One of the perennial subjects in sex and relationship writing is jealousy of a partner’s past. At the Good Men Project this week, we had 10 Ways to Deal With Your Partner’s Sexual Past (Because You Have To). It’s not the most detailed discussion of the subject you’ll see, and I have some quibbles with bits of it, but it’s a healthy and helpful reminder of the utter bootlessness of longing to be the “first.”
I’ve written a bit on this topic before. In early 2009, I wrote to challenge the obsession so many have with a partner’s past. That piece is reprinted below.
Below this January 14 post on experience and numbers, bmmg39 writes:
…my view is that, often, people with little or no experience in a certain thing (it CAN be sex but it could also mean romantic love, or kissing, or slow-dancing, or whatever) often seek others with the same low level or non-level of experience. Someone who’s never soul-kissed someone else might not feel comfortable with someone who’s done that with a hundred people already. That doesn’t mean the first person thinks that there’s something wrong with the second; it means that the first person would like to be remembered fondly as someone else’s first experience in that department with all the wonderful awkwardness and nervousness that is said to come with it.
The bold emphasis is mine. What bmmg writes sounds innocent and sweet enough. But the problem is clear: when one of our chief longings is “to be remembered fondly”, to be “someone else’s first”, we’re placing our own desires ahead of our partner’s. We’re using sex as a way of leaving a mark on another person’s body or heart, hoping — as humans tend to hope — that we won’t be forgotten. There’s no question that most of us would like to leave an impression on other people; perhaps it’s the historian in me, but there are few worse fears I have, to be honest, than that I will be completely forgotten! But bmmg makes the mistake of assuming that “first” equals “most memorable.” Ask around. Legions of people, particularly women, would rather forget their first experience of heterosexual intercourse. There’s not infrequently a world of difference between, say, the first partner with whom you had intercourse and the first partner with whom you truly felt close and safe.
When my wife and I were planning our wedding, she was hardly unaware that this was to be my fourth marriage — and her first. (Indeed, I have been the first husband to four different women.) A friend of ours did ask her, on one occasion, if it bothered her that she was doing something for the first time that I had done several times before. My fiancee, sensible as ever, said, “No, because this is the first time he’s doing it with me.” She was focused, bless her, on the marriage we were building together. She didn’t deny the reality of what had come before, but she rightly saw no reason to believe that prior experience on my part would diminish the unique intensity of what we were creating as a team. She knew better than to see me as a three-time loser and a has-been. So when we talked about rings and dresses and bands and caterers, she was aware — on some level — that I had had all those conversations before. But she was also clear that passion is not automatically killed by repetition; she knew enough to know that past behavior isn’t always the best indicator of future action. Above all, she believed that most of the time, the axiom of “post hoc ergo propter hoc” holds true: my ability to be a great husband in my fourth marriage was in no small degree a consequence of all the mistakes I had made in the previous three. Some folks hit a home run on their first at bat. Others… need to be sent down to the minors a time or three.
When a good relationship grows and endures, it does so in its own memorable ways. There is very little, from a purely physically sexual standpoint, that my wife and I could possibly do together that we haven’t each separately done with other people in the past. But that has damn all to do with the memories we create together and the marks we leave on each other. For heaven’s sakes, when I kiss my wife, I’m not comparing her tongue to that of umpteen other women; I’m fairly certain that she isn’t comparing my touch to that of her previous lovers! The tapes of what was are stored away. Why on earth would it matter that I’m not the first to make the woman I love call on the name of God in a moment of pleasure? It would only matter if I allowed my ego to trump my love, if the need to be the first was more important than the need to be the now.
When I was in high school, I lost my virginity to my first serious girlfriend. I was not her first, not by a long shot. She was a year younger than me, but with considerably more experience. But when I first had sex with her, tenderly and awkwardly, I was not thinking “Damn, I wonder if she’s thinking about Joe or Bob or Brutus and if they were better than me.” Even as a teenager, I had enough sense to stay focused on what we were doing in the moment. And as the relationship progressed, and we fell more deeply in love, I knew and trusted that she loved no one else as she loved me. I wanted exclusivity very badly, and honest-to-God, spent very little time wondering about what she had done with other boys and men before me. I knew exclusivity and novelty are two radically different things. To ask for the first is reasonable; to wish to be the provider of the second for another is a function of ego and insecurity. As messed up a kid as I was in many ways, I somehow was lucky enough to grasp that at seventeen.
It is right and good to want to leave a mark upon the world. It is right and good to want to be remembered for the love we shared with others, both the intimate erotic love with certain partners and the more platonic, filial, or agape love we share with our families, friends, and the creatures around us. It’s abundantly obvious I’ve got a healthy ego, and I like to leave that mark in people’s lives! But from the time that I was a geeky, earnest teenage virgin, I’ve understood that an obsession with wanting to be first had nothing to do with love. It’s about control and insecurity. And while the young and inexperienced are often naturally insecure, we never have the right to project our own fears onto others by demanding — or even vocally wishing — that they had not had the past they have had.
And in the end, there are always new firsts. My wife and I will soon be parents — what a first that will be! My wife and I have been to all seven continents together, have ridden century rides together, have buried our fathers together. Those were firsts, bitter and sweet alike. There will always be more. In the face of these wonders, what possible meaning could there be to a history of other people’s skin on our skin?
UPDATE: After writing this post, I drove to the gym. The first song I heard on the car radio was Roberta Flack’s famed cover of the Ewan MacColl classic “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.” It’s a perfect song to capture what I’m talking about — it’s all about the joy of firsts, but only the firsts one makes in a relationship, not the firsts one might ever had had with another person. There’s a healthy way and an unhealthy way to think about firsts, and this is the healthy way.
The first time ever I saw your face
I thought the sun rose in your eyes
And the moon and stars were the gifts you gave
To the dark and the empty skies, my love,
To the dark and the empty skies.
The first time ever I kissed your mouth
And felt your heart beat close to mine
Like the trembling heart of a captive bird
That was there at my command, my love
That was there at my command.
And the first time ever I lay with you
I felt your heart so close to mine
And I knew our joy would fill the earth
And last till the end of time my love
It would last till the end of time my love
The first time ever I saw your face, your face,
your face, your face
There’s no suggestion that either person in this song is a virgin — the magic is only that created by these two people, unaffected in the slightest by what might have come before. I’ve always loved the song, but never thought of it in this context. Now I like the song even more.
Hugo, do you just bring me out of the closet to use as a piñata whenever you’re at a loss for topics?
As I’ve pointed out before, on the original thread another poster rephrased exactly what I was trying to say: that a person would love to find a person with which to experience all those magical “firsts” together (and I reiterate for the umpteenth time that these may OR MAY NOT include sexual experiences, in spite of your having focused on them). The woman who rephrased my thoughts beautifully was agreed with. Maybe it’s how you say it; maybe it’s who’s doing the saying that matters.
Many people do become jaded with the more romantic experience they have. And I will also repeat — and also for the umpteenth time — that someone who has made romantic (never mind sexual) connections since high school may not be able to grasp the perspective of someone who’s had a couple extra decades of loneliness, with all the related time to think about things. And that’s fine, but it is then your responsibility to acknowledge that you cannot grasp this person’s perspective, rather than to accuse him (or her, but whom are we kidding, here?) of being “insecure” and “controlling.” Printing such accusations three times does not make them any truer.
Love is never about it wanting to be first. It’s about tricking someone into adopting a child that may or may not be theirs.
Hitting a “home run”– yes it is all about sports isn’t it guys. Four marriages is about messing up the lives of three other women. So no, the damage done three times before to three human beings is not about “hitting a home run” on the first marriage. It is about profound degredation of the institution of marriage that is so het filled, so hopeless, no beyond redemption. Home run! That about sums up the male view of marriage. Perhpas we need to take away het marriage as a legal right… a Prop 8 to end that institution, until the hetero men learn to grow up, and stop comparing marriage to baseball.
I think all this obsession with being the 1st for whatever is just competition, just wanting to outdo everyone else. I suspect few people are totally immune to such a wish, at one time or another, but some of us have a handle on it.
If I was interested in getting sexual with people, I’d want to leave a good mark rather than a bad one, to be remembered happily. I think if I had the privilege of being anyone’s first, that would just be more responsibility, which I might or might not be equal to. When one does anything for the first time, one is rewriting a part of one’s brain. I’d not want to complicate that for someone else who is going thru it.
As for becoming jaded with any sort of experience, there might be fixes for that too.
I normally agree with your posts, but this one, I don’t think ego is the only reason someone wants to be a first or enjoys being the first. It can be, but I don’t think it needs to be.
I have been, either the first, or the first woman, or the first lesbian for all of the women I have been with. My first time was her first as well, and we didn’t really know what we were doing but we mostly figured it out.
I don’t seek inexperienced people out to try to be their first, but I really do enjoy it. I am touched that there was something about me that made them feel safe enough for them to want me to be their first. I enjoy learning what they like and showing them what to do. I like helping them to accept their sexuality, showing them that it’s okay to like girls if they do. I like being gentle with them. And with all of them, I was attracted to them above and beyond this notion of “I’m their first”. Sometimes I didn’t know that I would be their first until I was already in a close enough relationship with them for them to tell me.
Some of them had had male partners in the past. This didn’t bother me — why would it? and it didn’t change the fact that I was the first woman they’d trusted in this way. My current partner is transgendered. She has been with women in the past, but I’m the first to see her as the woman she is. And when she has her surgery, I’ll be the first *again*. That’s great and all, given my liking for being the first, but it has nothing to do with why I’m attracted to her — it’s just a plus. She understands me in ways that no one else does, we have lots of similar interests, we communicate really well, our relationship is low drama, and we’re both much happier together than we have been in years.
I suppose some people who like being the first can be skeevy, but I don’t think I am, and I don’t think it’s right to paint all people with the same brush.
Love is about robbing another human being of their consent, agency and right to self determination, then congratulating yourself on what an upstanding guy you are for having done so.
(Annoyed at all the OT dig-posts on old news. Can’t people get a life already?)
I’ve never understood the whole “wanting to be first” thing. Eira is right and Hugo is right: there are always new firsts. Thinking that you have to be the “first” in some particular way I think comes from a really narrow view of sex and relationships and what you can do with a partner. If you really don’t have something that might be new and interesting for either of you, maybe you’re with the wrong person or else you need to expand your imagination.
I will say that there are some legitimate reasons to be concerned about a partner’s past that have nothing to do with “wanting to be first” though, and that’s where someone’s past has present ramifications. STDs are an obvious case. I also believe that someone can get their “gears stripped,” if you will, by too much of the same thing or too much of a particular thing in past relationships. I’ve had it happen that I wasn’t the one who was mentally comparing myself to the guys a girl had previously been with or what she had previously done but I was being compared (either to previous guys or to her vibrator) and constantly being “corrected” every few minutes to do this or that in that particular way. Major buzz kill.
Also, not to get overly graphic, but it is the case that a lot of sexual “mileage” can leave physical effects that make things less pleasant too. It may not be that important to think or ask about the number of previous partners a woman has been with, but it’s not much fun when you can tell that it’s been quite a lot by what you feel (or, perhaps more to the point, but what you don’t feel).
“Also, not to get overly graphic, but it is the case that a lot of sexual “mileage” can leave physical effects that make things less pleasant too.”
Are you really talking here about the idea that women’s vaginas get looser the more sexual partners they’ve had? Isn’t this a myth? I’m a pretty sexually inexperienced dude, so maybe I’m just naive, but this really strikes me as bogus. I’ve always thought that “looseness” is more akin to penis size, in that it naturally varies from person to person. I mean, is a woman who’s had sex with 100 different men once each supposed to be looser than a woman who’s had sex one man 100 times? What’s the logic behind that?
And saying that “you can tell that’s it’s been quite a lot by what you feel” seems to me the height of presumptuousness.
Yeah, I’m with Asmo. WTF? Really? First off, it’s just not true. Women’s vaginas vary for reasons that have damn all to do with how many penises have been inside of them. Second of all, even if it WERE true that sex “stretched out the vag”, then having sex with one well-endowed partner every night would do the same thing as having 100 1 night stands, right? In my sexual experience with a lot of people who’ve had a lot of sex, there is no correlation between sensation and number of previous partners.
It’s tough to make general statements on topics like this when all you’ve got is personal experience, but I’m average sized and have not had this problem with any but one woman who confessed to what I thought was a particularly high (~75 or so, male and female) number of partners and who had a vibrator that was of dimensions you wouldn’t normally see in nature outside of porn or the zoo. I’ll concede that I may have the causal relationship reversed, or that there may have been other confounding issues there.
a vibrator that was of dimensions you wouldn’t normally see in nature
Ah. I am having such a happy image of vibrators in nature right now, perhaps grazing at the watering hole? Diminutive and modest, faintly buzzing, cheerful.
Look! What a treat! There’s a rare Jimmyjane scurrying under the dense canopy of the rainforest!
I am so not getting involved in this conversation.
“There’s a rare Jimmyjane scurrying under the dense canopy of the rainforest!”
OMFG, too good! (My favorite brand, too!)
Seriously, Tom, women can be tight as hell down there after they’ve had a looooooootttttt of action. I keep it tight with Kegels!
Re: It’s about tricking someone into adopting a child that may or may not be theirs.
It’s also about being responsible for at least one (and if that commenter ‘Alexa’ on the other thread is to believed, two) abortions, for which he has exhibited a total lack of remorse and guilt. Honestly, the moral absurdity of this blog is beyond parody. What I find highly amusing is that Mr. Schwyzer expects us to take him seriously as any kind of authority, given his history of moral turpitude.
Re: Many people do become jaded with the more romantic experience they have.
Yup, this is exactly why men often prefer women who have not had a lot of sexual partners.
Re: And I will also repeat — and also for the umpteenth time — that someone who has made romantic (never mind sexual) connections since high school may not be able to grasp the perspective of someone who’s had a couple extra decades of loneliness, with all the related time to think about things.
Exhibit A, being Mr. Schwyzer himself.
Enough with the pile-on’s, people; I don’t see how it helps, and what’s worse, it is boring. If anyone finds anyone/anything here that turpitudinous, or whatever the adjective is, and it bothers them that much, there’s other blogs they can hang out on. Instead of subjecting themselves to the knowledge of said turpitude, for the slight reward of getting to dump on someone whose youthful days weren’t perfect like their own.
Good clarification, Pthalo, that being someone’s first can be a privilege to be grateful for, and a responsibility to uphold, instead of a prize to carry away. And yes, Tom, there are always new firsts. And thanks, Asmo, for blowing up the size myth.
Hugo, is there something wrong with the Thursday poem post? I can’t get the comment thing to load.
[Had something else to say, but distracted by flock of vibrators taking off from below the window]
Angiportus: “I think all this obsession with being the 1st for whatever is just competition, just wanting to outdo everyone else.”
No, it isn’t that at all. Nothing I wrote was even remotely about a person “bagging” a long list of neophytes (either romantically or sexually) — though that’s what it morphed into after what I wrote was misrepresented three times over and even on another blog. I was writing about one person looking for one person, one whose similar past makes her/him a more likely candidate as a soul-mate (if I could only get some of you to think in other-than-sexual terms for one day).
Re: I was writing about one person looking for one person, one whose similar past makes her/him a more likely candidate as a soul-mate
Just so, BMMG 39. It’s perfectly natural and healthy for sexually inexperienced men to be attracted to sexually inexperienced women, as opposed to looking for the female equivelent of Mr. Schwyzer, who’s been around the block so many times that he runs a tab at the corner store.
The number of partners=vaginal size myth would seem to be pretty much busted by the fact that mothers do not have baby sized vaginas after giving birth.
My apologies, bmmg39, I didn’t mean to say that you were one of the competitive ones, only that some other folks seem to be.
I wonder someone hasn’t started a myth about penile erosion due to “excessive” sexual experience. One stupidity against another…but I guess we really don’t need any more such myths.
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