Hey mum, when did you lose your virginity?

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07 Aug 05:50am

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Filed under: Children, Parenting, Relationships, Sex, Society

42 comments

My kids ask me all sorts of questions, including the priceless, “If you did a handstand when you were pregnant, would I have come out your mouth?”

No summer of love for today's sexed-up youth

But the one that’s surprised me most was from my 11-year-old: “Mum, when did you lose your virginity?”

It’s not that I mind discussing this stuff. Eighteen is a respectable (some might say belated) age for deflowering. Rather, it’s the questions that follow: the inevitable who, what, when?

So I told her. About the Catholic boy called Paul and our summer of love spent lying in the grass listening to REM.

About holidaying with his family and sitting naked under a waterfall. About his eccentric dad and his lesbian sister checking we were using contraception. How his is still the sweetest smile I’ve ever known.

After a bit of probing as to why I didn’t marry him (honey, life is a box of chocolates, and besides, he dumped me for his cousin’s best friend), my daughter drifted off to sleep.

As I watched her, I wondered what stories our children might tell about their first loves. Will there be any room for romance in their sexed-up, waxed-down, booze-fuelled, porn-driven and Facebook-recorded coming-of-age?

Truly, I’m not the prudish old bag my husband has just told me I sound like. I hope they enjoy sex. But I want them to experience something soft and tender; to lie in the crook of someone’s arm and feel loved. Trouble is, I’m not seeing it. Or hearing it.

Instead, I see girls shaved, siliconed, hooker-heeled and glammed up to within an inch of their lives. Who can forget the Melbourne teenager who posted pictures of naked footballers online, then lied that one of them made her pregnant? And I hear the likes of Jennifer Love Hewitt tell how she “vajazzles” her “precious lady” with crystals.

Then there’s Katy Perry singing about being tanked, having a ménage à trois, blacking out, waking up with a stranger and – woo-hoo – the pictures ending up online.

I hear of boys’ bingeing on steroids and replicating sex seen online so they can rank their conquests on websites. While singer John Mayer says he prefers a night in with internet porn, rather than a real woman.

And I cringe at ‘bralettes’ for six-year-olds; Supre using topless models to sell to tweens; and T-shirts showing a bound and gagged woman with the message: “Relax, its just sex.”

It’s sad and corrosive and won’t do anything for sexual equality and mutual understanding, but how can you blame kids when popular culture is so stripped of romance?

When I asked my friends for their coming-of-age reference points, there was a collective sigh: “Happy Days, Grease, Philadelphia, Dirty Dancing, any movie with Molly Ringwald or Rob Lowe, mix-tapes, roses given out in restaurants, the slow dance at the disco.”

“Making love” may have gone the way of leg warmers and perms, but surely underneath the bravado and peer pressure, teens are still drawing love hearts in steamed up showers and practising kissing on the inside of their wrists.

“Oh, they still crave old-fashioned romance and connection as much as ever,” says Dannielle Miller of Enlighten Education, while Dolly magazine’s editor says her readers are as inquiring about romance as they were 20 years ago.

Perhaps they’re right. We just need Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart to do a remake of Ghost and Adele to pen the soundtrack.

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429Australia, you have nothing to fear but fear itself

390There's no one Thomson won't burn to save his skin

333Animal experiments won't cure me from cancer

313Thomson didn't answer the question everyone is asking

265Who murdered the Arts degree?

246A big day for Thomson, who thus far is guilty of nothing...

231South Australia. It's the middle bottom bit.

231Craig Thomson speaks. Meanwhile, in Australia...

42 comments

Show oldest | newest first

- Joey says:
  
  06:22am | 07/08/11
  
  Given the headline, I was expecting something completely different.
  
  Reply
- Gareth says:
  
  06:48am | 07/08/11
  
  Jennifer Love Hewitt does what?
  
  Reply
Fona says:

09:09pm | 07/08/11

Vajazzles- stick on crystals over bare pubic mound. Ridiculous and a waste of money, but there you have it.
GC says:

10:17pm | 07/08/11

Mmmm. Nice
Tina says:

07:15am | 08/08/11

Its actually quite cute and funny. And its not expensive at all. You just get one with your regular waxing. I dont think that is something that kills romance - quite the opposite in fact.
- Gregg says:
  
  07:41am | 07/08/11
  
  Life for many these days sure ain’t going to be what it used to be for most of us possibly having had one of the best periods of civilisation in which to live.
  
  Reply
- michael j says:
  
  07:45am | 07/08/11
  
  Yeah ,i know where ya coming from,what more can you say to your 15 yr old daughter ,
  then ,yes Sex can be fun ,and keep you fit ,,just use a Fucking Condom,
  then maybe get ,dad i got something to tell you,and get handed a scan ,,you didn’t use a Fucking Condom did you ?
  
  Reply
- stephen says:
  
  08:20am | 07/08/11
  
  I was 13 when I first saw a nude girl. After school in another kid’s house, (S’wolf’s ‘Born to be wild’ playing in stereo on the Kreisler).
  3 girls all up and about 8 boys and I was really wild : jug-handle ears a red crewcut and 5/8 the size of the owners dog, (and as far as the girl goes, I think I went last ).
  Good fun, but on the next school day my date’d be pointing around class saying…‘he’s experienced, he’s not, he is, he couldn’t get his pants down and the red-head’s now got a stutter’.
  I didn’t want to have sex then ; only wag school eat oranges watch midday movies and smoke, (packet of 10 viscounts cost 70 cents), and that’s actually all I remember about sex in 1970…oh and except her name…
  “Hello Shauna” !
  
  Reply
- Peter Q says:
  
  08:25am | 07/08/11
  
  The responsibility for the consignment of intimacy and romance to the dust bin of the past (which you describe) lies squarely at the feet of Barreness (sic) Greer and her acolytes. The insular stand off between the sexes had its genesis in the emasculation of the family. Whole generations who have followed the Greer mantra have lost confidence to share their inner self and deep intimacy, and along the way lost the ability to model that to their children. Interestingly the market (with all its gadgetry) now exploits the void. The age old adage that we ‘live with our choices’ has come home. The real problem is that as we pass into history our children will be left to deal with the consequences. Sadly, Germane wouldn’t get that - she didn’t have children did she!
  
  Reply
- Dave says:
  
  08:29am | 07/08/11
  
  I lost MY virginity when I was 16 - upstairs at my then girlfriend’s house in Caulfield while her parents were downstairs…
  
  Reply
- Matt says:
  
  08:55am | 07/08/11
  
  Don’t be such a prudish old bag.
  
  Reply
- Freddo says:
  
  09:10am | 07/08/11
  
  I lost my virginity to a dirty old scoutmaster when I was just a 15-year-old lad. Talk about a life changing experience.
  
  Reply
- grant says:
  
  09:26am | 07/08/11
  
  what a load of crap. Teen pregnancy and abortion rates are significantly down.
  
  Reply
Jane2 says:

08:43pm | 07/08/11

But how much is that due to teens being on the Pill and not because they are refraining from sex?
kyra says:

09:24am | 08/08/11

and how is it a bad that they are using contraception?
- Amy says:
  
  09:54am | 07/08/11
  
  How is this conversation with your daughter in any way appropriate?!
  I’m all for teaching children about the birds and the bees and being open to their questions about sex, but there are some things that are part of a parent’s life that are off-limits with one’s children. There’s a difference between telling her the age at which you lost your virginity (and preferably when SHE is at a more appropriate age), and reminiscing about your first time. So maybe your story, unlike much of today’s media, didn’t include any dirty language, smut, explicit details or disturbing re-enactments, but that doesn’t make it suitable for an 11-year old.
  It sounds like you are too busy trying to be her BFF to be her mother.
  
  Reply
Ben says:

11:32am | 07/08/11

Are you saying 18 is too early? You’re an adult, c’mon.

What is wrong with telling a teenager they can have sex? As long as you make them aware of the risks and that they practice safe sex.

The problem comes when parents pretend it doesn’t happen and they don’t speak to their children about it. They have to find out for themselves, which is where the problems start.
Alicia says:

02:56pm | 07/08/11

Umm, Ben, her daughter is 11 (not 18) and therefore not a teenager. I’m not a prude but I wouldn’t be discussing my first time with my children at that age - or at any age, really - it’s personal.
Rose says:

03:17pm | 07/08/11

No Ben, I think Amy is trying to say that her 11 year old daughter is too young to hear about mum’s romp in the sun with her then boyfriend. I tend to agree with Amy, there are things we don’t need to know about our parents and there are definitely things I don’t need my kids to know about me, particularly before they are even teenagers.
Alannah says:

09:03pm | 07/08/11

Amy, I’m with Ben on this one. Sometimes it’s better to be honest with your kids rather then fob them off, if you want your kids to be honest to you then really you have to be honest to them and that includes answering first love questions. I get that the girl is 11 however girls as young as 12 and 13 are having babies, i’m 100% for teaching your child when they are young safe sex and the dangers of drugs and smoking. My kids are 6,8,10 and tell people they don’t know you shouldn’t smoke and as much as I feel small when they do it, i’m also proud that they have listened. I tell my boys when they get a girlfriend to treat her nice, they may ask how and I say. You know how you don’t like it when people say nasty things behind your back, well you give your girlfriend the same respect you would give your mum. As a parent it my roll to show my kids the right way and if your child asked at 11 then you have the right to be honest. They know more then you think at 11.
- Dona says:
  
  01:08pm | 07/08/11
  
  Agree with Amy. I think there are some aspects of a parents life that should be kept private. I would be horrified if my parents decided to share details of their sex life with me. I am simply not interested and averse to hearing that sort of information from my mother.
  
  Reply
Gene Genie says:

02:41pm | 07/08/11

Agree. Has a big yuk factor because i guess it’s nature’s way of making sure the gene pool is spread outwards.
Alicia says:

02:57pm | 07/08/11

Ditto! I would never ask my parents because I most certainly don’t want to know that!!
Gregg says:

05:01pm | 07/08/11

Looks like Angela has a broader outlook on motherhood and has a substantial enough bond with her daughter for her daughter to feel comfortable enough to want to know about such things.
I’d reckon it is better to foster such a bond and be open and honest, even if the daughter comes home in a colourful combi one day.
Bruce says:

09:20pm | 08/08/11

Dona: Agree, parents never had sex, kids just happened !! Much kinder on a kids brain. Oh my god, the thought of my parents having sex. That would turn you off sex for life.
- Me says:
  
  02:02pm | 07/08/11
  
  Me. Sex. Like.
  
  Reply
- Al Chunk says:
  
  08:45pm | 07/08/11
  
  Another journalist thinking that parenthood is interesting, how about looking outside your home and posing less stale topics.
  
  Reply
- Jane2 says:
  
  08:49pm | 07/08/11
  
  As someone who lost her virginity at 27 because that was the first time I had come across a guy who wanted to date me before getting into my pants, if I had a kid I wouldnt be embarrassed at all. I would hope it would make them realise it is better to wait for someone you care about than a one night stand.
  
  Reply
GC says:

10:15pm | 07/08/11

What did you reckon? Worth the wait?
- Pat says:
  
  05:10am | 08/08/11
  
  When are some journos (trying to appear trendy), going to realize their children remain in the strict sense, THEIR children, forever?. Furthermore off-spring are not .....for parents to ever start divulging or to confide in , any actual part of their own present sex life or perhaps past sexual experiences. That is just sicko! Otherwise it becomes almost a situational case of ’ mental incest’ being played out, no matter how people want to spin it. Parents and children can discuss the subject of sex if required, but respectful borders of individual privacy - what can be asked or said to each other - must be respected by both sides. . Still there are some privacy boundaries that never should be crossed. Like seeking to find out ‘What Mum or Dad maybe still get up to , or did - prior to oneself, being conceived , coming into this World’.....That central point is a good healthy ‘taboo’... for any well balanced person to possess, and hold onto.
  
  Reply
- virginia walters says:
  
  09:05am | 08/08/11
  
  I grew up with “little house on the prairie” and rosemary beads. My father wouldn’t let us watch “happy days” as it was too sexy lol ...
  I think you tell your children different stories at different stages in their lives. A few years back my teen son asked me what I thought was a ‘good age’ to ‘do it’. Of course I told him the truth about how if you use it before you are fully grown then it stops growing…lol… A few years later we had another discussion and I said something to him like “look, just stop and think about it for a minute, you can’t even sit next to your sister while she’s eating as she annoys you how are you going to have someone’s breath right in your face, cause that’s what it’s like, so when you feel like you want to be that close to a girl then you know you are old enough”...
  in anycase I think that the modern day Virginity is the heart, most of us keep it protected, only sharing its true depths with someone special ...yeah we had “pretty in pink” and “OMD” but we also had “hungry like the wolf”, “girls on film” and God forbid “best of all our loves, she gives me head”... alot of the new stuff is quite lyrically clever and there is sweetness amongst it too, it depends on what you seek or as a parent, you fear ... when everything is said and done its all relevant to the era that we are in… “Bikinis on Bondi beach…never! “...lol…Virginia Walters
  
  Reply
- Marty says:
  
  09:15am | 08/08/11
  
  This whole article is just gross. Why would your child ever need to know that much detail. There are things you just can’t ‘unhear’. Fair out, this one was a parental misfire of massive proportions.
  
  Reply
- Brutus Balan says:
  
  10:11am | 08/08/11
  
  Losing ones virginity outside a committed marriage union is a shameful thing to talk about but it is now a talk of achievement by promiscuous parents to their sex wise children. It has become a medal to show and tell their children of their multiple congruous with sundry acquaintances at the first horny impulse of their promiscuous days of youth.
  
  Mating like animals in the paddocks and the backseat of the cars are now casual conversation of lewd minds. It is almost a ‘crime’ nowadays to say that to treasure ones virginity, male or female, till marriage is the moral reserving of oneself of this private personal intimacy to the one committed for life in a marital union. Casual wanton sex outside a committed union is the cheapening of oneself akin to public toilets where one relieves oneself of what comes naturally devoid of morals.
  
  Would they freely talk about their sexual episodes with their spouses/partners or compare their present partner/spouse with those they have had sex with over the years and what certainty is there that these will not still have casual sex with others at whim and fancy behind their spouse’s back? Or would they come home and freely talk about their continuing casual congruous to their spouse and laugh over it. Their children will grow up worse than them but of course as the slogan nowadays says, “Do it, but do it safely”.
  
  Romance without sexual congruous is the expressing of true love for another. It is the greatest respect shown to another, a potential spouse for life. It is in this loving relationship one can learn whether one is a suitable spouse for a life time commitment. Sex comes after the marital union. If one cannot wait, one is not worth it.
  
  Reply
Brutus Balan says:

10:41am | 08/08/11

Ooops..should read “sexual congress” and not “sexual congruous”. Slip of the mind.
bennie says:

11:07am | 08/08/11

Seriously? It’s shameful to have sex outside of marriage? It’s 2011 mate, not 1911. Sex is not shameful, it’s a natural part of life. Obviously many people have been brainwashed by religion to think as you do, but that doesn’t mean it’s right, or that somehow you are morally superior if you abstain until marriage.
Peter Yo says:

11:23am | 08/08/11

Better not eat outside of breakfast, lunch and dinner either. Close minded fool.
Leto says:

12:39pm | 08/08/11

So I should feel bad about using public toilets? Maybe I’m not showing them enough respect…
Reid Wright says:

12:57pm | 08/08/11

and masturbation is mass murder.
Brutus Balan says:

02:14pm | 08/08/11

When truth hits home it hurts, rousing the conscience and it brings out the rage of stupidity and nonsense from the worst of humanity. State of our masses today, sad!
- Ian1 says:
  
  12:43pm | 08/08/11
  
  Virtue, purity and gratitude are best identified on the satisfied face of an exclusive and faithful lover.
  
  Reply
- Stv027 says:
  
  01:32pm | 08/08/11
  
  Won’t somebody please think of the children!!!!!!!!!
  
  Reply
- mike says:
  
  05:34am | 03/09/11
  
  I lost mine when I was 14. I saved up some money and hired two prostitutes for the night. I wasrather independent for my age but thats just me. Told them straight out what needed to happen and they educated me until the sun came up the next day. We had a marvelous time.
  
  Reply

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Hey mum, when did you lose your virginity?

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Joey says:

Gareth says:

Fona says:

GC says:

Tina says:

Gregg says:

michael j says:

stephen says:

Peter Q says:

Dave says:

Matt says:

Freddo says:

grant says:

Jane2 says:

kyra says:

Amy says:

Ben says:

Alicia says:

Rose says:

Alannah says:

Dona says:

Gene Genie says:

Alicia says:

Gregg says:

Bruce says:

Me says:

Al Chunk says:

Jane2 says:

GC says:

Pat says:

virginia walters says:

Marty says:

Brutus Balan says:

Brutus Balan says:

bennie says:

Peter Yo says:

Leto says:

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Ian1 says:

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