What I wish I’d known before having sex

By Lady Marmalade, March 7 2017 —

Before I was sexually active, people told me a lot of different things about having sex. My mother told me that “everything changes” once you do it for the first time. I was told that I would grow abnormally attached to the person who defaced my womanly virtue and that when I finally lost my virginity, I would probably bleed and have a really bad time.

But here’s the truth — losing my virginity wasn’t that big of a deal. I didn’t bleed, tear or feel an earth-shattering change. I had sex. It was normal. That’s it.

There are a lot of things I wish someone told me before I became sexually active, like that you should pee after sex — the cranberry juice industry was basically kept afloat by me for the first few months of my new life of coitus. While running naked to the washroom after sex doesn’t sound like a lot of fun, urinary tract infections aren’t that fun either.

In the movies, when someone with a vagina and someone with a penis finish having sex — presumably without a condom — they both just flop onto the bed and call it a night. It’s all very romantic. Too bad it also isn’t true. If your vagina has recently been blessed with ejaculate, you better believe that shit is going to be seeping out of you for at least the next three hours. Either you’re gonna have some really messy sheets or you’re going to be making a mad dash to the bathroom with your hand between your legs trying to avoid a disaster. Also, wear a condom.

I wish someone told me that having sex on your period isn’t as gross as I thought it would be. If you’re worried about a mess, lay a towel down. A person who is menstruating will likely have cramp relief from arousal and they will most likely be very horny. It’s fun. It’s normal. We’ve all had nosebleeds before. This blood just comes from somewhere different.

Sex won’t always be good. There’s this expectation placed on people that all the sex they are having is going to be hot and steamy and end with fireworks. Sometimes it does. But sometimes it doesn’t and that’s okay. You don’t need to put pressure on yourself to be having sex a certain amount of times a week and you don’t always have to be having great sex.

Though sex is an important and positive part of my life, I wish someone would have told me that it doesn’t really matter as much as I thought it would. My worth is not defined by what age I became sexually active or by how much sex I’m having. It really does not matter.

Sex is fun and intimacy can be important in a relationship. If you aren’t having sex because you aren’t ready or you don’t want to, you are doing what is right for you. No stress. Be safe.