Why Aren’t You Moaning?
By MLNPstar and Ambassador MapleSyrup
I grew up in Canada in the 90s as an only child with parental figures who were very body-positive and sex-positive. I received many books as I entered puberty about anatomy and human sexuality, and we had open conversations about these topics. This was quite a contrast to the uptight Catholic school I went to where I was frequently told that what I was wearing was inappropriate and the sex education was lackluster. It certainly didn’t include definitions of things like “fisting” which I learned from the book I got for Christmas; the irony of receiving that gift on that particular holiday was lost on me at the time.
I knew from an early age what “sex” was and was led to believe that the first time, as a cis woman, would be awful. In my mind, “losing my virginity” meant penis in vagina sex. It was not something you actually lost, like a misplaced pair of sunglasses, rather it was something I needed to get rid of. I thought that being a virgin meant I was just like the Prudy Judy’s and goody two-shoes at my school whom I had deemed uncool. I’m not sure where I adopted this very narrow view from, but likely from friends who had already done it and the media I was exposed to. I had accepted that bad first-time sex was a fact of life. I knew that sex would eventually become pleasurable and so at the tender age of 14, I desperately wanted to shed my virginity; rip the bandaid so that I could be a real grown up and have some fun.
My friend Brittany and I made a plan to get rid of our virginities on the same night. We had both been flirting with a couple of boys from school who were a year older than us. As we walked to their house after school we decided amongst ourselves (in the absence of the two boys) who was going to have sex with who. We had not discussed it with the boys, but we felt that we had a sexual power over boys and men alike, and we were pretty certain they would be DTF which I had recently learned from a television show meant Down To Fuck.
Our plan went off without a hitch. We all got a little bit drunk for the unspoken dual purpose of social lubrication and premedication for what was about to happen. I went first. After very little conversation or eye contact and about a minute of dry, uncomfortable foreplay, my virginity was gone. It was excruciating. As I lay there on my back in stillness, trying to focus on a spot on the ceiling and just breathe through the pain, he asked, “why aren’t you moaning?”
I was stunned by his breaking of the silence with this absurd question. It was implied that he meant moaning with pleasure, but why would I find this pleasurable? Why do people even do this, I thought. It was implied that he cared about my pleasure on some level, but neither of us had a clue what the other was experiencing, nor did we know how to properly communicate that.
From that moment on, I felt self-conscious and like I was supposed to be making the sex noises that women made in porn. So I started watching porn, mostly to study what was expected of me. At school, my teachers were relentless in their passive aggressive encouragement with things like “If only you applied yourself in mathematics. You have so much potential.” Little did they know, here I was really applying myself to this arguably more important topic that had the potential to either bring me great joy or cause physical and emotional harm; a topic that they weren’t willing to properly teach me. I needed to know what to do and I had to teach myself with what little resources I had. It was tricky. Smartphones didn’t exist, so I had to use our family computer when no one was around. What I found on my deep dives into internet porn was at best lonely and at worst downright frightening. Even when I felt aroused, it never felt good emotionally which was very confusing.
With time, experience and the support of a few loving partners, I finally came to experience real pleasure, real world sex, intimacy and most importantly love. I wish platforms like MakeLoveNotPorn and movements like the Social Sex Revolution existed when I was entering sexual maturity. I’m so glad it exists now for everyone to see the many different forms that real world sex, pleasure and love can take. Moaning is optional.
