Having sex for the first time can be a big deal. It's tough to imagine what sex will be like until it actually happens, beyond what you see in the movies. We talked to 8 people to find out about their first time experiences, and what they'd wished they'd known going in.
Director: Claire Buss
Director of Photography: Lauren Pruitt
Editor: Estan Esparza
Creative Producer: Belle Roman
Production Manager: Natasha Soto-Albors
Production Coordinator: Jamal Colvin
Casting Producer: Thomas Giglio
Gaffer: David Djaco
Audio Engineer: Lily Van Leuwen
Production Assistant: Akil Mavruk; Lyla Neely
Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin
Post Production Coordinator: Scout Alter
Supervising Editor: Erica Dillman
Additional Editor: Jason Malizia
Assistant Editor: Billy Ward
Graphics Supervisor: Ross Rackin
Director: Claire Buss
Director of Photography: Lauren Pruitt
Editor: Estan Esparza
Creative Producer: Belle Roman
Production Manager: Natasha Soto-Albors
Production Coordinator: Jamal Colvin
Casting Producer: Thomas Giglio
Gaffer: David Djaco
Audio Engineer: Lily Van Leuwen
Production Assistant: Akil Mavruk; Lyla Neely
Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin
Post Production Coordinator: Scout Alter
Supervising Editor: Erica Dillman
Additional Editor: Jason Malizia
Assistant Editor: Billy Ward
Graphics Supervisor: Ross Rackin
Category
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 Goodness, did I just have sex outside of church?
00:02 Who am I?
00:04 I was really surprised with myself.
00:05 'Cause like literally pretty much,
00:08 we were on church grounds.
00:11 Sorry, God.
00:12 Yeah.
00:12 (laughing)
00:13 (upbeat music)
00:16 - I wish someone told me.
00:20 - I wish someone told me.
00:22 - I wish someone told me that you need to be selfish.
00:25 Absolutely selfish.
00:26 It's a lot of hype.
00:28 - I wish someone had told me that sex is so much more
00:31 than just a man and a woman or penetrative sex.
00:34 Like it goes way beyond that.
00:37 - I wish someone told me when I was losing my virginity
00:40 that I don't have to do it if I'm not ready.
00:44 - I wish someone told me that losing my virginity
00:48 would make me think that I would end up falling in love
00:51 with the person, having the white picket fence,
00:56 the nice car, I guess the disappointment too
00:59 that comes with it 'cause none of that shit happens.
01:02 (laughing)
01:04 (upbeat music)
01:06 - I really wish that someone had told me
01:11 that there is no morality in it.
01:14 I was raised very Christian and was raised with the idea
01:19 that once you have sex before marriage,
01:24 you're different after that, meaning like you're less pure.
01:28 - If you have sex, you'll like shrivel up and die
01:32 and burn up so it was like, don't do it.
01:34 (upbeat music)
01:36 - Okay, let's set the scene, shall we?
01:41 So I'm in 2007, New York City, Harlem.
01:44 My best friend, which it was weird
01:46 'cause we were best friends, but we liked each other
01:48 and we would like tap kiss and like we'd spoken about sex
01:53 and stuff like that and he was like,
01:55 "Oh, you should come over, we should watch
01:57 "Love and Basketball."
01:58 And I was like, "This is it, I'm gonna give him the draws."
02:02 - My father was a minister, music minister
02:06 and so I would travel with him a lot.
02:08 We traveled out of state to like a church
02:11 and I knew I was going before so this was like MySpace days
02:15 and I was talking to this guy online
02:18 and I told him like, "You know, I'll be in your city
02:21 "for a church event."
02:22 And he was like, "Okay, you know, I wanna see you."
02:25 So I'm sitting in church, I look back, he's in the church
02:28 and then he gives me like a nod to go out.
02:32 So I go out, I follow him and we went behind the church,
02:37 had sex.
02:40 - So how did you feel like immediately after
02:43 when you came back to church?
02:45 - Honestly, I felt like everyone could tell,
02:47 I felt like everyone knew.
02:49 You know, I got back in, everyone was like looking at me
02:53 and I'm just like, "Oh my goodness, this can't be real."
02:55 So I felt guilty, convicted, everything that I thought
03:00 I would feel, I felt.
03:01 - For some strange reason, I kept my bra on
03:04 for the entire time.
03:06 I don't know whether I thought I was protecting myself
03:10 but I remember distinctly and I remember the bra.
03:15 - I had picked out the perfect lingerie,
03:18 great little outfit, had everything from garter belts
03:22 to like stockings, realized that was completely unnecessary
03:26 both then and in life in general ever since then.
03:29 - He had a white Intrepid, I do remember.
03:34 - Spacious?
03:35 - I do, we made it work.
03:37 - I ended up hanging out with him on a Friday,
03:40 it was right after school and so we ended up going
03:43 to the abandoned mansion, we were drinking Puerto Loco,
03:47 the feelings started flowing and the girls
03:49 got their razzle dazzle, dressed.
03:52 I definitely planned on hooking up with him,
03:54 I mean every girl in the school wanted him
03:56 so I figured that if I got him, it would make all them mad
03:59 and somehow respect me.
04:01 As a trans woman, especially at that time,
04:05 so this was like 2010 or so, there wasn't a lot of language
04:08 around like how to be an ally to trans women
04:12 and then to just keep it real, a lot of cis women
04:15 just be hatin' 'cause the trans girls just be bringin' it
04:19 and that's what I felt about the girls in my school
04:21 because I was very like self-conscious
04:23 about how I presented myself so I had like the nice weave,
04:27 the nice clothes, I just felt like it wasn't necessarily
04:30 a community at that time that was willing to see me
04:33 in my femininity and my womanhood and so yeah,
04:36 I just always wanted to make a bitch know it.
04:39 - My friend was having a really big party at his house,
04:42 his parents weren't there, I ended up with this girl
04:47 who happened to be like the person that all the boys
04:49 had crushed inside and we ended up like
04:53 in my friend's bedroom and we had sex
04:57 and I had not been planning on it,
04:59 I had no idea what was gonna happen but like all I knew
05:01 was like okay, this is good, I feel good right now.
05:04 - And I remember he didn't have curtains on his window
05:07 and his window was really tall, he lived on the last floor
05:11 and outside of his window you can see the moon
05:14 and it was a full moon outside so I thought that was like
05:16 so romantic, right?
05:18 - It was not romantic in any way, shape or form.
05:22 The only thing romantic I think was me,
05:24 that I just, I'm me and he was handsome,
05:28 it had the potential but it was not romantic at all.
05:31 - When I made the decision to have sex the first time,
05:34 it was just that, it was me making the decision.
05:37 It wasn't something that I felt pressured into,
05:39 it wasn't something that I did on a whim,
05:43 it was something that I did because I wanted to
05:46 and I felt like I was ready.
05:47 - I considered losing my virginity two times
05:50 because the first time I had a man try to take it from me,
05:55 even though it was traumatizing, he wasn't able to.
05:57 The next few years I then spent trying to prove something
06:01 to myself that I wasn't broken down there
06:04 because he made me feel like it was my own fault.
06:06 So it was a really, really hard time
06:09 and I had a lot of sex that I did not want to do,
06:11 it was for the guy and then I remember the first time,
06:16 me technically, I feel like this was the ideal
06:19 losing my virginity situation.
06:20 I was 26 and I had met this guy and he took his time
06:24 and he was so patient and it was what I had wanted
06:27 all along.
06:28 - It felt great leading up to the actual point.
06:35 You know, it was really painful though.
06:37 - Physically overall, the first time I had sex,
06:39 it was so uncomfortable.
06:40 First of all, his bed was like a twin size bed.
06:43 Second of all, it just didn't feel good.
06:46 Like I felt like I had my period almost.
06:48 That came later, that came with experience,
06:50 that came with practice.
06:52 But for my very first time,
06:53 I don't think that I can say that I felt pleasure.
06:57 - It did not last long.
06:59 It was a very short amount of pleasure,
07:02 very quick pleasure.
07:04 - It took me a couple of years
07:07 before I experienced a total orgasm
07:11 and it was wonderful.
07:12 And it made me realize that this was something enjoyable
07:17 and fun to do.
07:19 And it made me feel nice and relaxed.
07:21 So I kept doing it.
07:23 - I didn't, I think I told like one person,
07:30 but I really was like, oh, it was nothing.
07:33 Like I really wanted to pretend that it didn't happen.
07:36 And I also didn't think that it counted
07:38 'cause she was a woman and I was a woman.
07:41 So I was like, that doesn't count.
07:42 It has to be a man and a woman.
07:43 - I left right after that.
07:45 And I immediately bleeped my dad and I'm like,
07:48 daddy, come get me.
07:52 And of course my dad came to rescue me.
07:54 And we just sat in the car for a little while in silence.
07:57 And then he was like, you know, whenever you're ready,
07:59 we can talk about whatever is going on.
08:01 And I told my dad and he was like super chill, super cool.
08:04 He was like, did you use a condom?
08:05 I'm like, yes, I put it on myself.
08:07 Imagine your 14 year old daughter telling you
08:10 she put on a condom on somebody else herself.
08:12 It made me look at things different.
08:14 Like this is the type of parent I wanna be.
08:16 This is the type of person I wanna be in the future.
08:19 - I thought it was going to be like fireworks
08:23 and like the movies, but it wasn't.
08:25 It was like bushes and like mosquitoes.
08:27 - In television and in movies, it's always just like,
08:30 oh, you just, you know, get so into it.
08:34 It's in you, you know, you go to another place
08:37 and you're just, you're not thinking,
08:38 you're just acting and you're doing.
08:40 And that wasn't my experience.
08:41 I was very much thinking.
08:43 - So if I had had adults in my life who were more open
08:46 and less shameful about bodies and about sex
08:49 and about homosexuality,
08:50 then I wouldn't have needed to be so secretive.
08:53 And I wouldn't have needed to be ashamed
08:56 or like do anything unsafe.
08:58 - I will say if anything, it gave me confidence
09:01 in some ways helped me understand
09:03 not only my own body,
09:04 but also maybe what type of men might be attracted to me
09:08 and not having this mindset that I'll be reduced down
09:11 to a certain type of guy.
09:12 So if anything, I think me being able to have sex
09:15 with a straight guy kind of let me know like,
09:17 okay, straight men isn't for this.
09:18 Just let me know I got options, honey.
09:20 Some good options too.
09:21 - Yeah, no, it would have not been at church.
09:23 It would have been a nice bag, candles, a dinner before.
09:28 It would have been the whole nine.
09:29 Yes, I'm worth that.
09:30 It should have been that.
09:31 - Don't mistake compliments for love
09:34 and don't mistake attention for love.
09:37 - I wish I knew my body more, way more.
09:39 Like now I know my body.
09:41 You know what I mean?
09:42 Like now I know my body.
09:43 Now I know the spots.
09:44 You know what I'm saying?
09:45 I'm like, woo!
09:46 - Communicate, you know, talk about it
09:49 to the point of you can be obnoxious about it.
09:50 You know, people love to talk about it,
09:52 especially if they're involved with you in this act.
09:55 - I still struggle,
09:56 but it definitely took me a really long time to enjoy sex
10:00 just to feel comfortable in my body and my skin
10:03 and my person and to know that whatever's gonna happen
10:06 in that moment, it's gonna be okay.
10:08 And I do have the power.
10:10 No one else has the power over me but me.
10:12 (upbeat music)
10:15 (electronic music)