BLOG: Sex, relationships and me
The exciting life of the pretend-a-freshman
By Aisha Stern, blogger
May 23, 2008 | 3 p.m.
I thought it was going to be easy to write about sex. I thought it would be so easy to take something that I am willing to talk about with my friends and put it here on Speakeasy.
I overestimate my outgoingness occasionally.
I can tell you the facts: I lost my virginity eight days after I turned 18 to someone I had liked for almost two years. My mother most likely knew I was going to be coming home no longer able to check “no” in the “Are you sexually active?” section of the patient information sheets you get at the doctor’s.
But that doesn't tell you much. It doesn't tell you how amazing my boyfriend is and how grateful and happy I am to be in this amazing relationship with this amazing person who makes me feel like the most special girl in the room. The facts don't tell you how difficult it has been for us to be four hours away from each other -- he lives in Cleveland and is going to Kent State University for his master’s next year, and I'm going to Ohio University. The facts don't tell you anything about our relationship or about my relationship with my mother. The facts tell you very, very little.
I remember when my mom found out that Jon and I had slept together. She had everything but my confirmation, but I wasn't ready to talk about it with her. She raised me to wait until I was married, but I knew she would be OK -- she had learned long ago that just because she raised her kids a certain way didn't mean they were going to follow her advice. If there is one thing I want to take away from being my mother's daughter, it is being able to accept my children just as they are and their decisions too, even if I think they are stupid decisions or if they go against what I have told them over the years.
So, of course, she found out about my having sex by my sticking my foot in my mouth.
She had been teasing me about things you learn in sex ed and wondering if she needed to get a banana and some condoms so that I would know how to put one on. I was grumpy and in no mood to be teased, so the first words that popped out of my mouth were, "Thanks, but I think I've already figured it out."
I slapped my hand across my mouth and felt myself starting to blush. I swear my brain shut down in that moment. It decided a resignation letter informing my mouth that it was tired of its actions was too polite, so my brain just packed its bags and left.
My mom just laughed, also turning a little pink, and said something along the lines of “Well, I kind of figured!”
Have I mentioned that I love my mother?
As far as the sex goes, it's amazing. It's so amazing that when one of us manages to visit the other, I want to run up to complete and total strangers and yell, inches from their faces, "OH, MY GOD! HAVE YOU EVER HAD SEX? IT'S SO AWESOME! YOU TOTALLY SHOULD!" because that wouldn't get me a rep as the campus crazy AT ALL.
But more than anything, the sex is just a part of our relationship, a really, really good part but a PART nonetheless. We waited two years to be together, spent two years not talking about how we felt toward each other and being friends who exchanged head shavings for baked goods. We're disgustingly happy, even with the four-hour distance, in spite of it, actually. The sex was worth waiting for, but the guy was more than worth the wait. You don't need the facts to tell you that. You just need to see us together or see the look on my face when I talk about him.
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