Amrita (name changed) is a 26-year-old Marketing Professional.
I lost my virginity at 18 to my first boyfriend right before he left to study abroad. We didn’t really want to do the whole long distance thing so when he got the student visa we knew that it was over for us as a couple. We had been together for two years and suddenly we were breaking up because he was going away. We were both feeling very emotional about it so a week before he left, we had sex for the first time.
Big deal?
When I told my friends about it they just couldn’t believe me and I was so disappointed by their reaction. We had always thought that making a big deal about virginity was such an old-fashioned thing and we could never be accused of being old fashioned. After all we went to English medium convent schools, wore western clothes, idolized characters from American TV shows and most importantly we all had boyfriends by the time we were in the 11th standard. We were the embodiment of the modern girls that most middle class parents in Delhi were terrified of.
Modern girls
But it turns out that our parents and their friends had nothing to worry about because my friends’ reaction made me realise that we were okay with the idea of premarital sex but only in theory. We had spoken about it so many times but they couldn’t believe that I had actually gone ahead and done it.
We knew of family friends who had dated a string of modern girls for years and then married some sweet virginal girl their mothers and relatives found for them. Maybe this was the reason why despite having boyfriends really early on we had never ever crossed that line.
Disapproval
Sometimes I think that they would have accepted it more easily if I had done it while I was still in a relationship. But I guess it’s my fault as well because in my attempt to sound casual about it I made it seem like a spur of the moment thing to them. But the truth is that he was a great guy and we had been so close to each other for two years, it was only when we were breaking up that I realized I wanted my first time to be with him.
Anyway after the initial disbelief my friends came around to the idea. I knew they didn't fully approve of it but as big city girls they had a reputation to maintain so we all went back to pretending that losing my virginity wasn’t a big deal.
This article was first published 26-04-2013.
Virginity - still a big deal? Leave a comment below or join the discussion on Facebook.