1. My wife and I abstained from sex before marriage for religious reasons. On our honeymoon, it took about thirty minutes for me to convince her to undress. She was very nervous, but that was ok, she’s always been a shy person and I knew we would have to take it slow.
After some petting, I decided to try to do basic missionary position. When I climbed on top of her, she recoiled and started crawling away. I was kind of hurt by this, but again, shes shy, so after some more petting and kissing I tried again. As soon as the tip of my penis touched the outside of her vagina, she recoiled. I tried this a few more times before I was so hurt I couldn’t keep my erection. She apologized, we chalked it up to nerves, and decided to try again on the second night of the honeymoon.
The second night went the same as the first. On the third night, I had an idea- I knew she wouldn’t like it, but I wanted to get this thing consummated. I had her lie down on the bed with her feet touching the floor. She was sort of whimpering the whole time, but she wanted to get over this barrier too so she went along with it. My penis got in about halfway before her muscles constricted and the vaginal opening completely closed. She started screaming in pain. I couldn’t get back in, and I couldn’t keep an erection anyway because I felt like I was raping the girl I loved.
The worst memory of my life was that night. She went to the bathroom afterward to calm down, and when she came out she said: “Did I do okay?” I responded, “What do you mean?” Her: “Was I good in bed?” She was trembling; I could tell she had been worrying about our honeymoon for months, perhaps a year. I didn’t know what to say. I just laid her down and kissed her until she fell asleep.
That was eight months ago. Today, we are both still virgins. Married virgins. I’m currently unemployed and deeply depressed, and the lack of sex is a big part of it. I have all the pressures of a husband to take care of his wife, yet I don’t have the relief of sexual pleasure and intimacy to cope with it.
I get a blowjob about once a week, but frankly I don’t enjoy them- when you know in the back of your mind that the person fellating you is off-bounds in every other way, it messes you up somehow. I don’t know, that’s what happened to me at least.
We figured out pretty soon after the honeymoon that what my wife has is something called Vaginismus- it fits all her symptoms perfectly and is the #1 cause of unconsummated marriages. We’ve tried using dilators and stuff at home with no progress, she can’t even insert a lubricated q-tip without having a panic attack. On the bright side, I managed to convince her to see a sexual therapist on the 25th, so that’s big progress.
Would I do everything the same way again? I don’t know. I’m a Christian. I think sex before marriage is a sin (though I certainly don’t judge those who don’t). But trying to be virtuous in that regard kinda screwed me over. I’ve been very angry at God lately.
So, that’s my story.
2. A very good male friend of mine didn’t have sex with his current wife until after they got married (her idea), turns out that she basically hates sex and he LOVES it…they have been married 12 years bf he can count how many times they have had sex (less than 10 times).
Suffice it to say, he wouldn’t recommend waiting…
3. My husband and I were semi-abstinent (no PIV) for religious reasons, and didn’t live together before we got married (dated 5 years). Have now been married 2.5 years. We have a very healthy marriage and active sex life, in my opinion.
To be fair, we are more part of the Christian left and have always been sex-positive. I’m not sure if I still believe it’s essential to abstain until marriage, but it was very important to my partner, and it didn’t hurt us.
4. We were both pretty religious when we got married 12 years ago. We dry humped before then but that’s as far as it went. Sex was difficult for her physically at first. This was pretty discouraging for me because it was a turn off to think I was hurting her. Also a lot of lubes tended to irritate her. Also oral would make her jaw lock. So yeah, it was not that great at first.
It got better over the years. We found lubes that worked. However I stopped being religious 5 years ago. She still is. My beliefs about sex have totally changed. I have regrets about the fact that I will probably never be able to experience someone else physically. This is not to say I an dissatisfied with my wife, just that I kick myself for never exploring.
5. Not me but a lady friend. She married right after college because her SO was in the military and going to be deployed. They abstained until marriage. The sex was bad. Painful for her and I’m guessing because of that not all that enjoyable for him either. Her doctor diagnosed her with Vaginismus (a condition wherein your vaginal wall involuntarily spasms during intercourse I guess?) so she just thought it was her fault and she would never enjoy sex.
When they got back to the states and her husband went back to school they broke up for other reasons. She started dating other people and realized that sex could actually be good.
I don’t know particularly why it didn’t work with her first husband but it’s true that some people just aren’t compatible.
6. For religious reasons we were not only abstinent, we didn’t touch at all before marriage. The most contact we had in advance of tying the knot was we were once both sitting in the back seat of a car with a carefully delineated line of space between us and the car swerved and his leg briefly brushed against mine.
It was stressful because I was worried about all this sexual incompatibility other people talk about. But I did whatever due diligence I could manage under those constraints – we had several frank discussions about kink and experimentation and sex toys and comfort levels and at what point we’d get help if things weren’t working etc etc. I also made him buy me a vibrator- it seemed like a good symbolic gesture of “we will both work to have orgasms yes we will”. (and lube. We both bought lube. We didn’t really end up needing it but we had it available.)
The first time was mediocre but not painful, I don’t think it’s fair to expect more than that, given that we hadn’t yet worked out the positions, rhythms, etc that really worked for us. It got progressively better from there, I’m very satisfied.
I guess the surprise is that I was expecting my libido to be… Lower. But I admitted this to a friend and she laughed at me so maybe I was in denial I don’t know.
Other than that? Well, I really respect and admire and like him. I only got really infatuated after we were already married, so it’s nice knowing my non-hormone-addled mind also thinks he’s fantastic…
7. Wife wanted to stay a virgin until marriage—too late for me by the time I met her, but I respected her wishes even when I was deeply depressed about it—turns out her libido is significantly lower than mine… After eighteen years of concealing my mental anguish, instead of cheating, I risked everything in asking for an ‘open marriage’ (she agreed!), and our (revised ‘polyamorous’) relationship is so much better, now.
It is fundamentally stupid/irrational to commit to monogamous marriage before you even know if you’re sexually compatible! Save yourself decades of heartache, ladies and gentlemen, and “try before you buy”!
8. I am so late to this party but I have to chime in. Been married 26 years. We abstained from sex because of religion. Before marriage he went up my shirt once. I remember one time we sort of grinded a bit. He came but I didn’t know at the time.
Then marriage and 2 people who didn’t know what a clit was or where it was located. I cried a lot. I thought I was dysfunctional. We bought a vibrator in desperation. We both had no idea what to do with it. One night he went to work and I was determined to figure it out. Had my first orgasm at 21. Told him about it and we went from there.
Years passed and sex seemed pretty good. Had several children. I was still a bit frigid I think. I eventually left our oppressive religion. A few years later he followed.
We finally worked thru the religious sexual bullshit. Started having really mind blowing sex. I was blown away. I never knew it could be that good.
Eventually we opened up the marriage. However it didn’t work out. I was with men that sucked in bed. They were mostly selfish. He dipped his dick in crazy a few times. Idk how single guys deal with a lot of women cuz mostly we experienced cray cray.
We closed the marriage back up, at least for now and it’s been amazing. Excellent sex 4-5 times a week. More in the summer because of less work stress for both of us.
Have sex before you make a legal contract. Waiting is the most dumbass thing I ever did.
9. We had known each other for ~8 years before we got married and consummated our relationship. Like many of the responses here, we were both virgins when we had sex the first time, but not due to religious reasons or anything, we just met when we were rather young. I was all for having sex before marriage, but she wanted to make it something special, ‘save something’ for when we were married. It was excruciatingly hard for me, but I respected her wishes. Never during this time I thought of ‘straying’ and getting anything on the side, I just couldn’t do that.
Our wedding night was amazing and finally we were both ready, but she was ‘too tired.’ Fair enough, weddings are really long and I was pretty exhausted too. The next night though, I was so excited, finally, FINALLY, I could have sex with the woman I loved… and it was rather underwhelming. That’s okay too, I’ve heard everywhere that everyone’s first time isn’t great, to be honest none of us really knew what we were doing, but there’s fun in the discovery, right? I just knew this could be something we could both really enjoy doing together, and getting better at… but it didn’t really work out that way.
Turns out we are woefully sexually incompatible. She is happy with having sex once a month, or less. She never instigates… foreplay is even hard with her because it doesn’t seem like she responds to anything. We’ve tried talking about it, going to counselors, I even asked her if something happened to her in the past that would make her not desire sex as much as I do and she swears that isn’t the case. The conclusion that’s overwhelmingly reached is that her libido is just much, much lower than mine… that’s probably why it was much easier for her to wait. It should have been a red flag but of course I wasn’t thinking about that at the time. I love her, I really do, but I don’t know how much more of this I can take… we’ve only been married two years but I know exactly how many times we’ve had sex because, honestly, it’s not a high number.
It is a major problem in our relationship. I want to be intimate (not just with sex, but caressing, kisses, etc.) but she has shied away from even kissing me because she thinks that I only do that when I ‘want something more’ even though I’ve told her that’s not always the case… but honestly it’s hard not to want something when it’s been three weeks and I’ve gotten zero action. Plus she gets upset when I watch porn… I just don’t know what else to do. I hate myself for it but I’ve considered cheating just to fulfill this desire. I’ve never done it because I don’t want to hurt her that way but so many denials just does something to a man… and it’s not like I’m ugly or anything, I work out and my body hasn’t changed much since she met me, I can honestly say I’m the same weight as when we met. She says I look fine, but always, always, she’d ‘not in the mood.’ I just don’t know what to do and it’s tearing me apart. I don’t want to leave her, but I don’t think I can live like this.
10. My wife and I both waited. I do regret waiting sometimes… She does not regret it. We’ve been married just over two years and I’m pretty sure her drive is almost non-existent. She’ll do it to please me; but it is a chore. Also, it physically hurts her still to penetrate, yet she’ll never play with her ‘toy’ and we’ve had penetration sex twice this year so far. I’m hopeful it will get better but I’m struggling inside. My mind constantly wonders what a healthy sex life would be like.
11. I waited. 10/10 would not do it again. It made sex this other thing in our relationship. Instead of a part of what we did. It also had to go from “that’s bad” to “that’s good”. It’s a very difficult transition to make mentally. It can take a long time.
If I could do it over, I would not wait. But not so much because I think sex is great but because I would have wanted sex to be a normal thing adults did. Instead of a “don’t do that until you can. It’s dirty and bad now, but later it’ll be good”. For lots couples the later never really comes.
12. The first time?
A bit awkward. We were both virgins. I, uh, had plenty of knowledge about the “what’s” and “where’s”, despite not having any experience. Her knowledge could basically be summed up with “penis goes in vagina, the man shakes around, it’s over”.
So, again, awkward. We were both hot and ready for it, but outside of missionary, the specifics just weren’t coming together too well. Despite lots of foreplay it was hurting her quite badly. Had some difficulty staying hard (nervousness) and didn’t finish the first time either.
Now we’ve been together for about a year, although only about ~3 months of that has been actual together time. Sex is much more enjoyable – we’ve grown and explored a lot in that aspect, though I’m sure by most counts we’re still pretty vanilla.
It wasn’t part of your question, but since it typically gets asked as a follow-up, no, I don’t regret waiting. Sex is good, I enjoy it, and I like getting my wife off. But the connection is, IMO, the best part. The base sex itself is not, to me, as amazing as people made out like it was to me while I was a virgin.
Theodore Lee is the editor of Caveman Circus. He strives for self-improvement in all areas of his life, except his candy consumption, where he remains a champion gummy worm enthusiast. When not writing about mindfulness or living in integrity, you can find him hiding giant bags of sour patch kids under the bed.