“All I Could Think Was DO IT NOW”

We haven’t heard a loss-of-virginity story since that insane asylum one (it wasn’t actually an insane asylum, it was an adolescent psychiatric treatment center).  But people often need to wait until they’re older than 13 to lose their virginity.  One case is “Tonia,” who was 25 last year, and decided to get serious about getting deflowered “so that I could romp on the sexual playground like all my friends have been doing for quite some time.”  She lives in Nashville.  And in yet another casualty of the global economic collapse, the local boutique where she bought her lucky outfit(s) is going out of business.  She wrote in to bewail this catastrophe:  “I am not exaggerating when I say that every piece of clothing that has gotten me laid was purchased at Flaunt.”  In her estimation, “I was verging on old maid — which is why these clothes are even more powerful than one might think!”

Let’s back up a bit, though.  Tonia had decided that her best strategy was to make her quest casual and fun, so “I set out… with the intention of finding some guy who would be a good candidate.  I’d let this weird ‘virginity’ thing get in the way of stuff before and it seemed like hoping for some guy I was in love with was just silly.”  She chatted up some guys and went on some dates, hoping to get lucky.  “There were several abortive attempts.”  Hmm.  For once I’m truly flummoxed.  I’ve been looking at that sentence for several minutes, trying to think of a tasteless joke about abortions that could be made, and I can’t come up with anything.  The attempts to have sex didn’t succeed, you see, so she didn’t have to have any abortions.  It’s a clever play upon words!  Or it would be, if I were able to write one.  I hope my God-given talent for crass sexual humor isn’t in decline.  Anyhow, none of these dates resulted a spermatozoon meeting an ovum, which then became a fertilized egg implanted in her uterine lining; she didn’t even get finger-banged.  “One guy took me to the opera but didn’t even try to kiss me (and I thought I was looking fine in a cute white-and-red lawn dress); one guy made out with me for two hours but wouldn’t try anything below the waist.”  That’s weird.  “Totally counter to my own second-and-or-third-date policy, we dated for like a month and a half before the whole high-school-makeout-session occurred. I was entirely disappointed.”

Finally, her luck changed.  “I met him at a country bar down on Broadway.”  I’ll call him “Hunt.”   “A friend of mine was playing there with his band and it actually was me who started the conversation because I overheard him talking about his job, which is similar to what I do, and I started talking to him about it… not that you can really talk about stuff when there’s a band playing 20 feet from where you stand.  But I gave him my business card under the guise of ‘hey, I might need your services if you have time to freelance’… and then we got lunch a few days later (date one), and it was obvious that I wasn’t exactly focused on his professional service.”

Next, they arranged a nighttime date.  “I’d just discovered Flaunt in Edgehill Village in Nashville. And I went in there on my lunch break to buy something for my date that evening — it was a sunny day and I was feeling particularly reckless.”

“It was getting warmer outside (a situation that does not help matters when it comes to me getting laid, because the combination of heat and nerves results in me ‘glowing’ a little too much), so when i found the Kiyonna pink, sleeveless v-neck top (pleated under the bust and very forgiving of my not-so-six-packed stomach), and paired it with the Silver jeans in Flaunt’s dressing room, I knew I had a winner! I think it’s because that top draws so much attention to my boobs that it distracts from other, not-so-perfect areas… and the Silver Jeans… well, I’ve never found jeans that fit my booty so well and stay that way.”

Kiyonna top

This top doesn’t seem to be for sale, but you might want to go to their website anyway; the woman who models their clothes is a babe!  Whoa!

Silver jeans

“Ready for my date that evening in my stunning it’s-getting-warmer-outside ensemble, I met the guy for dinner at a little sushi restaurant. The meal was spent showing off my chopstick skillz as well as — he would be the first to admit — my quite noticeable cleavage (which was thanks in part to the Victoria’s Secret BioFit bra in ‘rose’).”

VS Biofit bra

Things were going well.  “After several California rolls, neither of us wanted to end the evening, so we decided to convene at my place after a couple errands — I rented a movie and he picked up a six-pack.”  Her movie choice was Beowulf.  “I thought it would be hot! Angelina Jolie is on my short list, so I thought, hey, Angelina, that’ll work. Well, it was a disaster.  We made fun of the movie the whole time (I didn’t realize it was some kind of weird anime crap) and instead concentrated on rubbing up against each other on my loveseat.”  Sounds promising, “but we watched that whole movie without even getting to first base. I was pretty disappointed, because the chemistry was most definitely there, so I suggested we put in one of my TV-on-DVDs.”  Even then, her chastity remained safe; she put in This American Life, “which we also watched all. the. way. through!”

Okay, readers, let’s pause the action here.  I want to take a few minutes to talk about an issue that’s widespread, one that plagues many individuals in every echelon of society, but yet one that the so-called “mainstream media” refuses to address.  I’ll call this problem Guys Who Won’t Make the First Move.  Specifically, these are men who won’t make the move in a sexual context, in situations that seem to call for it (as in this example).  For guys, there are many ways to initiate the chain of events that could lead to sex acts being performed; you could be like “Oh look, here’s a bed, let’s lie down on it for a moment and collect our thoughts,” or just turn to the young lady sitting next to you and start making out with her.  You could playfully slap her ass; you could put an Al Green record on the turntable and say “girl, I am gonna eat your pussy all night long.”  I don’t care what you do!   But the Guys Who Won’t Make the First Move won’t try any of it.   This is perplexing to the woman involved.  The media would have us believe that men do nothing but make lewd advances, whether or not they are desired; but in examples like Tonia’s story, this guy seems attracted to you, you’ve invited him into your home, it’s the small hours of the morning, possibly alcohol has been consumed, and yet he does nothing.   What’s he waiting for?  What I am supposed to do, shove some poontang in his face?

Once again, I apologize for setting up this problem in such a heteronormative way.  I only have personal experience with penis-and-vagina scenarios, so I don’t know what is to be done about Gay Guys Who Won’t Make the First Move; for that matter, I don’t know anything about queer women or transgendered people who won’t make the first move. But even within this narrow context, some of you may be asking the following question:  “Why is it the man’s job to make the first move?  If the woman is interested, shouldn’t she be liberated enough to pursue her desires?  Shouldn’t men and women share the burden of risking rejection?”  I say no.  I say that, all other things being equal, it’s the man’s job, for the following reasons:

(1) Being seduced makes the woman feel sexy and desirable

(2) She already acted kind of forward by inviting you over to her house; the ball’s in your court, dude

(3) It’s less confusing when there’s a protocol

(4)  Because, ummmmmm… it just is.  I dunno why.  It’s a manly skill, like changing the oil in a car, or pounding a nail into a board or something.

I asked Tonia about this, and she agreed with me:  “Seriously, about the non-aggressive boys.  W.T.F.  I guess it’s not ‘respectful’ according to all the women’s studies stuff that stuck in their brains in college?”  Oh, no.  I never even thought of that.  Is that what they teach in those classes?  I never took a WOST course, because I didn’t need one; I learned my Women’s Studies on the street!  I have feminism street smarts.  Also, I was scared to take one, because I heard that people cry during class discussions. Men, is this true?  Is Women’s Studies instructing you to be passive?  Because these days, it’s like we ladies have to do everything!  Shaving, waxing, foot-pumicing, blow-drying, planning a whole outfit, planning the date, paying for half the date, driving to the date, and now you expect us to, like, throw you down on the bed and make love to you?  You take some fucking initiative for once!

As it turns out, Hunt finally did take the initiative.  “By that time my new jeans were practically on FIRE, but since it was 3 a.m. and my bra was still on, I figured it wasn’t going to happen that night. So, I walked him to my front door.”

“And it all fell apart. He leaned down to kiss me, I leaned in to him, and in a mess of furious making out, rubbing and moaning, I led him back to the couch where my top and his belt came off.”   Something about the proximity of doorways seems to make men more assertive.  It’s like, you’re standing next to a door, and suddenly there’s boners all over the place.   “He then suggested we move it to my bedroom, so we moved down the hallway, still kissing quite heavily, and made it to my bed, where I pushed him down on the mattress. It was at that point that I realized that, if my sex life were to continue in this manner, I would need to get a sturdier, less creaky bed frame.”

“My jeans and his (Ralph Lauren) lay tangled on the floor and an hour or so later we lay tangled in my sheets… I, thoroughly deflowered, and he, rather sweaty, were both quite happily trying to catch our breath.”  Hunt left at 4:30. He didn’t know she was a virgin because “because we had gotten each other so damn wound up during the hours of not messing around on the couch that all I could think was DO IT NOW. I decided that my gut was telling me that he was a good guy. And my nether regions were telling me he was SUPER FREAKIN HOT.”  When she told him later, he was cool about it.

“We dated for several more months and are still on friendly terms — I’m convinced that the whole thing was due to the clothes… and I am completely distraught at the idea of having no where to shop now that Flaunt is closing.”   But this is otherwise a success story:  “I’m happy that I did it the way that I did.”