Penis Pioneer, Vagina Voyager: an exploration of my sexuality, as it were

At 19 years old, I decided to write a collection of short stories detailing my journey through sex and relationships. I’ve been told by my friends that my life is a bit like a sit-com, that all the drama in my life is plain hilarious, especially as it is all a product of my own creation. The time my one-night’s housemates played a prank on me, when a guy asked me to choke and slap him during sex, getting choked by a Louis Vuitton belt, my first lesbian experience and numerous tinder dates. It is also important to note that, due to my being the town crier that I am, will be telling you all about it and about why exactly I no longer give a sh*t.

When trying to determine the starting point of what I would call my “deviance” i.e. the term for things that only come out in drinking games with your friends weeks later, I find it difficult to decide. Was it when […]. No, it was when I left the club to have sex with a third-year student at my University. My audacity honestly astounds me because I had never before acted [good similie] before, and I don’t think I ever will again. I think I used up my life’s supply bucket of bravery when I caught eyes with this guy across the club and attempted to do some kind of sexy body wave but just basically just ended up wobbling through the air like a boiled asparagus. Thankfully, his standards were even lower than my dancing abilities.

I remember smiling at him through the movement of people between us, still dancing within the circle my friends had formed. What happened next was triggered by me jerking my head sideways indicating to him that we should leave the crowd which he obliged to do. I won’t bore you with the details of our initial conversation, him offering to buy me a drink and then me suggesting we go back to his when we realised how long the wait at the bar would be, but it was when we were stood together in his kitchen, my lower back pressed against a counter watching him filling up a glass of water that it crossed my mind that I could be dicing with the possibility of my murder. At this point in the night, however, I was beyond the point of caring and decided that if he was planning on killing me, at least I would be well hydrated, and my death wouldn’t be much of a burden on the judicial system as the crown court and prison were located just at the end of the street from his house. If I were to become a ghost tied to the location of my death, it would mean I could easily haunt him. Drift down the street and pay him a visit in wing-A.

For context, I was still practically a virgin at that point. I had had sex once with my ex-boyfriend at 17 who I, along with the rest of my family who had met him (not during the act, might I had), believe him to be a closeted homosexual. In fact, apart from a few get-withs in clubs, Louis* was the first guy I had met since. Even so, I was suprised at how calm I was being. Stood in the kitchen, glass of water in hand, making small-talk with this guy who had just the beginning growth of a mullet which, unfortunately was destined to become a standard hairstyle at my university, alongside simply going bald. The outbreak of COVID-19 didn’t help boys’ hair situations. Sequestered alone in the house for months on end, without parental guidance or the rationalising presence of wanting to pull to stop them, many boys simply decided to take clippers to their hair and go to town. The sheer number of guys who did this left the female university population with little choice left than to either become celibate, gay or accept ‘the new normal.’ I became bisexual so I could have better options until sense kicked in and their hair grew back.

“So, would you like anything to eat?”

“No, I think I’m okay,” I responded, knowing how I didn’t want to stand around in his kitchen for half an hour while I waited for some chicken nuggets to finish cooking, as well as risk his house mates coming back early and be treated with the same treatment I gave to the people my own house mates brought back. A raised eyebrow, a knowing smile, slowly walking away after a few minutes strangled conversation…So, we went upstairs.

The sex was interesting.

While I had little previous experience to judge it off back then, I realise now that I had little to offer in bed. I still don’t back myself now, but at least now I have increased my movements in bed to more than a starfish clamped to a rock. Maybe it was the almost-getting-it-up-the-arse moment when I climbed on top which led to him asking if I was a virgin, or the fact that it only lasted about five minutes.

Sitting on the toilet in the most disgusting bathroom I had ever seen — a bathroom would only come to mirror the boys’ bathroom in my own house next year— I realised that I had just had my first one-night stand. I hadn’t come to his house with that thought in my mind. Truth be told, I was too drunk to really be thinking like that. However, Louis had been respectful and attentive to my clear lack of sexual prowess (he should have realised that with my dancing) and had asked me if I wanted to continue when I yelped at the fact that his penis was half-way up my arse. It was in the few minutes that I had to myself in that bathroom, illuminated by the pervasive glare of white light, listening to the poorly suppressed giggles from downstairs from who I assumed were his flatmates, that I had a few minutes to digest what had happened.

I don’t know what I expected to see but my body still looked the same as it had done previously— my feet, legs, my vagina between them, my stomach. I knew something had changed, nothing necessarily positive or negative because I felt very neutral. The realisation that I felt no particularly strong emotion about it was important in how I conceptualised this experience. While I may not necessarily have thought that sex was something shameful before, I definitely didn’t now. While I may not necessarily have agreed with the weight society imposed upon sexual relations, I definitely didn’t after that.

I went back to Louis’ room and we fell asleep together till 6am when I suddenly awoke and realised I didn’t know what time would be appropriate to leave. For the record, 8/9am is fine because you don’t want your shag to have to join you in a 20 minute hunt for your misplaced shoes before the sun has even come up.

“Where’s my shoes?” I asked, my eyes scanning the carpet in front of the door where I sworn I had left them the night before. I turned and looked down the corridor. They weren’t there. Stood in his zebra-striped boxers, Louis confirmed that he had no idea either. “Are you sure you didn’t take them off in my room?”

“No…Definitely didn’t,” I replied, trying to avoid staring at his ridiculous underwear choice.

It was only until we had practically ransacked the living room and kitchen in search for my trainers that it dawned on me that their disappearance might have had something to do with the laughter I had heard from downstairs when I was in the bathroom.

Turns out, his housemates had come home after us and had hidden my shoes on top of a curtain rail as a joke.

I darted out the house and ran home like a zebra-striped panty thief in the night— which is also something I probably didn’t need to do.

I almost cried when my tinder date pulled me closer and kissed me on the forehead. It was if he loved me, or could love me but, of course, that could never be true. By sleeping with him on the first date, I knew that I and my body had become demystified. Maybe by kissing my forehead he was trying to make himself believe that he could love me one day instead of the girlfriend he was still in pieces over. Maybe he could recreate that intimacy with me. Maybe not. Maybe I almost made him cry when I held him on my chest and stroked his hair like I once did with the boyfriend that I could not shake.

as if that we hadn’t just met up to exchange the currency of our bodies. At least that’s how it was for me; paying with my body for sex to be held afterwards.