admin Sex Lives chronicles the evolution of one person’s sexual history. This week: Joe, 39, Montreal, Canada
A babysitter sexually molested me and my brother at a very young age. It was introduced as a fun game, and I had no idea what was going on. I was totally taken advantage of. I struggled with the embarrassment because I come from a small Roman Catholic town where there’s tons of homophobia, and so the idea that I’d been “physical” with another man was embarrassing in those early years. Now, 30 years later, I’m more open about it. I don’t know if it changed my sex life. I did do some therapy, and I’ve never been able to make a connection. I was sort of a recluse—kind of a loser—in high school. I didn’t have a lot of sexual activity then or in early college. I think that shaped my relationship to sex more than being molested. It caused me to be kind of timid about sex.
I lost my virginity when I was 17 or 18, right before going to university. A friend and his girlfriend had an open relationship, and we were all joking around. Because I wasn’t sexually active, they felt bad for me in a sense, and his girlfriend had the desire to have sex with me. We’d hung out a bunch and were all friends. Then, her having sex with me kind of just came up. They both told me they were open and made me feel okay about it, but later, I got the impression that a lot of that was fabricated, so that did make me feel bad. I’m still friends with him now, but we don’t talk about it.
After that, there was a big gap; I went to an arts college, and I was just very timid and self-loathing. I didn’t know what to do, and I never went on dates. I think it wasn’t until I was 22 or 23 that I had a one-night stand, and then I had a couple of other brief flings and makeout sessions.
I got my first long-term girlfriend, which was my first consistent sexual experience. We moved to Montreal together, and she was more experienced, for sure. It was good. One thing I realized later that I kind of regret is her lack of orgasms. I would question it, and she was always satisfied, but I’d never, for example, go down on her to completion. She would always stop me and want penetrative sex. I think she had an orgasm through penetration, but it wasn’t every time, and I felt like I never gave her a full orgasm. I feel bad about that. With my current girlfriend, we have two kids. We’ve been together for ten years, and it’s by no means perfect, but we fully understand each other sexually. I understand what she needs to have a full experience.
