“Birds Do It, Bees Do It”…but Why Would I Have Sex?

TL;DR I have sex because…I’m only human. And I love it.

I lost my virginity at the age of 24. I was pretty late in the game because I was waiting for a guy that checked the right boxes: relatively nice, wasn’t ashamed to be seen with me out in public (apparently guys will stick it anywhere but who they actually take out are two different things), et cetera, et cetera.

When I told my mother, I had lost my virginity a few days after the event, first there was a pregnant pause and then she asked, “why?” Now I know what you’re thinking: why would I tell my mom? The answer is simple: because she often made me feel like I couldn’t and wouldn’t ever have sex; I wanted desperately to prove her wrong.

When she asked me why, these are the things I wanted to say:

Because…

1. I had never felt any pleasure in this body, only pain. By the time I was old enough to think about masturbating I was already too weak to do it. When I finally swallowed my pride and found a toy I could use (toys with phone app remote controls are the way to go, here’s one) and a caregiver willing to set me up with it occasionally, I only used it twice before deciding asking for help was just too much of a lady-boner killer. I was pent up and in desperate need of pleasure.
2. I was/am perpetually starving for touch. Sure, everyone touches me all day every day because that’s the reality when you can’t dress yourself, wash your face, or reposition independently. People touch me because they have to, it is pretty much entirely clinical, and it does nothing to feed the soul. (Fun experiment: count how many times you get touched in a day whether it’s a handshake or pat on the arm) When you are like me à la fragile, different, tiny, whatever most people avoid physical contact because they are scared. Scared of catching it or breaking me, I don’t really know. What I do know, is the only time I ever feel non-disabled is when I have someone’s arms around me.
3. I had been holding on to my vCard for years. Initially I was saving it for marriage, then love, then dating, then anything more than a one-night stand. It had become the Scarlet Letter—if you will—and I wanted it off my chest. I wasn’t going to die a virgin. In fact, I wasn’t going to be a virgin once I hit the age of 25 and I would do WHATEVER to lose it. Yes, that includes hire a sex-worker. And can I just say I found the male to female sex-worker options appalling. Straight women love NSA sex too, but I digress. My standards got looser as I got older; I was tired of being the sacrificial virgin in the room. Looser standards meant I wouldn’t have to pay for sex. I simply had to say yes to the next person that offered (he will get a detailed blog post one day).
4. The guy I had been hoping to lose it to—somewhere in the deepest part of my mind—sent me a poem about how it felt to be inside his girlfriend two days prior to my momentous night. Mind you, this was after me telling him I was crazy about him. It occurred to me that if a man I was close to saw me as such a non-woman that he thought something like that wouldn’t hurt me then that’s how all other men saw me. Only I had the power to change the world’s perception of me.
5. I was tired of no one acknowledging my sexuality. As a teenager, I had to beg my mother for the HPV vaccine; she thought it was unnecessary with my supposed perpetual virginity. Doctors would check the “not pregnant” box way into my adulthood without ever asking me if I was having sex—I wasn’t, but the point here is ableism and how I was playing into the stereotype. People would censor themselves around me because they assumed, I was a child. Again, I needed to start having control over my narrative, so I did what I had to do to get laid.

In the end I answered her question via another question, “Why does anyone have sex?” (And I’d like to state for the record, that since I started having sex my mother has become supportive of me living my best life. Mostly because I didn’t give her an option.)

Moral of the story for you: Don’t feel the need to justify the parts of yourself that are intrinsically human. Go out there and do you boo, others will catch up eventually. Or they won’t.

Moral of the story for the non-disabled reader: Look at people who are different from you and remind yourself that they are your equals.