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Because you KNOW you WANT to.
By Lauren Brim — Written on Jun 21, 2016
I was not a virgin, but I still had SO many rules about sex. Well, mostly just that you had to wait until the third date ... or until they loved you (or something like that).
I was really trying to keep the total number of men I slept with under TEN.
At first, I had always wanted to count them on ONE hand, but once I slept with five I realized I had to bump my number up since I STILL wasn’t married yet — but definitely no more than that! Keeping it under 10 was good.
There was also that rule about bases: first base, second, and third. I thought that one base per date seemed like a good plan. But it never really worked out that way. One base would quickly turn into the next ... usually before I was ready.
I would spend the whole make-out session trying to keep my clothes on while my lover was trying to take them off. I had to keep their hands away from all of the areas that were supposedly off-limits. The entire time that I could have been enjoying the experience all I could think was, “What do I do? What do I do? What do I DO?”
I had met Nicolas at a tango milonga, a place where people go to dance Argentine tango. He would stare at me with the intensity that only an El Salvadorean could summon. He was half Aztec and half Mayan, and when he looked at me, I wasn’t sure if he wanted to make love to me or rip my heart out of my chest and eat it.
I was only 23 and he was 39, and I was most definitely not attracted to him in any way, shape, or form ... but his persistence milonga after milonga became increasingly seductive.
It’s really sexy when someone worships you — and I KNEW that he worshipped me.
One Wednesday night at a milonga, the music ended and it was time to go home. I went to change back into my regular shoes, and one of them was missing. I looked around and saw Nicolas standing on the other side of the room holding my shoe.
“Hey,” I called out, “you have my shoe.”
He walked a bit closer. “I’ll give it back to you if you give me one date,” he said.
I half-smiled. He had totally won me over. I had no resistance left.
We exchanged phone numbers, and I could hardly sleep that night, eagerly awaiting his text the next day. I thought to myself, “Lauren, why didn’t you get HIS number?”
I wanted to call him and make love to him that same night. I wanted him SO badly.
I went to meet him at his apartment in the valley the following evening. We got on his motorcycle and went for a ride out to Calabasas for a drink at a bar. Just the ride there left me more turned on than before as I straddled his bike and wrapped my arms around him on the back of his motorcycle.
We enjoyed a drink and some music, and when we got back to his apartment, we sat down on the couch and he asked me for a kiss. I refused at first, turning my head away and shaking it in disbelief and timidness, but smiling the whole time. I couldn’t believe how forward he was. But his second or third request easily garnered one from me.
Next thing I knew, we were lying on the floor, and he was kissing me everywhere, and every new place he would touch would send me spiraling to new levels of pleasure. He was the ultimate sensual lover in every way.
But the whole time he was making love to me I was fighting to keep his hands away from my vagina — which was all too accessible through my clothing.
I kept thinking, I can’t have sex with him. Not now. Not today, our first date. I’m supposed to fight him off. It'll ruin everything if we have sex.
But he persisted, and it felt GOOD to give in to him.
I was TIRED of fighting. Why was it always my job to fight the guy off, to slow things down, to preserve my purity? FUCK THAT. It’s exhausting.
We moved up to his room to be more comfortable on the bed. Soon I was naked but still resisting, “No, I can’t, Nicolas.” Thinking, like so many times before — I can be naked and not have sex, right? This was the idea that never really played out.
Then finally in exhaustion from resisting him I asked myself — Well, why can’t I?!
I paused and waited for an answer.
There was no answer. There was absolutely NO reason NOT to have sex with someone if I wanted to.
And so we made love, both came and fell asleep on each other — waking up later and laughing that he was still inside of me.
From then on, I forgot all the rules about sex and just made love when I felt like it.
Sex was not something I had to use to manipulate men to be in relationship with me. I went on to have a nine-month relationship with that man, and I was the one to end it when I found myself unhappy and starting to fall for someone else.
We are still great friends today, and I am so grateful I asked that one important question — Why not? — to the universe while lying naked in that man’s bed in the San Fernando valley. That question was the moment that started to set me free.
Lauren Brim is a sexual wellness coach and the author of The New Rules of Sex a roadmap to rediscovering your sexuality in a dynamic and healthy way.
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