For whatever reason, I always used to think that losing my virginity would be unremarkable. This isn’t to say that I wanted to just “get it over with”, or that I’m not a big believer in romance—quite the contrary. I’ve just always been more excited about the courtship leading up to physical intimacy than intimacy itself. The surreptitious glances, the anticipation of a text or call, the moments leading up to a first kiss… And then, after all was said and done, feeling wanted. Sex felt like a random byproduct of all that.
At the beginning of my sophomore year at Midd, I had yet to swipe my V-card. I’d made out with a few different guys over the course of freshman year, but had never gone beyond second base. (Incidentally, the first time I even got to second was also the first time I ever got extremely drunk: not a great sign, I’ll admit.)
The very first Friday of the term, my friends and I decided to hit the ground running: having not spent any time together over the summer, or partied much at all, we wanted to have as exciting a weekend as humanly possible. Which, unfortunately, resulted in our taking as many shots as humanly possible. After pregaming in a friend’s room, we decided to head to the Atwater suites, where 90% of the campus seemed to have congregated. The night was going well—a lot more drunkenly than I was used to, but not out of control by any means—when my friend and I wandered off from the group in search of a bathroom that wasn’t being vomited in. We ultimately resorted to going into a suite that wasn’t throwing down, whose residents didn’t seem bothered by the intrusion.
Somehow, on our way out my friend and I struck up a conversation with one of the guys who lived in the suite. I’m not exactly sure what we talked about, or even for how long: all I remember is that in my outrageously boozy state, I felt more confident and charming than I ever had when talking to a senior boy. Before I knew it, my friend had left, and the guy was inviting me to come hang out in his room. I didn’t give it a second thought.
We sat on his bed and chatted for a while longer, before he leaned over and kissed me. I was certainly enjoying myself, but it was getting late and more than anything I just wanted to go to sleep. After making out for a few minutes, I started to excuse myself: in response, he playfully asked that I stay, “Just a little bit longer, just a little bit longer…” I assumed that he was drunk as well, and being blindly persistent in that token drunk way that people get, but I kept insisting that I had to go “tend to a drunk friend” and sitting up. Suddenly, he’d turned off the light, and his hands were everywhere: in my shirt, on the fly of my jeans, holding my left shoulder down. I think it was at that point that the thought occurred to me, Maybe he’s not as out of it as I thought. And that thought—the feeling that I was at a distinct physical as well as social disadvantage (he was a senior after all, and a varsity athlete)—paralyzed me beyond comprehension.
He eventually got my jeans and underwear off, then his own. He fingered me briefly, then fully went for it. He was having some trouble getting it in—and I certainly didn’t want to help him—but instead of stopping, as I thought he might, he flipped me around and took me from behind. From that point forth, all I could do was bite down on my necklace to keep from crying out, and wait for the blinding pain to desist.
After it was over, I immediately rolled off the bed and threw on my clothes, inside out and backwards. As I was getting dressed, my mind in a complete fog, I heard him ask whether I was a virgin. I turned to look at him, and found him inspecting a fairly sizeable bloodstain on his sheets. Rather than respond, I chirped, “Well, see you around!”, bolted into the hallway and promptly burst into tears. I’d broken one of my sandals earlier in the night, so I ran home barefoot, clutching my shoes and trying to regain my sense of self.
To this day, I have never felt as worthless as I did in that moment.