I came across this very interesting article on Scarleteen. It’s straight to the point. There’s no chance for you to screech to a halt as you read on. It may sound “brutal” to those who haven’t had sex before but it’s sure darn informative for first timers!
When you’re thinking about sexual (vaginal) intercourse with an opposite sex partner, and you’ve got everything you feel you need: materially, in terms of your relationship, and emotionally, you’re probably still reading because you want to know HOW to make it all work your first time. The bulk of questions we get asked about first intercourse are: Will it hurt? Will I bleed? Will I hate it? I’m so scared, what do I do? Why isn’t my boyfriend talking to me now that we’ve had sex? Why didn’t I orgasm? Why didn’t it feel like anything?
Let’s start here. Imagine that you’re standing on the edge of a diving board, a hundred feet above the pool. If you’re ready to try diving, you know how, and you really want to do it, your mind and your body will cooperate and let you. You may not execute it perfectly the first time, but you’ll feel good about trying, and you won’t kill yourself either. On the other hand, if you’re not ready, you don’t know how, or you don’t want to, your body and your mind just aren’t going to let you do it. You feet will keep inching back, your heart will race, your head will say “No, no, no,” a thousand times over, and you just won’t be able to jump.
That’s a good thing: it’s the way our bodies and minds work together to keep us safe.
The same goes with sexual intercourse. To begin with, if you or your partner both really aren’t prepared, ready, or willing, it just isn’t going to work, it may very well hurt, you won’t likely enjoy yourselves, and no one will have a good time and mutually beneficial sex.
So, for starters, bear that in mind. Even if you think you’re ready now, reading this, and you get there and change your mind, it is perfectly okay to stop the action and wait for another time. One of the biggest facets of sexual maturity is knowing your own limits, and being able to clearly and freely voice them and act upon them. If you can’t do that, or don’t feel okay doing that, you need to learn to do so before you get into bed with anyone. Sexuality is something that is with you your whole life, so if you want to wait, the nice thing is that it will too, and your sexual life goes by the pace YOU set, not the other way ’round.
Intercourse 101
That given, the first step in any sort of enjoyable sex is for it to feel pretty natural and organic. Sex isn’t like an algebra test: you can’t just start in classroom 203 when the bell goes off, and go through the motions to get a passing grade, and expect it to be phenomenal. Ultimately, it should be a comfortable progression to intercourse, and feel like one. If you’ve been having other kinds of sexual and intimate activity beforehand with someone you care about and trust, and have already established good patterns of communication about sex specifically, you can move (or not, depending on your own limits) into intercourse without it feeling forced or alien.
Foreplay is a term often used to describe other sexual activities which can be engaged in before, during and/or after intercourse (or all on their own, so it’s not the greatest term ever), and which most people need to have enjoyable intercourse the first time and thereafter, can include:
- kissing, hugging and cuddling
- touching, sensation play, massage or caressing
- manual sex (”fingering”)
- mutual masturbation
- oral sex
- sexual talk, role play and other kinds of stimulation.
Relaxation and Arousal
Though it’s normal to be nervous, if you’re with someone you trust, enjoy other sexual play with, and with whom you feel safe generally and sexually, you should be pretty relaxed. (Though obviously, it’s normal to feel excited.) If you aren’t, be sure and take stock of why. You may just be nervous because you’re doing something new, but it’s also possible either you aren’t ready, you don’t want to, or you aren’t really with someone you trust or feel safe with. Trust your gut feelings, and be sure your heart and your head have good communication patters, too.
When your body relaxes, your muscles get a little looser, your breathing gets a little deeper, and then you can stay sexually aroused. When you are aroused (excited), your body will act in kind, lubricating itself, loosening the muscles and tendons in your whole pelvic area, and becoming more sensitive to sensation and touch.
Doing the Deed
When and if you feel ready to attempt intercourse, before you do anything else, have your partner put on a condom, or, if you’re the male partner, put the condom on. You should not be trying a condom for the first time and first intercourse: make sure you both know how to use one well before. Be sure to use latex-safe lubricant on the condom after it is on, and put a generous amount of lube on and around the entire vulva. Either or both of you can massage the vaginal opening and clitoris with the lube, and be sure it’s really slippery, and as more lube throughout as needed.
The vaginal opening is where the penis is inserted into, and one partner will usually need to (with all intercourse, not just the first time) use a hand to slide the inner labia apart and guide the head of the penis into the vaginal opening. There is no need to worry about penetrating the urethra by accident, because that simply isn’t possible: it’s much, much too tiny.
Be sure your partner knows it is your first time (for a number of reasons, the biggest of which is that healthy sex requires honesty), and be sure you make clear that he or she be patient, and communicate with you as you go, as you will with them. This isn’t the time to be shy, or get silent, so if you have a problem talking about sex, you shouldn’t be quite this far.
For most women, the two best positions for first intercourse are usually either the missionary (where the man is on top), or with the woman on top. The woman being on top may be a little easier because she can control how deeply she is being penetrated. When you begin vaginal entry, go slow. Start by just setting the tip of the penis against the vaginal opening. You can learn a thing or two here from an eastern tantric tradition: if you simply set the penis at the vaginal opening, and either of you gently put your weight on the other and press down slowly as you both relax, women will open to penetration more naturally, and for the guys, it’s a good way to soothe the nerves.
It should be up to the female partner say how deep to go, and how fast to move. Don’t do anything that feels horribly uncomfortable for either of you: pain is the way your body tells you not to do something. It may only feel good to have an inch of entry, and then move very slowly. On the other hand, it may feel just fine to enter more deeply for both partners, and move more rapidly. Much of the time, how aroused the female partner is makes a very big difference in this regard. Just tell each other as you go what feels good, and what doesn’t — this is no place to be shy! — and be prepared to be patient with each other.
Most of all, breathe. Look at the instructions given to a woman in labor. Though intercourse isn’t anything close to as painful or intensive for your body (mainly the female body, most men don’t feel any physical pain or discomfort during first intercourse), the best thing for both of you to do is to breathe. Take nice deep breaths, and keep them steady. Bringing oxygen into your body and releasing it keeps your muscles relaxed, your head clear, and your heart steady and calm.
Pain and Bleeding (For The Gals)
You may find that first intercourse does hurt.
Your hymen may likely not be fully eroded yet, and even if it has been somewhat (as it is in many young women, even those who have not had any sort of sex), what remains of it may not have been stretched as much before as it is being stretched now. More commonly, you may just be so nervous, anxious or keyed up that your vagina is tensing up on you. Again, go slow. If it really hurts, stop; take a couple minutes again where the penis is just pressed against your opening, perhaps stimulate your clitoris a little, or take a big break to talk or snuggle. When and if you’re ready, try again. You may find you have to do this any number of times, and since it should still be enjoyable and intimate, there is absolutely no need to apologize for it. In fact, you may find that you don’t want to be deeply penetrated on the first try. That’s just fine, as well. Any sort of sex isn’t a one-shot deal — it’s a lifelong experience. Anyone in a hurry to “get it over with,” is completely missing the boat.
We all also have different personal pain thresholds. For some women, first intercourse pain is a hiccup, and for others they feel a good deal of pain and discomfort. All in all, having your leg broken, or a limb or digit cut off or really intense menstrual cramps hurts a whole lot more. So does childbirth. Yet it’s all in who we are, and how we process and experience pain. If it hurts a lot for you, you aren’t a wuss, or weak, and if it doesn’t hurt at all, that doesn’t mean you weren’t a virgin, or that something is wrong with you, either. First intercourse pain is, in general, fairly mild and short pain if you are aroused, relaxed, properly lubricated, and have a sensitive and patient partner.
There are a very small number of women whose hymens are simply very resistant to opening at all, and these women will feel tremendous pain at attempting intercourse. If you’re one of them, you have probably found you cannot use tampons either, nor insert a finger into your vaginal opening. No matter how you try and break down a gate like this, it just isn’t going to open, so you’ll need to go and see a doctor or gynecologist to deal with it. Sex aside, it’s not really healthy or comfortable to go through life with that sort of hymen, so you may need a surgeon or doctor to make an incision before you can do any of these things. Your doctor will talk to you about your options. As well, if pain during intercourse continues and helps like these don’t fix things (LINK), check in with your doctor: certain health conditions or issues — like an infection, a cyst, vulvar vestibulitis and the like — can also be culprits
You may also bleed during first intercourse, and even during the next few times you try it. If you’re well lubricated, and your partner goes slow, that should be minimal, but during the first time, it’s usual enough that you’ll probably want to wear a menstrual pad (NOT a tampon) for the first 24 hours or so afterwards. Bleeding doesn’t mean anything has been damaged, but simply that some tissue has been stretched, abraded or torn, and, like your lips and mouth, it is tissue that is engorged with blood, so it is opened or stretched, you will bleed.
Orgasm
Either of you may not reach orgasm during first intercourse, and it is common that many women won’t (ever) from intercourse by itself. Most women don’t. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t good, that anyone failed, or that anything is wrong. Even once you’re an old hand at intercourse with a given partner, it is entirely possible — and usual — that it won’t be what brings you to climax by itself, but that other forms of sex, like oral sex or clitoral stimulation combined with intercourse, will. In addition, it is also highly common that during first intercourse, the male partner’s erection may not last very long, and he may reach orgasm very quickly, perhaps even more quickly than he wanted to. Again, that too is okay, and it doesn’t mean anything is wrong with anyone. It just means that something so new and intense, and often a little nervewracking, has effects on your body (and also that young men, and men in general, often reach orgasm quickly, and in general, more quickly than women).
You Aren’t Alone
It is likely that during this experience, both partners may need downtime or care. Bear in mind that first intercourse, while not physically painful for men, isn’t emotionally easy either, and the male partner may likely be just as nervous, scared or inexperienced as the gal is. He may, for instance, have trouble maintaining erection, and that’s fine and good too — if you still want to be sexually intimate, just move to another activity in which an erection isn’t required. It’s all okay, and if you’ve got a male partner who thinks it isn’t, just remind him that it really is.
Don’t forget that men often have burdens to bear with first intercourse, and many feel pretty serious pressure to do it “right” and make it good for everyone. Most caring young men are also very scared and nervous of hurting their female partners. Try and be sure and remember that women aren’t the only ones with issues and fears, and give each other the same patience and sensitivity you want from your partner.
Finishing Safely
When you’re done with intercourse, take off the condom — away from the vulva — slowly, knot it, and throw it away. Sometimes, a condom can slip off and get “lost” in the vagina during intercourse. If that happens, reach into your vagina, and feel for the circular or ring end of the condom. Pinch it together, and pull it out carefully, to avoid spilling any semen. If that happens, you will want to be aware that you do have an STD or pregnancy risk to attend to, and deal with it accordingly.
Both parties should urinate after sex as a habit, especially women. Because the vaginal opening is very close to the urinary opening, bacteria can get into that opening and give you a urinary tract infection. In general, this can be easily avoided by making it a habit to urinate both before and after sexual intercourse.
Aftercare
You may find you have any number of different feelings after first intercourse. You might feel very excited, or glowy, or you might feel overexposed or confused. You might also feel somewhat underwhelmed. It is entirely likely you’ll feel a lot of different things, just as you often do with other types of sex with someone. The same holds true for your partner.
Give yourself what you need after sex, and ask your partner for what you need from them, and to voice their own needs. You may want to snuggle, talk, or go have lunch or take a walk together. You may instead want some time alone. It’s up to each of you.
Sometimes, having intercourse (and other types of sex, as well) can change a relationship temporarily or permanently, because both of you may have complex feelings about it, and it may take some time to process them by yourselves. It may be that it wasn’t what you expected, or that it made you see a different side of your partner you’re unfamiliar with or uncertain about. All of that is okay. Keep the channels of communication open, talk to your partner about your feelings, and be a good listener when your partner talks to you. If you do those things, even if the relationship changes in terms of what you are to one another (sexual partners, boyfriends and girlfriends, or just friends), you’ll keep the integrity of what you had, and keep it good for both of you.
Who you tell about your experience is up to you. It is a good idea to tell some family member, even if they aren’t your parents, simply to keep the channels open, and give them the information they need to take care of you best. You’ll probably want to tell one or two of your friends, as well. Because people who don’t know you well probably don’t know the intricacies of your personal relationships, it’s usually best not to tell the whole world, as they may make judgments about you based on only partial information that may make you feel uncomfortable. It’s a good idea to talk to your partner about who you are both going to tell, just to be sure you both get the level of privacy that you need.
Lastly . . .
When you’re sexually active — intercourse or otherwise — you need to get into a habit of tending to your sexual health, if you haven’t already. Make an appointment at a gynecologists office (or your regular doctor, if you’re male) or clinic to get regularly tested for infections, and to discuss your birth control options. Though condoms used correctly (which you NEED to be using, regardless of your history or your partners) are excellent birth control, there are also other additional backup options, and the best person to talk about them with is a doctor.
Take some time to think about what new responsibilities this aspect of your life entails, because there are a lot of them. Review the checklist. Evaluate your own feelings. For instance, once some people have intercourse with a partner, they sometimes feel they are then always obligated to do so again, and that isn’t so at all. Think about how you want to work this in your relationship, and in your life. Figure out what it means to you, to your partner, and to the relationship you have, and how you want to manage it.
Sexual intercourse isn’t an end to anything, nor is it the doorway to the entirety of your adult life, but it is most certainly an event that is important and pivotal for many heterosexual people, and is one of the passages of your life, of which there will be many. Above all else, celebrate it in whatever way feels best to you, and take a look at this step in your life with thought to what pace you want to take with it now.
