My first real boyfriend–yes, he was a tenor sax player and math whiz. I always mention those things, easy to start with. The long essay I wrote about inventing sexual ethics–I describe him briefly, there. He was a tall white guy with blond hair.
But lots of things, I never told anyone. Who would I tell? But I went for a walk with my spouse and told him everything.
north side
My first real boyfriend was a tenor sax player, so I sat near him in band. He lived on the north side of town, where many Mexicans and Mexican-Americans lived. But he went to my school, on the south side. That meant his parents were racist, and didn’t want him going to school with Mexican kids.
I “lost my virginity” to him, when I was 14 or 15 years old? We’d already had a lot of sex, but this virginity loss was penis-in-vagina sex, which was such a big deal to me, when I was a kid. I didn’t want to have sex with him, but he pressured me a lot. Having sex with him was giving in.
I remember visiting him, on the north side of town. A walk we took, by some agricultural fields. A bridge we were under, making out, then dry humping.
There was something creepy about his mom and her boyfriend–a knife they kept by the side of the bed, for threatening. It felt wrong, for me to know about it; I get the feeling when I look back that a lot of drugs were involved that were not drugs I would ever enjoy using.
But I was going from one bad situation to another. My home life was actual violence, not play. That’s why I needed a boyfriend who I could spend a ton of time with. I wasn’t safe at home.
books
He found a book on not ejaculating. It was Taoist. It stated that orgasm and ejaculation in men are two different things. The idea of him being able to keep having sex for longer was exciting to him, but the book framed it in a way that felt misogynist, even when I was 15 years old. Like, “Your semen is life force–don’t give it to worthless women. Keep it for your magnificent self.”
Something about longevity–the Taoist masters had this one weird trick. Hahahaha. My boyfriend never managed to orgasm without ejaculating, that I heard about.
We bought The Joy of Sex, special ordered from a bookstore at the mall. It was scary to order. Would they not want to sell it to me, when it arrived? I can’t recall how we heard about it. We studied the sex positions and naked art of two abled, non-fat white people doing it.
We were hungry for info about sex, kids in the early 1990s, before internet was common. Knowledge came from experience, movies, rumor, and books.
then conflict
Something I’d half-forgotten about is how one day at school, a kid came up to me and said, “I thought you should know–your boyfriend did something horrible.” She was a friend of the girl who was my boyfriend’s would-be step sister.
So my boyfriend’s mom had a boyfriend, and that boyfriend had two kids. I found out that my boyfriend was accused of going into his would-be step sister’s bedroom at night when she was sleeping and looking at her, while she slept.
I remember feeling confused and not knowing what to believe. It seemed sad and shady, but also like none of my business. I didn’t know the step sister and was not keen on her. Rushing to the defense of someone I didn’t know, based on an accusation I heard about from a stranger, felt weird.
My response was something like, “What does that have to do with me?” I was skeptical of the accusation, and mostly shrugged it off. But it was uncomfortable.
modern conflict
Strange because later, as I’m in situations where accusations are hurled, and someone wants me to side with a victim and abandon an accused person, my reaction is kind of similar. I pause, wonder, ask questions, learn, and am slow to disengage from a person I love.
A lot of people seem to abandon first, ask questions later. It’s easier to abandon than to have a difficult conversation. People are so afraid of being wrong. But instantly abandoning a loved one is wrong. It makes me wonder how deep their relationships are.
I go around thinking the people I meet who are friends are deeply connected, tight friends. But if they stop being friends with an accused person at the drop of a hat, maybe most friendships are crap. I assume they do friendship like I do, but maybe not!
the sex
I didn’t really like his body. He was a thin, tall white guy. I was very familiar with his largish, circumcised dick and its pushing needs. His narrow chest and long limbs. His blond hair kind of annoyed me. Also, his mouth was not a good place for me.
He had a way of summarizing me that hurt. It was inaccurate. He saw me through a filter of misogyny. Like his relatives had taught him “how women are,” and he didn’t see me as the unique miracle who was before him. He saw me in a cartoonish way. I tried to help him understand me better, but he was half-listening.
I existed for his pleasure and support. It wasn’t all horrible, but it was really about him. I didn’t like accommodating his dick as he fucked me, and I didn’t like going down on him.
Back then, being fucked just felt like an unwanted risk–we used condoms, but imperfectly. I was on birth control for hormone regulation, but did that imperfectly too. I was terrified of getting pregnant. My relatives had a reputation for getting pregnant very young–my mom, aunts, and cousins. I didn’t want to be a mom at all, let alone another teen mom.
Blow jobs were just a chore. I didn’t understand the power play, intimacy, and love that’s possible in a happy relationship, where sex can be a way to see God. Gagging was horrible. We weren’t co-creating a beautiful scene, with consent, where my needs were also met. It was rushed and uncomfortable.
alone
Masturbating alone in my bed was way better sex than doing it with this guy. I didn’t consider it sex, at the time, but now I know it’s valid. Masturbating I could actually come, and it wasn’t risky, in a car, a backyard, or a field by my house. I wasn’t going to get pregnant, masturbating. I preferred to be alone with my thoughts, than pushed around by a horny teenage boy and his annoying body.
But I was a pagan girl, having read some books about Earth religion. I met some bisexual pagan poets much older than me who changed my life. Over the course of those years, I did learn how sex could be ecstatic and deeply nourishing, but not with him.
I danced around the maypole with my pagan friends, when I was 16, and I knew what I was doing. I believed a lot of good was waiting for me, when I grew up and had more freedom. Yes, I was right!
years
My first real boyfriend and I were together for years. I didn’t know how to break up with someone. He cheated on me and confessed–I forgave him. I cheated on him and never confessed.
There’s so much more I could tell you–about when his mom moved away, and the presents he brought back for me, from Northern California. Northern California–an exotic place I hoped to one day visit.
I could tell you about his teeth. A moonlit bus ride, the long distance phone call from a pay phone where I broke up with him. The day he showed up at my school, unwantedly. How all that happened with him still affects me to this day. I wish it didn’t.
I didn’t like him all that much. But we were clinging to one another, two fucked up people in a fucked up world that was not meeting our needs. Kind of like my parents. It made more sense to stay together than to brave the waves alone.
available
Later when he contacted me on myspace, having broken up with the mother of his child, he asked if I was available. No, I was married to my second husband, then. But I wanted to be friends. I thought it would be amazing, to get to know this important figure from my past as an adult, with perspective and rich life experiences.
It would be a treat, to get a whole new take on what had happened between us as kids. I could learn what happened to his mom, his brother. What really happened, with those step siblings. Did he ever play music anymore. What really mattered to him.
He bragged to me about joining the military and seeing the world. He thought he was important. His math skills were put to work by the government, to create death. What was I doing? Under-employed, no kids, married–I didn’t think I was important. My life sounded boring to him; he didn’t want to be friends. Quickly he vanished.
He’s the last person I would have contacted to try to get back together with. But he must have contacted me because he had a good time with me. I didn’t have a good time with him.
