In my own case, I had a morbid fear of losing that virginity to someone I loved. I suppose what I actually feared at that point was falling in love. I felt also that my virginity was a burden I did not want to bring into a relationship. I knew already that none of these acts were less important, less meaningful, and I was terrified to think of how it would shake me to let someone in, to let them inside myself. If these other acts meant so much, how much more might this mean?

I look at myself as I was then, and what strikes me is that while I was and am relatively physically fearless, I am far more frightened by emotional risk.

Consequently I fucked a boy I had been dating for some 3 months, part of whose attraction for me in this case was that I knew that I could not ever fall in love with him. It was unremarkable, and disappointing in the way these things usually are. I think we were both very nervous. In any case there was none of the trembling heat that we had generated in other carnal embraces, on substitutes for beds far less comfortable. He sent me 2 dozen roses the next day, a nice gesture which I have no doubt was observed and interpreted correctly by my father and my neighbours, and I broke up with him a week later. There was some change in him afterwards, and I think I have always had one foot out any door in any relationship. The urge to flee or leave before I can be left drives me.

I think it was the first time I had been to his house while his parents were away. He was from a family with money even in a town famous for its wealth. Not my town, obviously. One of the things I most remember about that period of my life is a general feeling of concealment, of secrecy. One thing that I think I have lost now is the feeling of imprisonment within a certain role, the role of good girl. I was always quite conscious of the fact that I was not such a thing, and yet I felt so often held back or not seen because people would look at me through this lens, expect me to be this way. In his house I know I sat modestly while he cooked for me in his splendid kitchen. He wanted to be a chef and this was the first time I ever ate caviar, which I liked both then and now rather less than some other salty/seawater-sweet things he introduced me to.

All of this and the sight of this house made me want to break things. To put a boot through the TV, to throw it out of the window into the pool, to have a Pink Floyd moment.

I imagined it while I was sitting there.

I also knew that this was not a part of me he could ever see, or understand or appreciate if he did see it. No; for him I was that terrible and colourless thing, a good girl. I hoped I would bleed on his sheets and his WASP mother would find it. Sadly, no. Not much pain either.

After this however, I went on my merry way, deflowering a few other virgins myself--I hope with more tenderness and skill. I spoke this year to the girl who had been my best friend then; we had been intensely close for some 6 years although we have been out of touch for some time. The funny thing was that I heard in her voice for the first time the accent of my old town. "It doesn't sound like you", she said to me, and I suppose it does not--neither my accent nor my words, nor the ideas I would express.

I saw J and M last week, she said to me. Of course I remembered J, the boy and then man who was in and out of her life for many years. M? I said. You know, M, she said. M?? Yes, I had forgotten even his name.

In a way I wish I had the fortitude or courage to risk losing my virginity to someone I loved. That would have happened after all only a little later. On the other hand, I certainly don't regret my decision; it was an early endorsement of the pleasures and importance of bathhouse fornication. It was also a way of breaking free at the earliest possible moment from that old lie for women: that virtue is entirely a matter of physical chastity, that sex is (or in some way, ought to be) entirely a matter of love, that being good, for women only, consists in never deviating from these beliefs.

And so I'll leave you with my own Unvalentine's Day wish: these paintings. This is what I would like to have been given:


Check out all the brilliant paintings at Broken Toyland if you are looking for an Unvalentine's gift; originals are available, as well as prints of everything she's done.

For further Unvalentine readings, I heartily endorse Lovelorn Swain's call for revolution here.

As for this painting, apart from loving the broken toys, drug references, and heartbreak, I like the way it reminds me of Catullus:

I hate and I love, and if you ask me how
I do not know, but I do, and I am torn in two.

Not my own case at the moment, but isn't it beautiful?

Labels: fornication, repost 2006, virginity