This is late, and I apologize for that. Work has been picking up, but I’ll do better in the future.
When I broke the news of losing my virginity, my friends were ecstatic. Everyone was filled with what felt like a combination of joy, and pride for my accomplishment. To celebrate this “life-changing” moment, we decided that everyone would go to the campus party happening later that evening.
The party, as expected was a blast, so we didn’t leave until the very end. Everyone wanted to sleep in the next day, so we agreed to check in on Sunday. I remember, right before he left, my buddy, Ja’meer walked up to me and said, “congrats bro, now that you popped your cherry, you’re gonna want it all of the time!” I laughed and told him that I had “something lined up for later”, then wished him well and left.
I didn’t have anything going on. I wasn’t even thinking about sex, honestly, I wanted to hurry back to my dorm so I could play Gears of War. After Ja told me I was “gonna want to have sex all of the time” and that’s not how I felt, I started to worry something was wrong with me. Every guy I talked to said the same thing. After they got their virginity “out of the way,” they wanted to “fuck everything in sight.” I decided to share this anxiety with Ja’meer.
He listened for a couple of minutes, told me that everything was ok, and the reason I was so stressed and uninterested in sex was that I didn’t know what I was doing. It made sense, the girl I lost my virginity to didn’t know that she was my first. Well, she didn’t know before we had sex, I would be surprised if my performance didn’t raise some eyebrows. Ja had the perfect solution to this problem. Practice. All I had to do was “knock the head off a couple of hoes,” and then my pipe game would be “suitable enough to offer a slice of dick to a real woman” this advice made me uncomfortable, so I asked my dad. He disagreed with Ja’meer. Women are not hoes, and we (Ja’meer and I) shouldn’t call them that. However, if I wanted to be good at sex, I should sleep with a few of the easier women to get my stamina up.”
My father and Ja were the two men I have seen have the most success with women. My father is a legend among his friends for his antics, and Ja was having sex with so many women, It was starting to become mind-boggling. If they both felt this way, it was probably true.
The Girl:
Shanoa (Noa for short) was the type of person you liked being around because there was always something new to learn. She had rich chocolate skin with high cheekbones, dark eyes, and full lips to go with her wide smile with a chipped tooth that worked for her. She and I were in the same English lit class and would use our professor’s 20-minute rambles about her ex-boyfriend to flirt with each other. After the discussion with my dad and Ja’meer, I decided to see if I could take my and Noa’s flirting to the next level. It turns out that she was looking for the same thing so we exchanged numbers. After a few days of late-night phone calls and sexting through AOL Instant Messenger, we decided to stop the flirting and do the real thing.
The day finally arrived, my roommate was home for the weekend so I had the dorm to myself. Noa came over at around 8, and we got right to business. Without dragging myself too much, I’ll try to describe the experience. Have you ever paid a bunch of money to watch a PPV fight? Imagine if after looking forward to this for weeks, the fight lasts less than one round, and the few minutes of action you get are sloppy jabs and one big hook, grand opening, grand closing. That’s pretty much what Shanoa got from me.
The Mixtape:
The Breakup:
Noa was not happy with the experience. I was hoping she would keep her thoughts to herself and quietly leave. Unfortunately, she did no such thing. After stepping out briefly to use the bathroom, and clean up. She came back to the room and told me exactly how she felt. Not only was the sex bad, but it was also one-sided. I didn’t try to kiss her, I never checked in to see how she was feeling or even try to create a comfortable space. She tried to communicate her needs but I was too busy jackhammering her vagina to notice. I really liked Noa so I decided to tell her the truth. She was only my second sexual encounter and I had no idea what I was doing. I was hoping to have sex with enough women until I got good at it, and just hoped she wouldn’t notice. I figured I could get away with it if I followed the sex advice my friends gave me.
Noa’s reaction is reason number 17373837 of why Black women deserve all of the things. She took a deep breath, grabbed my hand, looked me in the eyes, and began to expend emotional energy while giving away the free game. She told me how disappointed she was and that If I had told her I was a virgin or didn’t have a lot of experience, she wouldn’t have minded. She wasn’t very experienced either and could have been open to us exploring our bodies and learning together. But I lied to her, used her body for a test dummy, and couldn’t even make her cum. With that much failure in one session, “exploring together” was now off the table.
The Lesson:
The one consistent theme in all of the essays I have written in this series is the erasure of women. Some of you might be wondering what I mean by “Erasure” I’ll try to explain. I mean the complete dismissal, of the thoughts, feelings, or experiences of the women I dated. I spend a lot of time talking about the way they make me feel, and all of the things I wanted from them, but I rarely tell you anything about them besides what they looked like and why they dumped me. All of these stories are one-sided in that way. In this relationship, I did the same thing, but with sex. I didn’t think about Noa, I set a personal goal and treated her like a human sex toy.
I was taught how to do this by other men in my life. They are men who I love and trust deeply. They were wrong, and its about time someone put men everywhere on to the game. I don’t want to repeat that cycle, but more importantly, I don’t want any other man or boy to continue that cycle. The women in our lives deserve more than that. Men do too. And finally, we badly need to implement real sex education. There are too many people who are convinced that sex is only good if they enjoy it, and don’t consider their partners. There are also people who believe that shrimp alfredo followed by “Backshot Mania” until you finish is enough, and sometimes it is. But maybe ask first.
I love your writing and the lessons you have learned. More importantly that you share them so openly. Breaking the cycle for both Men and Women, to learn from these experiences. Look forward to the next article
shrimp Alfredo followed by backshot mania is a pretty good evening 🤭😂