which I thought, "OK, I’ll go along with it." I was 14, almost 15 and when you’re that age you don't know too much about grooming, which leads to an embarrassing part of the story later on. But we're there watching American History X and the last scene I remember was Edward Norton "curbing" some guy.
We're doing the whole rubbing on the clothes thing and he goes, "My dick is chafing, let's take our clothes off." Somehow I end up with my clothes off but he keeps all his clothes on. I'm naked, he’s fully dressed.
One of my girlfriends was over at the same time but she didn't like the guy so she was in the other room using the Internet. He got me naked so he's like, "Let's try it." Of course I freak out so I tell him I have to use the bathroom and I put on a t-shirt and leave the room to go ask my girlfriend, "What should I do? What should I do?" Little did I know she was a whore, she had been doing this for God knows how long, since she was like 12. She told me, "Yeah, do it. Go for it." I go back in there and we get back to the fondling phase and he says, "All right I'm going to do it now." I tell him, "If it hurts you have to stop and I don't want you to do it anymore." Of course he's not gentle in any way. He was literally with all his weight on me, shoving it right in. I start bawling. I'm screaming, "What are you doing?!" I'm freaking out and I look over at the TV and I can see Edward Norton getting raped in the ass.
And this is supposed to be one of the most romantic moments of my lifetime? I'm crying and I'm covering my face and he has the audacity to say, "Shut up. It'll be over soon." And it was. He finishes after a couple minutes and gets up to leave ‘cause he was going to a party that night. I couldn't walk. He tries to be nice to me and gives me a piggyback ride down the stairs and I'm still, not to be gross, but I was still bleeding. Then he gives me a high five, right? Like we were football players. "Yeah, high five!"
The next day I go to school and I'm hiding from him, literally hiding behind lockers and moving friends in front of me and he didn't even care. He's not trying to talk to me either. Two days later we go to his friend's house and everyone came up to me at the party and said things like, "I heard you had sex with Luther." I was like, "How does everyone know?"
I found out that he got a hundred bucks and not only that, but everyone knew that it had happened. I had told only two of my girlfriends. He told everybody. Later that week he broke up with me and of course started dating one of my friends.
Not only that but he told everyone physical details about me and about how I, at 14, didn't know about grooming. For the next two years in high school everybody called me "Bushykins" or "Cry Baby." And his friends would constantly make sexual innuendos towards me. In my yearbook somebody wrote, "Let's meat behind the gym lockers," spelled M-E-A-T.
And I was the first one on the top ten list to give it up. But throughout the whole year, one would go then two would go and then four and then finally all of the top 10 were totally deflowered. But the guy who won the bet, ultimately, was a guy who screwed a girl and then screwed her mother. They had a pool going and I don't know if it's like poker or what, but the guy ended up winning a pair of Nike Air Jordans and like 500 bucks.
It was kind of an ordeal and I don't even live there anymore but to this day people know about it, still call me things. I didn't have a bad reputation beforehand but after that I got a horrible reputation so it really killed me. I ended up drinking religiously, dropping out of high school junior year and getting my GED.
That guy Luther is a dirty dog and now I think he's working at a gas station even though he's got a rich family and he's just a huge loser now and probably still living in Carson City. He's just an idiot. He was 18 and I was 14, and it was so illegal for him to do. Nowadays I just thank God that my mentality level is so much higher now and I got past it and know that I had to live through that one experience to just be like, "Fuck it. One day I'll be happy."
ONE MAN’S HAPPY MEMORY IS ANOTHER WOMAN’S REGRET
Andrew, 45
I was 15 and this friend of mine was banging this chick. One day he asked, "Hey, ever had sex?" I’m like, "No." He says, "Well I’ll let you screw this girl I’m screwing." Stella was her name; we all went to school together. We went down to her place, he went in and did it, they came back out and he said Stella wants to do it. She went, "What?" But he talked her into it. So I went in her house and she done me to. Didn’t kiss or nothing, we just done it. Then we had to get out of there before her parents got home ‘cause she was like 13. Real sweet.
A PRICK IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING
Carol, 19
There was this guy named Jack and I had gone on a couple of dates with him. He seemed interesting. Later I found out he was a total jerk and he was just trying to get in my pants.
I guess I sort of felt pressured into it and before it happened he smoked three joints through his nostrils. He thought he was so cool that he could do that. I didn’t want to do it, but he was pressuring me. We went into the bedroom and when I told him that it started to hurt, he completely didn’t care. Afterwards I distinctly remember saying, "Was that it?" He said, "What? Do you expect me to cuddle or something?" and he just walked out.
After we finished the first time I felt so low about myself that he was able to get me back into the bedroom and we actually did it again, sort of like to see if it was different, if it was really worth it. It was like self-assurance but it wasn’t any better.
He took me home and I just lay in bed thinking, "Oh my god, I can’t believe I lost my virginity to such a prick." I couldn’t believe it because he seemed like a nice guy and he went to a real good school. In the end he just really wasn’t worth it. He kept calling me afterwards, but I never returned his phone calls and I’ve never talked to him since that day.
I spoke with my mom, sort of cried to her about it and she was very supportive. But I was upset when I found out my dad knew because I was sort of like a daddy’s little girly-girl. Mom reassured me by saying, "Has your father treated you any different since he found out?" She was right, he hadn’t. What he really cared about was that I was safe and OK. Since then my relationship with my mom has grown and I can talk to her about that kind of stuff even more now.