North Star

18 | not like the movies

2010

Kaipo read somewhere once that the average age of most Americans to lose their virginity was sixteen. (We weren't Americans—not by choice, anyway—but it was the only statistic we could go off of.) Since he had this weird aversion to becoming part of a statistic, he asked me one day if I wanted to, well, do it. Just to get it over with.

I said yes because I had nothing better to do.

Turns out he must have misremembered it because according to the internet, it was closer to seventeen, but there was also a lot of conflicting information so I didn't blame him. And regardless, it wasn't like I regretted it. Media painted a particular image of the construct of virginity I had never necessarily agreed with. Sex wasn't something to take lightly, especially as a teenager—STDs and pregnancy, among other things—but it also wasn't this precious gift to be lost. Having sex didn't rob me of my innocence or brand a scarlet letter on my chest.

That didn't mean it wasn't a brand new and vulnerable thing I was about to do, and doing it with someone I trusted, someone who was my closest friend, meant I knew I was in good hands (literally) and that he was as well. Because that was important to me. Kaipo might not have said outright that he was nervous, but I felt it, as easily as I felt my own nerves under any sort of pressure. As soon as I agreed, I realized how happy I was that he asked in the first place.

When we first talked about it, he asked me what I knew.

"I don't know," I shrugged. "I've read about it in books. Kanani told me it hurt her first time. That's it."

"Really?" He went quiet. "I've only... watched stuff. Not, like, porn. Just... what they put in movies."

"Yeah, let's not do that." We quickly both agreed. As little as we knew, that would be certain.

We both wanted to learn as much as we could, but asking somebody else was out of the question. So was doing any sort of research online for obvious reasons, the biggest of all being that leaving behind that kind of search history was a big no. Kaipo also wasn't about to sit through reading any of the books I had read before just for one night. Yeah, it felt a little nerdy at the time, wanting to research sex as if we were about to write a paper on it, but we didn't want to make any monumental mistakes.

When Kanani told me about her first time, it was because I asked her about it out of curiosity, but she didn't seem surprised by the question and she was more than willing to tell me anything I had wanted to hear, which I was grateful for. I had a good relationship with both of my parents and knew they wouldn't be upset or weirded out if I asked them anything, like when they knew they were ready, but I felt better asking my sister than one of them. Part of me probably wanted to pick her brain for whenever I experienced it myself. She didn't tell me any extreme details as that was hardly relevant nor wanted, but she explained it in a way that didn't make either of us squirm. It was one of those moments I was glad to have an older sibling; she threw herself headfirst into the world and all of its terrifying experiences and I got to learn from any of her mistakes as cautionary tales for my own life.

My sister also didn't place any particular significance on having sex for the first time, hence why she ended up losing it at a party. Something that wasn't at all planned intentionally but something she figured could happen that night. Although she had no interest in it in the first place, it pretty much eliminated any possibility of romance when she was acutely aware of just how many people were downstairs with only a few thin walls and too-loud music acting as a barrier between them. She had met the guy a couple of months prior, someone who went to a different school than us. Kanani stated it was by no means enjoyable at any point and it definitely hurt more than she thought it would—"a pinch, but, like, a strange pinch that takes a hold of your entire insides and it doesn't really go away for a while."—but it was also kind of weirdly liberating. She said she had never been more aware of her entire body before—the way she breathed and how rapidly her chest rose and fell, how sensitive the back of her knees were, the way her body could react separately from her mind—particularly with another person. There was a lot of bleeding and it took forever to scrub it out of the stark white sheets that looked like they belonged in a hospital. But she thought it was all worth it. Everything felt comfortable, despite the pain, and she felt safe.