At 16, I was curious.I wanted to be kissed. I wanted to be wanted. The promise of delight between my thighs had me fighting against all my father had taught me. I wanted to be a ‘bad girl’.
At 20, I was still a ‘good girl’. I had never been kissed, I had never had sex, and no boy had declared feelings for me. I felt ugly, alone, strange, unlovable, burying my depression in fantasies of the crushes I had become infatuated with, in the four years I spent in the University, observing boys.
At 20, for the first time, a boy looked my way. He wasn’t perfect but he was something. He was eager to please, he was huge so I wasn’t as conscious of my size. He was very dark, with a massive dick. And he hurt me. He wasn’t ready. I was, but I didn’t know what to do. I nursed a half torn nipple and sore vagina back to health for weeks, wondering what the hell everyone else had ever been on about.
At 21 I fell in love. Half in love. He was short, smart, confident, and made my insides glow. I cared for him deeply and wanted to be enough for him. I worried about the way my breasts hung, my stretch marks, the size of my stomach. I ate healthy, and took drugs to purge a week before I saw him. I shaved clean and hurt myself in the process. I was so embarrassed with myself, I ate weed before going to see him. If I disgusted him, if I sucked, I’d be too high to notice.
At 21, yet again, I fell in love. He was tall, kind, adoring, and beautiful. My heart had been broken, and he was the light in a dark, dark tunnel. I couldn’t wait. He didn’t last 2 minutes and he went on about how beautiful I was and how amazing I felt. After that we fucked endlessly and sex was no longer a phenomenon. I had been kissed, sex didn’t hurt and I knew how to ride. I even twerked on good days.
At 22, I had my first orgasm. I worried and questioned my normality, as I had when I was a 20 year old virgin. I read up on orgasms, and decided masturbation was more self education than sin. It was scary, the feeling of incredible pleasure, and I learned to to enjoy it, to keep rubbing my clit till I had cum completely.
At 23, I have had only one man, and I have let him go. I may be up for a comfortable rendezvous or two with a stunning stud, but I’m not looking. If I could meet my younger self, I’d tell her to take it easy. I’d tell her she was beautiful, and that what her father and step mother thought of her body were their own limitations, not hers. I’d tell her to wait for someone who would value her first time as much as she’d wanted to. I’d tell her not to fall in love before she loved herself, learned herself, and determined what was important to her in life. I’d hug her, and beg her to just calm the fuck down.
Does this feel incomplete? Some things are way too classified.
[color-box]
Awele Nonso is an expressive writer, organic skin care enthusiast and die-hard feminist. She blogs at Shismatic Minutes
[/color-box]