The question on every 16-year-old girl’s mind… By Karley Sciortino
I’m sixteen—the age of consent in my state—and to sum it up, I’m sick of being a virgin. I don’t want to wait around for some guy to pick me up and take my V-card, so I’m actively taking charge of my sexuality and taking to the internet to lose it. I met a 30-year-old guy on Craigslist who’s experienced and writes very persuasive emails, but I don’t know if I want to pursue it. Should I abide by society’s standards and wait for a guy who’s “special”? I don’t know if I want that “swept me off my feet” fairytale first time. If I lost it to this internet random, I’d be actively ripping up my V-card and flipping the bird to backwards social constructs about virginity — not very romantic, but maybe cool? Would regret this, or should I just YOLO and do it?
OK, wow, breathe. You need to think about this rationally. I suggest you masturbate first, to level your head. Now, I totally agree that it’s healthy to be skeptical of the (often backwards) social norms around female sexuality—virginity in particular. Certainly, you don’t have to “wait around” for Prince Charming to slow fuck you on a bed of bodega flowers. If you’re curious and horny, which is seems you are, then waiting to fall in love to have sex might feel like torture, and you should totally try to expedite the process if that’s what you truly want.
That being said, there are a variety of ways to lose your virginity that don’t involve essentially auctioning off your hymen next to an ad for a used coffee table. Why not sleep with someone from your school, for example? Or some 18-year-old guy who works at the mall? Or literally anyone who isn’t a 30-year-old man from Craigslist, because honestly he sounds like a fucking creep from hell. Believe me, any man in his 30s who’s actively trying to sleep with a 16-year-old through “persuasive emails” is a tragic case with questionable motives.
You’ve never had sex before. When you do it for the first time, it doesn’t have to be the boning equivalent of an Ed Sheeran song, or something gross and cheesy like that. But it is important that you feel safe. OMG I sound like such a mom right now, but it’s true. Generally speaking, I’m pro doing potentially dumb things for no reason other than they’d make a good story. When I was about 10, my step-grandmother told me: “You can pride yourself on being responsible, or you can pride yourself on having good stories, but you can’t have both”—the best/most dangerous advice. Since then, I have made some really fucking R-word life decisions, but I’m great at a dinner party. But there’s a thin line between being an idiot in a fun way and just being an idiot.
I mean, you never know—maybe fucking this guy would be fun and kick off a period of slutty sexual enlightenment. But it might be bad, and you don’t want your first sexual experience to be traumatizing, because that might negatively affect your attitude toward sex in the future. You’re only 16. You have the rest of your life to make questionable sexual decisions.
xo Karley