Let Us Discuss Fornication

The other day at work we got onto the subject of sex and first times. Not how they were, just what age we were. There were five of us. Of the five these were the ages: 13, 15, 16, 19, and 20. (You don't have to guess which one was me, because I'll tell you in a minute.)

As each person said their age there was a brief pause where we all contemplated, or at least I did, how losing it at that age would have affected us personally. And when 19 came up, everyone sort of blanched. I'm not sure if it was because initially we were surprised that the girl who said it didn't lose it until then, or because of the lateness of the age in general. She also had an addendum of, "But I made up for lost time." (Cause that's not slutty.)

But then I said my age, and everyone seemed to have been smacked in the face. It was almost a chorus of, "Twenty?!?!?!?!? Whaaa!!!??? But that's impossible!!!!!"

And I've been thinking about it a lot since then. My first reaction to their reaction was to explain myself, which I refrained from doing because I don't owe them anything. My second response was an underlying feeling of something akin to having somehow disappointed a parent. I assume this is because deep down I will always be a child striving for acceptance and approval. (Sad and pathetic as that is.) And then, much later and when it no longer counted, (penses d'escalier) a very aggressive feeling of "How dare you judge me!"

While I don't judge any of them, or anyone really, for whatever age they first had sex at it, I do tend to judge why they did it, and how they've acted since then. If you did it because you felt pressured, I consider you an idiot. If you did it because you just wanted to get it over with, I consider you an idiot. If you did it because you couldn't stand the idea of graduating high school and still being a virgin (what a loser), I consider you a teen comedy for the ages. And if you've been brain-washed by religion to wait until you're married, that's a whole different story.

I never felt like I had to make up for lost time, because I don't feel that I was missing out anything. (Not that sex isn't awesome.) I waited until I found the right person, not because I didn't have the opportunity. I just don't understand why it was such a big deal that I was as old as I was, and it still frustrates me that people think it should be.

Ladies, Stop Throwing Your Unbroken Hymen Around Like It's No Thing

So the episode of Gossip Girl I'm watching right now has Jennie about to lose her V-card. She's 16, he's an adult and a drug dealer, and everyone's telling her to wait and think it over, be sure, yada yada. And she is dead set on just giving it away. Then, when they're in bed, she finally tells him she's a virgin, and he says it's no big deal.

I'm sorry, no big deal? No big deal? Why do people have that response? In what free-love world are you living in where having sex for the first time is just a thing to check off a list?

• Do laundry
• Wash hair
• Grab lunch with friends
• Lose virginity
• Do laundry... again

So Jennie hears this, and for once this chick who is constantly making the stupidest decisions I have ever seen a teenage girl make, real or imagined, says the same thing I said a moment before she did: Actually, it is a big deal.

Of course, she lied and told Serena she had sex anyway but that's her self-esteem issues to work out, and no amount of my yelling at the TV is going to change the fact that she absolutely should have told her step-sister she was mature enough to not have dismissive sex with someone who doesn't care about her and that she needed a shoulder to cry on. Because lying about doing that is almost as bad as doing it. Shame on you, CW writers. You are setting terrible examples for young girls the world over.

Which reminds me, Elena on The Vampire Diaries doesn't want to be a vampire. After the disastrous Early Evening Sparkly thing (you know) it's refreshing to see a girl in love with a vampire that doesn't want to be with him for all eternity. Just until she dies. Which is still a little... ya know. Something.