When I was 16 years old I had sex for the first time. It was with someone I had met only 3 months prior, and my decision to have sex was more an act of rebellion than anything else. I knew I wasn’t totally ready for sexual intimacy, yet I wanted to experience it because I wanted to feel like I was mature in some far-fetched way. In hindsight, I know I was way too young to have sex at 16, and if I could do it over I would have waited until I was in the relationship for a longer amount of time even knowing the outcome of this relationship.

The day after I had sex for the first time, I went to school like any other normal day. Except it wasn’t a normal day, it was full of whispers and judgments that had me looking over my shoulder all day. Like any other typical high school environment, many of my peers had heard about my sexual encounter and had their own irrelevant but strong opinions about my decision to have sex. The one that stood out most was an individual I had met in middle school mentioning to someone else that I was a whore now because I had grown up saying I would not lose my virginity until marriage. I remember thinking it was insane for other people to have opinions about my sex life.

That experience sparked the views I have today regarding sex, specifically virginity. There’s no such thing as “losing your virginity”. You don’t lose anything when you have sex for the first time. You gain an experience. You learn about yourself.

Fast forward to today, the person I had sex with for the first time when I was 16 is the only person I’ve had sex with in my life and am now married to him at 24 years old. Sure, I’ve wondered what it might be like to experience intimacy with other men, but not realistically. The reason for this is because my husband knows my body. He knows what I like and what I don’t like. He genuinely cares about my experience when we are intimate, as I do his. The bond we share in our intimate moments is so special to me that I wouldn’t trade it for anything.