I recently met a woman who had never had sex. I don’t think that I can say anything about our experience better than she can, so I’m sharing a very generous testimonial that she wrote for me after our first date together…
Getting out of my head
I had been checking out John’s website for years. About five, actually. I first stumbled across it as I went down internet rabbit holes on virginity as an older woman. I was mid-forties and feeling very, very isolated.
Mostly, my life is great. I am university-educated, at the peak of my career, I have a wonderful job, my own home in the city and a holiday home near the ocean. Sure, I have a mortgage, but I have enough disposable income to travel widely. I have many wonderful friends – people who care about me and who seem genuinely baffled by my decades of being single. I have never been in a relationship and have never had sex with another person. [I also never use the term virgin, except in those internet searches, as I believe virginity is an archaic concept, from a time when the purity of women was commoditised by men].
Somebody I’d once confided in assured me that ‘when the time comes, he’ll be a very lucky man!’. Whilst they meant well, actually that was part of the problem for me. I didn’t want a guy fetishising my age and lack of experience, or thinking I’d ‘saved myself’ for him. Even if I did meet someone, to me it would have felt excruciatingly more vulnerable to tell him that I’d never had sex, than to actually have sex. I wanted him to know, because it did matter to me; but I also needed it to be ‘no big deal’ to him.
I have been working with a psychologist to unpack how exactly I ended up in this predicament. As always – it’s complicated. One of John’s videos brought me to tears when he addressed this: it felt like he was in my head, he was describing me so accurately. [ShortTake – Virginity] Add some family dynamics, a career with gruelling hours, societal and religious shame about sex, and life was just passing me by. One of the things we often talked about in therapy is how I need to learn to get out of my head and into my body. Massage, yoga, meditation, being in the ocean – all of these helped, but the underlying ‘problem’ remained; and as the years passed, I was becoming increasingly reluctant to even discuss it.
As well as reading everything out there on virginity, I also explored the concept of asexuality. I could relate to the description of people who identified as asexual, saying “it was as if everyone else had a switch that flicked on as teenagers – but not me, somehow I didn’t get the message to start wanting relationships and sex”. I’m not sure if I feel sexual attraction, which is a definition of asexuality, but I do have a healthy libido and have a respectable number of sex toys. I have great orgasms. Ultimately I’ve realised that for me, a label doesn’t actually matter. What matters is knowing what I want (intimacy, kindness, companionship and a good sex life) and who I want that with (men, I think). It feels strange being 50 and trying to figure out stuff that most people have sorted by the time they’re through adolescence; but here I am: better late than never!
I began to realise the harsh reality that I needed to either do something about my situation, or accept that I might never have sex and just get on with my life. Staying in limbo was doing my head in.
When I contacted John during a holiday in Sydney, I wanted to talk with him about all things sexuality, to learn about myself and what all the ‘stuff’ in my head means. Of course, I knew he wasn’t a therapist, but he clearly had experience in talking with more women about this than any licensed therapists would ever have. I very nervously hit the send button on an email:
“….I’d be keen to meet with you for a couple of hours, actually mostly to talk and maybe a massage. Not planning to go all the way this time but considering in the future. …”
My heart jumped when I got a reply within a few minutes:
“….Thank you for contacting me. It would be my pleasure to see you. … Talk and a massage is perfectly fine. I understand not wanting to go all the way and there is no pressure to.”
From the moment I met John, it was clear that his website is a totally accurate portrayal of who he is, his values and how he works. He arrived on time, we started chatting and, in the absence of a sofa in my hotel room, moved to the bed to lie down and talk a bit more. Within half an hour, we’d gone from being complete strangers, to me telling him all of the above, and lying on a bed together, kissing (something I’d also never done, but he offered to teach me, without judgement). Then he asked if I’d like a massage – at that point it dawned on me that in our talking, I’d once again been fully inside my head, and that getting into my body was what I desperately needed to do.
Each step of the way the massage was done with utmost respect, kindness and consent; it also flowed naturally as he read my body. I had no idea how much I would enjoy nipple stimulation…. I had already decided I might be ok with oral sex at the end of the massage, so when John asked about removing my underwear, my answer was an enthusiastic yes. I got very close to climaxing, but after a (very) long time wasn’t quite there yet. I made a decision: “Um John, I think I need you to fuck me properly”. He promptly stopped, put his head up and with a kind smile responded “we can do that!”. And so we had sex. Then we chatted some more. And he asked if I’d like to have sex again (yes please, didn’t know you could do it again so soon….), he asked if I wanted to put the condom on and showed me how. I chose what position I wanted, and we had sex again. It was very, very good….
More talking, more cuddling and eventually our evening together came to an end.
I slept like a rock. When I woke, I couldn’t stop smiling. I felt in-control and empowered. As I left the hotel, I wanted to shout to the people walking the streets of central Sydney “I HAD SEX LAST NIGHT! And it was so much fun!”. For the first time in my life, despite not having had children (not by choice), despite being in a bigger body, despite having had a hysterectomy, I felt like a woman. A sexy, complete woman. I genuinely didn’t expect that a couple of hours with a stranger could feel so overwhelmingly good – both in the moment and in the change that I feel in myself afterward.
I know John says he can’t work magic, but I’m prepared to accept that something in me changed in a way I can’t fully explain: and it was wonderful. That switch that didn’t get activated in adolescence? It’s now dialled right up. Now, I feel like I’m walking around with the lights on and my eyes open. Life really does feel that different – even a few months later.
If someone had told me 30 years ago that this is how I would have sex for the first time, I would have been shocked, and to be honest, quite embarrassed. I spent years tortured by uncertainty about whether I was fundamentally ‘abnormal’ or if I ‘just hadn’t met the right person yet’. I feared what it meant about me if my ‘right person’ never existed. I hadn’t considered the possibility that perhaps my own body had wisdom to listen to. I certainly hadn’t given myself permission to just have a whole lot of fun with my body!
My only regret is that I didn’t ditch the dream of the white picket fence earlier, but I am grateful that I can now move ahead and fully embrace this one precious life that I have. Yes, my way of having first time sex was definitely unconventional, but so was my journey to get there. My mind was tying itself in knots trying to think its way out of this. Getting the hell out of my head, and into my body was one of the best decisions I have ever made. No regrets. And yes, I have another booking planned.
D.
John
