Do you regret losing your virginity

Common Feelings After Losing Virginity | Do You Regret It?

It's normal to have mixed feelings after losing your virginity. If you regret losing your virginity, you should know that it’s pretty common to feel that way and it doesn’t have to define you or your sex life forever. The reality of having sex for the first time is often nothing like the fantasy, but sex tends to get better with time. Read on as we examine a few of the main reasons why people tend to regret losing their virginity and some helpful ideas for moving beyond them.

Disclaimer: We’re gonna be using the term ‘losing your virginity’ throughout this article as this is what having sex for the first time is commonly referred to. However, it’s important to note that the concept of ‘virginity’ and even having something to ‘lose’ in the first place is fairly outdated and doesn’t align with our values.

Don’t let your feelings after losing your virginity ruin your self worth

Losing your virginity is a massive deal and it more often than not can be a major disappointment. But don’t let a bad first experience damage your self-worth and put you off sex for life. You’re certainly not the first person to feel this way and you will not be the last. It does get better. Honest.

If you regret losing your virginity because the sex was terrible

Sex was built up to be an intense, pleasurable experience. Instead it was awkward, clumsy, and maybe a little bit painful, so now you’re wondering:

a) if you did it wrong, and

b) what the hell all the fuss is about?

Kate Monro, an author who spent years researching virginity, says you shouldn’t let a bad first time put you off. “Don’t expect fireworks,” she says. “Like any other skill, sex is something you get better at over time. Don’t use your virginity as a barometer of how good your sex life is going to be.”

Think about what may have made the sex so depressingly un-earth moving. Were you comfortable enough with your partner? Was there enough foreplay? Did you really feel ready? Learn from the experience, and if you feel you want to, try again (and again) and see if you can improve things.

If you were treated like crap/ignored after losing your virginity

Ouch. This will sting. You may feel really hurt by this and you might still have feelings the person, which sucks. You may be even considering sleeping with them again to mend things. Unfortunately, this is one of those awkward situations where the only positive outcome is you learn some valuable lessons.

“People behave really badly around sex,” says agony aunt, Anita Naik. “Even if you trust the person they can still let you down. But beating yourself up will get you nowhere. Learn from it and make sure you know exactly where you stand with the next person you sleep with.”

If people are spreading rumours about you

Sex is a complicated activity involving organs that tend to misbehave. Whether you come quickly, have massive balls, hairy nipples or pull odd faces when you orgasm – all this is normal. Yet it’s humiliating and deeply upsetting if your sex partner broadcasts your personal details to the entire school/college/internet/universe. How do you live down the rumours?

“You just have to ignore them and put it down to experience,” Anita says. “As with most rumours, it will be about someone else next week and will blow over.”

People will quickly forget about the rumours, but your emotional scars may take longer to heal. Again, you can only learn from the situation. Bodies come in all shapes and sizes, you’re not a freak, and you can rest assured what you think is a terrible deformity is probably pretty common.

If you’ve realised you weren’t ready for sex

You thought you were, or maybe you knew you weren’t but did it anyway to please somebody. Either way, you slept with someone before you were ‘ready’ and now you’re scared you have to do it again.

Firstly, don’t succumb to pressure to have more sex a second time. Sex isn’t a merry-go-round ride you’re not allowed off once you’ve hopped on. Be honest with your partner and explain you may need more time. If you don’t feel comfortable having this conversation then you’re probably not ready to have sex with them.

It’s also worth looking back to understand what put you off having sex again. Was it painful? Maybe you need more foreplay. Did your partner not make you feel loved enough afterwards? Discuss what they can do to make you feel more secure.

Sure, it’s a shame your virginity loss had to be a tough life lesson instead of a pleasurable experience. But remember it’s called a ‘first’ time for a reason. Sex is a massive learning process and losing your virginity is only the starting block to a life of enjoyable shags – as and when you’re ready for them.

Further support

The Mix have tonnes of resources on virginity and sex. Head over to our virginity hub here to learn more. You could also share your thoughts and feelings on our discussion boards, where you’ll find plenty of people with their own stories about how they regret losing their virginity.

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I Regret Losing My Virginity to Someone I Didn't Care About

It's one of those things you remember forever. Significant moments in time that act as bookmarks for the various chapters in your life, like the time I lost my virginity in a one-night stand my freshman year of college, after I puked in the hallway of my dorm because I was so nervous and drank too much.

After starting my freshman year of college, I was quickly swept up in the culture of drinking and hooking up. And the fact that I was a virgin became something I was embarrassed of. I wanted to shed it from my identity as soon as I could, so I started to look at it like pulling off a bandage — I wanted to get it over with. I had my sights set on the local womanizing student athlete. Everyone told me he was a bad guy. The older lacrosse player with long hair and the missing tooth I inexplicably found attractive. The kind who did a lot of drugs and slept with a different girl every weekend. But how bad could he really be?

I was very naive.

We slept together, and in the days that followed, I was happy. I had accomplished something I had wanted to do, and I glowed in the validation I had received from someone's willingness to touch my naked body. Days bled into a few weeks, during which some of my friends danced around the subject, like there was something going on that I didn't know about. And it turns out there was; shortly after our encounter, that guy tweeted a mean message disparaging me and my weight. He compared me to a dragon he had "slayed," and everyone knew it was about me.

I wish I had waited and chosen to experience losing my virginity with someone who respected me. I wish someone had told me what I deserved.

It was a gut punch. I was embarrassed and began to double down on my growing belief that I was undesirable and unworthy of kindness and affection. I still had to see him around at bars and parties, and whenever I would, my stomach would get in angry and sad knots. I also started compulsively talking about it, mostly crying about it when I got drunk. Ultimately, I transferred out of that school at the end of my sophomore year. In the period that followed, I pushed to distance myself from the pain, becoming very sexually cavalier. I developed a penchant for recklessness. I did not value myself; I told myself I didn't care. I became available to whomever wanted me, contorting myself mentally, emotionally, and physically for a brief chance at connection and fleeting approval. This pattern of self-destructive behavior continued for many years until I began to learn to love myself, finding beauty in my flaws and power in my intelligence and strength. Of course, this is an ongoing process. I fight to love myself every day, living in a world that provides me with countless reasons I shouldn't.

Now, seven years later, I think back on this event with mixed emotions. In many ways, I'm still appalled. At my own behavior, the behavior of my peers, the behavior of certain men I chose to spend my time with, the treatment I so blindly accepted. I feel immense sympathy for the girl who had to experience this. I want to go back in time and tell her I love her and I'm sorry this happened. In retrospect, this event played a defining role in the early stages of my sexual consciousness, largely because it proved to be so traumatic that it permeated every sexual encounter for years after. I regret not being kinder to myself. While I disagree in the fetishization of virginity and the pomp and circumstance our society has assigned to this natural phase of growing up, I do wish I had waited and chosen to experience losing my virginity with someone who respected me. I wish someone had told me what I deserved. I wish I knew what I know now — that I deserve respect, this behavior was not normal, and this was not how sexual interactions were supposed to happen.

But there is a silver lining. I am glad for the growth I went through, each experience an indispensable stepping stone on the journey to developing the perspective I have today; I'm happy with the person that I am now. While I'm far from having everything figured out, the life I now live was hard won. I now know better. I learned to feel compassion for the person that hurt me, knowing what a sad life it must be to regularly participate in those types of degrading interactions. Men of integrity respect others, including the women they are lucky enough to have welcome them into their personal temple. I feel pity for the men who don't understand how to treat the women around them, romantic or otherwise. In the end, these things matter.

When people do sh*tty things to us, we can't fade into silence out of embarrassment. That only protects and emboldens abusers to continue their selfish and destructive behavior. While it hurts to think about bad things that have happened to me in the past, it's important to share my story. It's therapeutic and cathartic to put (digital) pen to paper and record the experiences that make up the fabric of my identity. I hope that through my actions, I can help influence those around me to develop a full and healthy sense of self, so they have the confidence to demand what they deserve. We all deserve to believe wholeheartedly in our own beauty and inherent worth.

If you or a loved one are in need of any help, the Office on Women's Health has several resources here, including links to national hotlines.

Image Source: Unsplash / Julia Caesar

I regret the loss of virginity - 2 advice from psychologists, consultations

Nastya 11/15/2014

Hello! Help me please, I don’t know how to behave??? Last week I turned 17 years old and I slept with my boyfriend. I’m crying, I think that I had to wait for the worthy and give him my innocence. After all, during this time, the guy did not show by his actions that he needed me. My parents don’t like him either, they say you will find something worthier and better, think with your head be a fool. I’m very ashamed in front of them. I punish myself for this and I can understand whether I love him or not. I’m afraid that he will tell his friends that we were sleeping and I’m not at all sure that he needs me, only the buzz and his friends are important for ( ((((What a fool I am.

Foolish loss of virginity - stupidity, which you can regret for the rest of your life - Asking question

Evgeniya Drovnyashina

I am 22 years old. And not so long ago I lost my virginity. I then had a fight with my only best friend, and then I thought it was forever. I was very worried about this. And I couldn't take my mind off it.
Then, before that, I quarreled with my mother, just on the topic of sex, and her claims that I was supposedly 22 and I didn’t have a boyfriend, that she was afraid that she would never have grandchildren. I was so angry with the fact that it seemed to her that it didn’t matter how and from whom I should give birth to her grandson. And I was also terribly angry that my brother was able to achieve the respect of his mother by bringing a girl into the house, for finishing off whom he takes money from my mother and from me. And the mother so easily closed her eyes to the fact that the brother, although he brought a girl with whom he could have something, nevertheless remained the same lazybones and collar. It was another reason why I lost my virginity. Even before I had a fight with a friend, we talked about the fact that I did not have a boyfriend. And he scared me that if I delay losing my virginity, then this will have consequences in the form of the fact that I will be afraid of people's touches. And since I'm really afraid of people's touches, I got worried, and decided to solve this issue - to try once, and forget about the existence of sex until the appearance of "that one" that can not be found.
I don't blame anyone, except that no one warned me that I might not feel satisfied the first time. Maybe this fact would make me think about what might not be worth doing.
And now I, like any girl who acted stupidly, sit and regret that I lost my innocence with a person I did not like, who, moreover, got what he wanted and threw it.
Sometimes thoughts of suicide come to mind, and about the option of how to commit suicide.
How can I live on? How can I justify myself to myself that I have not become worse because I so stupidly decided to lose this very virginity? And does my act mean that now I will definitely never have a serious relationship with a guy?

life
loss
virginity
stupidity

Diamond

Stupidity - losing your virginity at 22!
She should have been lost back at 16 and now don't toil!

Svetlana Erofeevskaya

Your reasoning, but the virgins in the ears.

and I was raped at the age of 15, nothing is alive, I forgot everything

JSC

Anna Orekhova

This is too long a gimp. Don't read. It's all little things. Life is long, long, everything will change and new questions and problems will come, and this garbage will be forgotten. except that it will sometimes scrape at heart.

Olga Fedorova

Damn. Such a sea. Who were fucked roughly and abandoned. you are not special in this. so stop feeling sorry for yourself and fill your head with thoughts about it. Otherwise, you will see a really needed guy who will fight against your depression and go to another

Ekaterina Plotnikova

Just forgive yourself for your mistake. Nothing to think about death happened. There will still be a lot of pain, resentment and disappointment in life, after which the loss of virginity will seem like a trifle to you . ..

YAP

Yanina Polyakova

Well, and mom. . where is papa? You are not to blame for anything.

Katya Tokarczuk

it’s very good that you realize the mistake of what happened and regret what you did, but you shouldn’t hang yourself, life doesn’t end there, and who didn’t make a mistake? there are no sinless ones
this will be a lesson for you and live on
your time for love will come and don't despair

I'm 33 and I didn't have the proverbial love so what? Should I hang myself too? but no... I don't care

Igor Popov

No need to attach so much importance to this physiological detail.
You will not marry a gypsy or a Muslim, I hope. Yes, and for this reason they will not take it.
Stop punishing yourself, consider that you lost in a disaster, but remained alive).
Date guys and find your love.

АЧ

Alexandra Chernikova

Forget it, everyone has always fucked from a young age, now the old sheep interpret morality and high moral values for us, in fact, everything was the same as it is now, so you lost it and your beloved will understand everything, and if you don’t understand the forest

Tatiana

The pressure from parents and friends is the most destructive, of course, the nerves have given up, no support.