Dear Samantha,
Hi I’m now 16 but when i had sex for the first time i was like 14 and what I’m interested to know is this:
Is the first time I had sex when I lost my virginity? I didn’t see blood i would like to know why did that happen??
I had sex about 4-5 times after that but I never saw blood I’m interested to know why did this happen? So please can u give me some information about this?

Dear Alice,

Yes, the first time you had sex is when you lost your virginity. Bleeding the first time you have sex is normal, but it doesn’t always occur. The reason girls bleed the first time is because their hymens (thin membrane of skin found inside of the vagina) tear. Most girls are born with a hymen but this skin can tear partially or completely before you have sex from doing things like horseback riding or bike riding. It does not tear, only stretches, when you use a tampon.

When I was about 7, I was playing “the bumps” on a teeter totter (lifting your feet up and letting the teeter totter hit the ground first so the other person gets a little air and bumps back onto their seat), and I flew a little too high off of my seat and landed on the handle bar. It made me bleed a little out of my vagina, which was scary, but which I realized later tore my hymen. I didn’t bleed the first time I had sex either.

All the best,

Samantha

Of course that a perfectly normal thing to worry about!

And it’s not just the girls who are asking this, guys ask me this too. Well the good news for the guys is, no, it doesn’t hurt when you lose your virginity.

But the answer for the girls isn’t so simple.

Girls are born with a hymen (rare cases do occur where some girls are born without one). The hymen is a thin membrane of skin that partially covers the vaginal opening. There are all sorts of activities that can cause the hymen to tear (bike riding, horse bike riding, etc.) and you stretch the hymen when you use tampons. Usually the hymen tears a little in adolescents, but for the most part, stays intact enough that it will tear completely the first time you have intercourse. This is usually what causes the pain most girls will feel.

Having said that, it’s not the kind of pain you need to be terrified about. Most girls report that once the initial pain/discomfort of breaking their hymens has passed, they find sex “okay” to even “pleasurable”.

Well, the whole point of having sex is to experience pleasure (and make babies of course – but that is something you should be avoiding by using condoms).

Besides the hymen issue, girls can find intercourse uncomfortable if they aren’t physically ready for it.

So what can you do to make your first time as enjoyable as possible?

1. Feel ready emotionally, mentally and physically before you do it. (Don’t have sex for the wrong reasons)
2. Relax and go slow.
3. Have lots of foreplay (kissing, touching, stroking – whatever turns you on)
4. Use lubrication (like KY Jelly or another condom friendly lube that you can buy at the drugstore. Use your own saliva if you don’t have anything else!)
5. Pick a partner you trust, someone who will be gentle with you and whom you are able to talk to.
6. Use a trusted form of birth control and condoms to reduce the risk of STI’s. (Yes, you can get pregnant the first time and you can catch a disease. If you aren’t worrying about these things by using a condom, it will make your experience much better).

Sex is supposed to feel good. The more comfortable you feel, the more turned on you are, and the fact that you are really ready to lose your virginity will all help make your first time as pain free and pleasurable as possible.

Dear Samantha: I am 15 years old and recently I’ve been thinking about having sex with my 17 year old friend. I love him, and he loves me. We just arent together, because I just got out of a relationship 2 months ago.

He’s very respectful and never brought up the subject, it was me. I think I’m a little freak. Or just a tease, i like flirting. But I only trust a few. He is. So is it okay If i have sex with him even though i am only 15, & known this boy for about 2 months ?

Missy, most people like to flirt - it’s a fun thing to do! Flirting doesn’t make you a freak or a tease.
 
You say that you and your friend love each other but that you aren’t together. It sounds like you aren’t together because you aren’t ready for another relationship yet after your break-up two months ago.

If you aren’t ready for a relationship, what makes you think that you are ready for sex? Once you start having sex with someone, it will change your relationship with that person. It will take you out of the friend zone and into a more intimate one.

Before you have sex with him (or anyone else) you just have to decide if you are really ready. You need to ask yourself questions like:

• Am I emotionally prepared if having sex ruins our relationship (or friendship)?
• Do I have proper birth control (pills, condoms, etc) and proper STD prevention (condoms)?
• Are we both prepared to deal with an unwanted pregancy if the condom breaks? (These things do happen - it’s something you should think about.)
• Do I have a good friend or relative to talk to after losing my virginity if I feel the need to talk to someone?

Having sex is great - but it is more than just a physical act. We can’t help that our emotions get involved… so just make sure that you are physically, mentally and emotionally prepared before you decide to do it.

And use a condom!

Good luck!

“There is a widespread belief that teens engage in non-vaginal forms of sex, especially oral sex, as a way to be sexually active while still claiming that, technically, they are virgins,” Laura Lindberg of the Guttmacher Institute in New York, who led the study, said in a statement.

“Our research shows that this supposed substitution of oral sex for vaginal sex is largely a myth.”

Getting pregnant is great — if it’s what you want. Unfortunately, a lot of pregnancies are “accidents.” People have sex because they’re curious. Because they want to try it. Because it feels awesome and it’s fun.

And then they find out they’re pregnant, and there’s no going back.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Preventing pregnancy is a simple thing. Want to experiment with sex as much as you want without risking pregnancy? Here are the two best things you can do:

1. If you’re a woman, ask your doctor about the birth control pill. This isn’t for everyone, but if your doctor approves, you’ve got something that will prevent 99% or more of unplanned pregnancies.
2. Learn how to use a condom PROPERLY, and use one every time. This goes for guys and girls. A condom reduces the risk of pregnancy to nearly zero, and has the added bonus of keeping you safe from nasty STDs.

Just because you’re ready to try sex doesn’t mean you need to risk having a child. For more than 90 years, Planned Parenthood has been educating people about how their bodies work and how to CHOOSE when you’ll have children. I believe in and support the work they do.

So to give a little something back to this great organization at the end of 2007, I visited the Planned Parenthood website and found this notice:

So I committed 10% of this site’s proceeds right there — which I guess means donating the equivalent of 20%.

Planned Parenthood believes that everyone has the right to choose when or whether to have a child, that every child should be wanted and loved, and that women should be in charge of their destinies.

Amen to that.

Happy New Year. Be good to each other, and have fun out there.

Troubled Britney Spears has been hit by allegations she actually lost her virginity at the age of 14… When Spears burst onto the music scene she famously vowed to remain a virgin until she was married.

I just hope she was using birth control back then.

That’s not very good news. Sure, the pill is effective at preventing most pregnancies — but it does nothing to protect either person from getting a sexually transmitted infection, or STI.

The pill won’t stop you from getting sexually transmitted infections (STIs) such as herpes, gonorrhea, or even HIV/AIDS. And you can’t tell from looking at someone whether they’ve got an STI. The only effective way to protect yourself is by using a condom EVERY time — and yes, that includes your first time.

The study did contain some good news too, which interestingly enough came from people in Ireland:

Love is still the number one thing to spice up sex, according to Irish respondents.

I agree. Gotta love the Irish.

My boyfriend and I are not ready to have sex yet. We have great communication and respect each other a lot, but we are looking for other fun ways to spice up all the physical aspects of our relationship besides sex. What do you suggest?

There are so many wonderful things you can do without having intercourse. Here are a few ideas:

Give each other massages. Foot rubs, back rubs, head rubs and even hand rubs feel so good! You could also get a book on erotic massage and buy some nicely scented massage oils (like this Kama Sutra Massage Oil Therapy Kit) and give each other sensual massages. This would include as many parts of your body that you feel comfortable with. Our genitals are not the only parts that feel good when rubbed! Who doesn’t like a back massage?!

You could experiment with things like blindfolds and feathers. One partner is blindfolded and the other partner trails a nice soft feather across their skin. As long it doesn’t tickle, it should feel nice! You can also experiment with food. You can feed the blindfolded partner a strawberry or a piece of chocolate. Or have a little bit of chocolate sauce licked off of your breasts/stomach/wherever you wish.

Ice cubes on a hot day feel nice trailed over bare skin! Especially followed by kisses.

Then of course there is oral pleasure. If you are comfortable taking your physical acts to that level, oral pleasure is amazing! It’s certainly my favorite thing to receive, and it’s fun to give it as well.

Taking a bubble bath together can be very romantic, as long as the tub is big enough for both you!

Long make out sessions that involve getting kissed in places you might not even consider sexy (like the crease of your elbow) can be really hot! There’s the earlobe, neck, collarbone, etc. etc. Places that can make you shiver!

Have fun!

A story in News.com.au yesterday reported that “students who lost their virginity earlier were no more likely to shoplift, graffiti objects or engage in drug-related behaviour than their counterparts.”

So there. Sex doesn’t make you a bad person, no matter how early you have it.

Still, the findings weren’t all in favor of having sex when you’re young:

Early age at first sex has been linked to earlier leaving of the parental home, lower educational attainment, experiencing a pregnancy termination… and receiving medical treatment to facilitate pregnancy; greater psychological distress among college women; and experimentation with cocaine and other substances.

Also, (research has) found that physical involvement with a boyfriend among seventh- and eighth-grade girls predicted disordered eating.

In English, that means teens who start having sex at a young age (and the story doesn’t ever define what they mean by “young”) are more likely to…

• Leave home early,
• Fail classes or drop out,
• Get an abortion or have a miscarriage,
• Need medical help with pregnancy,
• Feel stressed out when they get into college,
• Experiment with drugs, and
• Develop some kind of eating disorder.

That’s a long and nasty list of negative things. Of course, these sorts of studies don’t actually indicate that early sex CAUSES any of those negative conditions… it just means that if you’re a person who does one, you’re statistically more likely to do the other.

Why does having sex early tend to match up with these negative life factors? Maybe it has something to do with taking risks. Sex is one of the biggest risks you can take — and if you’re the kind of person who takes that risk, maybe you’re more likely to make other risky decisions as well.

One thing is for sure: sex DOES complicate things. If your life is simple now and you like it that way, you should probably wait a while and enjoy the simple life while it lasts.

The researchers surveyed 125 young men and women and found that 60 of them had had at least one “friends with benefits” type of relationship. Here’s what they found, according to Dr. Timothy Levine, one of the researchers:

“People got into these relationships because they didn’t want commitment. It was perceived as a safe relationship, at least at first. But also that there was this growing fear that the one person would become more attracted than the other.”

When you’re thinking about having sex for the first time, one of the options you may have is to do it with a friend. This can have a lot of positive aspects if handled right. Being with someone you already trust and care for can make the experience a lot safer and more comfortable for both of you.

But a “friends with benefits” situation also has a lot of downsides. Even if you like to think you’re not an emotional person, sex is an extremely emotional experience — especially your first time. So if you’re considering losing your virginity with a friend, be prepared to face some emotional hurdles together that you didn’t anticipate.

Probably the biggest of those hurdles is the danger that these researchers brought up: one of you may find yourself more attracted than the other. Falling in love is risky and difficult enough, but when it happens between two people who have “agreed” to stay friends, it can cause a lot of problems, or even end the relationship.

Friends who could once talk about anything now have an unstated taboo topic — the relationship itself. In every conversation, there is innuendo; in every room, an elephant.

If you’re both honest and mature, you just might find that a “friends with benefits” situation is for you. Just be careful. It’s easy to get hurt, or to unintentionally hurt someone you care about. And that’s never worth it.