There are several reasons why a woman’s first time having sex may be tenuous, and many of them were discussed in the first installment of this series. In this article, I’d like to focus on problems that result from a hybrid of medical and emotional factors.
Statistically, the average age for someone to first engage in sexual intercourse is 17. This means that although some individuals may lose their virginity at age nine or age 43, the middle ground occurs at age 17. The only real information we can gain from this statistic is that it is common for those in high school to lose their virginity during their late school-age years.
On one hand, you could argue that a high school student is oblivious to the reality of sex, because clearly if you live with your parents you can’t possibly understand the complexity of romantic relationships or the opposite sex. On the other hand, high school students have been engaging in intercourse since the beginning of time, and it is the general public's responsibility for ignoring this fact.
No matter what age a woman decides to lose her virginity, she is vulnerable to a whole host of questions. Will she experience pleasure? Will she experience pain? Can she trust that the man she has intercourse with will be aware of either of these states?
Simply put, a huge factor in a woman’s first time is her degree of comfort. If a woman is not comfortable, she will not be free to experience sexual arousal and will thus not be able to produce vaginal lubrication. When her partner enters, lack of lubrication can cause friction that proves to be extremely painful, especially if her partner is circumcised.
Many women lose their virginity during their most hormonal years, and thus they are able to produce an adequate amount of lubrication. However, what happens if a woman feels unsafe or uncomfortable? What if she has passed the season of life during which sexual contact is a necessary and immediate desire?
Sexual encounters are rarely within a woman’s scope of control. When women are unable to protect their own bodies, how can they ever be fully free to experience pleasure? Unless women are granted with absolute rights to their sexuality, they will never be able to have sex the way that men do.