If sex is a constant rerun of how we lost our virginity, we're screwed

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/30/sex-rerun-lost-virginity-screwed

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Having trouble in the sack? Bedroom antics feeling a little lacklustre? Well, put down the ben wa balls and the ginseng, and stop what you're doing. According to a new study featured in the Atlantic, it could be down to the very first time you ever had sex. That's right – apparently how you lost your virginity shapes your entire sexual life, and not just in an obvious way in that you weren't having sex before it and now you are, but in all kinds of deep, psychologically penetrating ways.

If you're sad when you do the deed, for example, then you will be sad forever, and are doomed to a life of crying after sex while wailing "I'm just so happy!" at your stricken-faced lover. However, if you were basking in the warm afterglow (their word, not mine) of your lover's sticky embrace, then you will have fantastic, orgasm-ridden sex for the rest of your days – just like Meg Ryan in that diner.

I don't know about you, but I find the notion that your virginity scenario can have such a dramatic effect on your sexual fate somewhat disturbing. It's as though the minute the guy withdraws, a genie appears and booms "let me show you your sextiny", as myriad dissatisfying encounters flash before your still-bulbous eyes. Considering that I spent most of my teens initiating sex in order to avoid having to watch The Matrix, it wouldn't have boded well for my sexual future. Would you, like some kind of Ebeneezer Screwge, be given the chance to right your wrongs and change the course of history forever? Or could you go back in time and stand eerily behind your past lovers and, instead of interrupting their pottery making, just yell "WEAR A CONDOM!" in their ear repeatedly? So many questions.

Of course, we all know that the survey is rubbish. It was conducted on US college students, for a start, who probably lost their virginities about five minutes ago. Furthermore, they were made to keep sex diaries for two weeks, as though that constitutes an accurate snapshot of anyone's sex life. Everyone knows that the sex you have in college is some of the worst that you'll have in your life, and nowhere near as frequent as people tell you it is. They will imply it's like the last days of Rome, when in fact it amounts to months of frustration punctuated only by the occasional two-pump encounter in the utility room at a house party with someone who reeks of Grolsch and ketamine, and talks about how funny Stewart Lee is throughout.

The other problematic aspect to this survey, of course, is how you define your virginity. Are they referring to your fake virginity, or your real one? Because plenty of people have two, and the one they tell people about often isn't the actual one. Similarly, many people have a bash at it several times, and aren't sure if it counts. Do you call it a loss of virginity only if the male party succeeds in bringing himself to fruition? Does it count if it's in a wheelie bin? What if it's with more than one person? The tendency to lie about sex when you're first experimenting with it and the sheer number of variables make the survey's results tenuous at best. But what more could you expect from a survey called Gone but Not Forgotten? It was a forgone conclusion.

I've always felt uncomfortable with the notion that the loss of your virginity should be a momentous occasion with lifelong repercussions, mainly because it smacks of conservatism. It's not such a huge leap to go from fetishising virginity to being in one of those families where your dad takes you to a purity ball and makes you promise to keep your snatch under wraps. Why should virginity be something you "lose", and often equated with innocence? When you have sex for the first time you <em>gain</em> experience, and although you could argue that the decisions you make, including the sexual ones, are likely to be in the same vein throughout your life, people experiment as they get older, and presumably also get better at what they do.

Saying that, perhaps the survey does have a point. When I asked whether people on Twitter felt their virginity scenarios had affected their sexual futures (or screwtures, if you like), Kit Lovelace of the Guardian's My love life in your hands fame replied: "I lost my virginity to someone who was the spitting image of my cousin (something I only realised after the fact). I'm keen for it to never happen again, so I guess it may have done, yeah".