Over the past few weeks, myself and a few of my fellow Peakies have collected anonymous stories from people, sharing their “first time.” Most are funny; others are awkward; a few are romantic; some are heartbreaking. The one thing they have in common? They’re all real stories from real SFU students.

I received a few frustrated messages from those who haven’t had a first time yet, and I want to make clear that, in putting together this feature, my intent was not to romanticize sex, or make people feel like they were weird for not having it — or, for that matter, for having it. Everyone’s got a different story to tell, and this article is all about articulating the scope and variety of those experiences.

I’d also like to recognize the bravery of those of you who submitted your stories of rape and sexual assault. Unfortunately, a large percentage of people in the world — and surely a sizeable chunk of the SFU student body — are survivors who have had sexual assault as their first experience, and it’s remarkably courageous to come out and share your story with the student body. I think it’s important that we as students recognize and give voice to these experiences.

Although we had to cut a few stories for print,  I’ve included all acceptable submissions here.

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Well, it wasn’t exactly romantic. Or enjoyable. It quickly ended in “OUCH”. However later that night I did make love again. Except that time it was to a box of chocolates…

– Female, 2nd Year, Political Science

Wow, I just realized by taking this survey that my REAL first time was a straight-up lesbian experience that included my best friend, a bottle of tequila, and a kiddie pool in the back yard. She had just come home from a vacation in the Dominican Republic. It was June, and we were in high school. We skipped class all day because it was really sunny out, and we wanted to chill in her new wading pool that her mom had bought because their two overweight pugs always got really overheated in the summer and needed a place to keep cool outside. My memory of this is hazy, but I know we drank a 2’6 of tequila, split the tequila worm, and ditched our bathing suits, along with our dignity. After that, I remember discovering what it’s like to have your face in a vagina. We never talked about it after, and I don’t really drink tequila anymore.

– Female, 4th Year, Cognitive Science

My first time was very wild and rough. Drunk off of my mind, my friend and I went to a club party. After a couple of hours, we decided that the club wasn’t that fun so we went back to her place. I remember drunkenly confessing that I’ve never had sex before so I decided to lose it that night to get over this “virginity” hump. We were gonna do it in the car but I drunkenly suggested that we should be more adventurous. So instead of comfort, it involved a large patch of wet grass and losing my shirt and my shoes. I do not remember if I orgasmed or not but I remember being fucking cold and wet. I found my lost belongings in a police station a couple of days later with cash still in my wallet! It was definitely an interesting night.

– Female, 4th Year, Communications

It was something out of a teenage rom-com. We were in the basement of my parent’s house watching a movie, as we had been doing for several nights over the last few weeks. Our sexy late-teenaged bodies got the best of us, and magic happened. And by magic, I mean three-second sex. For both of us. In the least, we both shared comparative levels of satisfaction/shame/confusion over what just occurred. La petit mort.

– Male, 4th Year, English

Well, I was about 15 years old and had been messing with the internet to find someone to have sex with, I was very curious as a 15 years old boy will always be. Then at some point this 32 years old guy who was very handsome invited me to his place… I was very afraid but went for it. He was handsome alright, but will tell ya that his “goods” were very short-sized… One would say “well, at least it didn’t hurt then” but it did hurt, a lot. And after it I felt very gross, and on my way back home I felt like everyone knew what I had just done, and felt very ashamed… It took me about a year until I had sex again.

– Male, 2nd Year, Criminology

Ugh god it was awful. We were waiting for my period to stop and I had Cat Stevens playing on my iPod. He came before he even got all the way in. We tried again later and same deal. Technically, I lost my virginity, but it was the most frustratingly unsatisfying night of my life. He didn’t offer to help me out either and I was too shy to ask. Blegh!

– Female, 3rd Year, Communications

Call me old-fashioned (which I am) but my first time (and second through seventh) was on my wedding night. It was well worth the wait, though I do recall being frustrated by how many tiny clasps are on a wedding dress. There is something amazing about being a first-time explorer with the person you are going to be with for the rest of your life.

– Male, 1st Year, History

I had been dating my boyfriend for 3 months it was our anniversary. We were both 16. He had just won a wrestling match and had dedicated his win to me and gave me his medal. My parents were out at a basketball game that night. I told him I wanted to lose it to him that night. He had already been with 3-4 girls. We did it on the pull-out sofa bed in my spare room. I lit candles in the room, turned off the lights, and put on Norah Jones. It was a very squeaky, 20 year old bed. He put his penis inside me, and it was so small that I asked him, “is it in yet?” He was very surprised, but I didn’t think much of it it at the time because I wasn’t sure what to expect. I thought he would put it in and I would explode with pleasure or something. As he started thrusting into me, it was very uncomfortable as I was not aroused. It didn’t hurt though. I told him I didn’t really feel much, and he continued until he came. It was probably 5 minutes, but it felt more like 30 seconds because I was so unimpressed. He rolled over and I remember just laying there listening to Norah Jones’s “Don’t Know Why” playing in the background, where the chorus includes “don’t know why I didn’t come…” It was too close to home. I told him I didn’t have any orgasmic epiphany and he said, “that’s not my problem.” I wish I could say that was the first and last time I ever had sex with him, but it wasn’t. We had sex many, many times after; and, although things did improve I never orgasmed with him. After we broke up and I had sex with my second partner for the first time my mind was blown. Orgasm city! It was casual, I wasn’t invested in him emotionally, and I could completely relax and not care what happened. To this day, sex with him was the best sex I’ve ever had. Although I’ve slept with more people over the years, I’m convinced the best sex happens when you don’t have expectations and can completely let go and be present. For me, that’s always been when I’m not very emotionally attached. Or maybe really drunk.

– Female, Graduate Student, Business

I was not the only one who scored during the Vancouver Olympics.

– Female, 3rd Year, Business

My first time was a steamy, surreal and a slightly uncomfortable experience. We were 17, and both her and I worked at the same place. After work we decided to consume a little alcohol and go for an evening drive (I am aware this is illegal). We’d both been crushing on each other for some time, so I had an inkling the night may turn out the way it did, before the fact. We parked (with my parents’ small car… sorry mom and dad) in a deserted parking lot. These aren’t difficult to find, being from a small town. We leaned in and kissed, then our hands started to get busy. She then whipped out a condom from her purse and said “You wanna?” The whole ordeal lasted about 20 minutes, and I was unsure, at the time, whether this was too long or too short of a duration. It was pleasurable, but I’ll admit I was in slight disbelief that this was even happening! I mean, sex is the thing you see in the movies, or hear rumours about in school. Furthermore, I found it comedically uncomfortable, as we were crammed together in this tiny Honda Civic with the front seat down and her on top of me. My knee kept banging into the steering wheel (I think that’s what it was?), but I didn’t want to say anything for fear of ruining the moment. Because my first time involved more thinking rather than feeling, this was also when I learned just how artificial sex can really be. Here we were moaning and groaning like we’d been doing it for years, when really I found this rather unnecessary. It felt so forced. On the other hand, sex without any noise is slightly awkward, so I thought it better to groan and huff like they do in the movies. The finish was fun, but on the whole I found that sex in a car is not really something I’d want to repeat. While I came out of it with a high school girlfriend, I also came out of it with a bruise on my knee and shame every time I look (or sit) at that car seat. I never told my parents for obvious reasons. Since then, sex has always been in a comfortable bed.

– Male, 3rd Year, Communications

I had intercourse for the first time when I was 14. It was with my boyfriend at the time, 15, and our parents had been working in tandem for months to make sure that we were never in a bedroom together behind a closed door. However, one Saturday afternoon at his place, his family announced they were off to the grocery store and we both knew that this would be the end to our pent-up pubescent urges. So, we closed the bedroom door for the first time in weeks and turned the volume on his TV up to distract anyone if they returned early (we thought this was exceptionally clever). I had started birth control weeks ago after realizing I wanted to have sex, but I still insisted that we use a condom. I had expected it to be painful in a skin-stretching sort of way, but it wasn’t — it was painful in a friction sort of way because I was so anxious and self-conscious. I remember not knowing what sounds to make, having “learned” how to have sex through movies and porn, so I opted to just breathing really heavily, even though it wasn’t natural. Overall, it wasn’t a life-changing experience as I had expected it to be, and luckily my sex life has become immensely fulfilling because experiences like this one made me realize that I needed to learn how to communicate what I want in order to get it.

– Female, 2nd Year, Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies

My first time was when I was fifteen. An older guy at my school wanted to try out some things that he’d been reading about on the internet, fantasies that he boasted about to the girls while we pretended not to be squeamish. After class, he surprised me in the gym change room, and did what he wanted. It was not awkward, but agonizing. It was not intimate, but invasive. It was not romantic; it was rape. The trauma has followed me for the years since then. Peak editors, I hope you are aware in asking students for our “first time” experiences that a shocking number of us have lost our virginity to rape. I am submitting this not because I feel a need to share it with the student body at large, but because I fear that experiences like mine, which are more common than many people would like to believe, become silenced by this sort of article. I hope you will acknowledge that this is a reality for many of your readers, regardless of whether you publish submissions such as mine.

– Female, Graduate Student, History

I don’t count the first time I gave head as my first time — that encounter wasn’t about me. I count the first time I took off my pants for someone else’s enjoyment. It wasn’t great. His idea of eroticism was roughly jamming fingers in me after I told him I was too nervous and tense to be able to handle a cock — I tried, but I was a frightened little virgin and he was rough, clueless, and over-endowed. I guess my muscles had better instincts about the nature of that relationship than I did. I came by sheer force of will so it would be over. I was bleeding and sore as hell the next day. He didn’t get off — I still feel half like a failure, half spitefully pleased about that.

– Trans Man, 3rd Year, English

My first time was in a canoe. On a small lake in Ontario, lulled by the sound of black flies drawing ever closer to our bared flesh. It is not an encounter I am ever likely to forget.

– Female, Graduate Student, English Literature

We were in my apartment after I met her family for the first time at a party. They hadn’t paid much attention to either of us. She asked if I wanted to “do it.” I didn’t, and I said so. In the few, tumultuous months we had been “together” we had messed around a bit but hadn’t yet “done the deed.” She was persistent. She took her clothes off. I told her to go home. She kissed me. I told her to leave. She took my clothes off. I still told her, “no.” It went against everything I was. She didn’t believe me. She pushed herself on me. I decided that if this was going to happen, then I would do it, not have it done to me. It only lasted a minute. I regretted it then. I regret it still.

– Male, Graduate Student, History

I had left home, got on a Greyhound bus headed for Prince George after meeting a woman online. She promised me shrimp fried rice and a place to stay for a few days as I prepared for a journey to California. My first time will forever be remembered for the shrimp fried rice.

– Male, 3rd Year, Political Science

Sixteen years old. Horny as hell and just wanted to do it so I could start doing it regularly! Under a time crunch we rushed to get it over with for the first time. No fireworks or 7 minutes in heaven sort of thing, I was never hung up on the romantic, lovey dovey first time fantasies. Quick and dirty, we did the deed!

– Female, 2nd Year, International Studies

I was so paranoid that my mother would learn that I started having sex that I took to washing my sheets daily. Really, this only tipped her off because what kind of teenager does laundry each day?

– Female, 5th Year, Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies

It was that awkward stage where my bed was still a kid’s size and hadn’t been replaced with a bigger model, so the two of us barely fit on it. We’d been dating for about a month, and her dream was to become a sexologist, so I think by the time we finally agreed to do the deed, she was motivated by scientific curiosity as much as anything else. She even put down a towel and described to me exactly what I should expect to happen, since she’d been studying it in detail for weeks: her hymen breaking, me cumming quickly, and so on. Naturally, she was right — it only lasted about as long as a pop song (and that’s being generous), and within about 20 minutes we were back to hate-watching reality TV shows together. To be honest, it was pretty unremarkable, although I bragged to my friends that I got to sleep with a sex doctor for the next year (or three).

– Male, 2nd Year, Communications

My first time was not a choice. It was not funny or intimate, but it was upfront. It was rape. I was 8 years old. Why did I choose to share this via The Peak’s web survey? Because I believe we are still quite ignorant of how many people share my story. For some, this survey brings back wonderful memories of young love, but for me it brings back pain and humiliation. I can’t help but wonder about the role a university newspaper should play in breaking down the cultural norms that promote or ignore sexual assault.

– Female, Graduate Student

The first time I had sex, it happened in my friends closet. He was having a house party, and for some reason I thought it would be a great spot for my boyfriend and I to fool around. While the party was going on outside my first time happened in the 3 by 3 ft. Closet. The kicker, I came out wearing my friends jeans so everyone knew I had my pants off.

– Female, 3rd Year, Criminology

My girl and I were going at it so hard we managed to break the headboard. Needless to say it was an awkward conversation afterwards with my parents to explain why I needed a new headboard.

– Male, 3rd Year, Molecular Biology and Biochemistry

It was in one of the lecture halls in WMC. We were bored and waiting for our friend to finish class so we snuck into an empty lecture hall and did it behind the prof’s podium. Thank god we had the condoms we were given during Week of Welcome.

– Female, 3rd Year, World Literature

I was 19, and it was maybe my second semester in university. I, without planning to, ended up skipping a morning class to get it on. Maybe it was the way the sun was coming through the window that convinced me this was the morning to do it, once and for all. It was fine, not painful but not necessarily pleasurable either. I had thought my partner was far more experienced than me, but as I found out a couple of years later, he had lied to me and had also been a virgin at the time. He also turned out to be pretty crazy though, so there’s that.

– Female, Graduate Student, English

…I think it was sex… half in. Half sex? Is there such a thing?

– Male, 4th Year, World Literature

It was probably the worst sex I’ve ever had. We hooked up on a trampoline in my best friend’s backyard, after drinking a bottle of creme de menthe he had stolen from his parent’s liquor cabinet. Everything was super blurry and kind of hurt and it was over pretty fast. I threw up afterwards. He told me he loved me, I walked back into the house and didn’t see him until the next Monday at school. And that would’ve been the end of it, had we not ended up reaching a place where we were friends again later on. It was Valentine’s Day and both of us had ended relationships in the previous month, so we decided to do this whole “ironic date” thing where we watched slasher movies and ate pizza. We ended up cuddling on the couch which led to making out which led to some really hot sex where I climaxed like eight times. Two years later we’re still together and happy as can be. So here’s the moral of the story, kids: it’s not just about waiting for the right person, it’s about waiting for the right time too.

– Male, 3rd Year, English

My first time was with a really good friend of mine. I didn’t want to have my first time be with a random stranger while drunk at a party, but I also did not want to worry and try to make it “perfect” with a boyfriend who I might one day break up with. So, after getting a little extra friendly with a long time friend of mine, I asked if he would be my first. We went to my house while my parents were out of town, and he waited until I asked for it before bringing out the condom. It was filled with communication, awkward movements, sudden noises, and everything I had hoped for in a first experience. Oh, and we ended up listening to the band Purity Ring while doing it, ironic.

– Female, 1st Year, Communications

It was in the suite of a luxurious hotel. There were candles, romantic music, champagne and flowers. The whole package. The sex that night was amazing and even better the morning after. Too bad he broke my heart just two months later.

– Female, 1st Year, Business

I was in first year university at SFU back in 2006. I was living in what is now the Barbra-Rae House campus residence. My friend and I were enjoying a few wobbly pops on the turf field behind McTaggart-Cowan Hall with a couple of gals that were on the school volleyball team. My goodness volleyball players have the nicest bottoms. After some lols and a bit of flirtation, my friend and I parted ways, each with a statuesque lady on our arm. Me and my girl went to her room on the seven floor of Colleen-Jewit House. She had a long-term boyfriend back home in some small BC town but that didn’t deter either of us. After an appropriate amount of vigorous foreplay, we began to make love. To my dismay, the fire alarm went off about an hour intro our encounter and the entire building was evacuated. We stood outside in the cold with 250 other residences in the cold March evening before we decided to go to my room and continue our adult play date. I remember, I was excited to pick the music were going to listen to and I recall thinking “I can’t believe I’m fucking to the Red Hot Chili Peppers right now!” They were my favourite band at the time. We were both quite inebriated during the sex, drinking throughout, so I was having a difficult time cumming. After roughly four hours of sex, I decided to walk her back to her room. Once back at her room, the goodnight kiss turned into one last round robin of boot knockin’. And finally, after one fire alarm, two room changes, countless alcoholic beverages and a five hour fornication marathon, I finally came and it was everything I’d hoped it be and more.

– Male, Graduate Student, Communications and Business

She was a hooker, and she liked it, and I liked it, and we all liked it. Then I left, I didn’t like it, she continued to like it, they all liked it. Later, I liked it again, but at some point she stoped to like it. They continued to like it.

– Male, 6th Year, Math

I was trying to pretend that I was pro since I have been watched some porns before. And it went good, she kept asking me if I was the first time.

– Male, 6th Year, Economics

My story is like most in how it starts. I thought I was in love and the said he loved me and said he wanted to be with me for a long time. I had nothing to do in the morning and he had decided to come over so we could hang out. It started off with him kissing me and naturally me kissing back— I mean I thought I loved him. His lips on mine felt amazing, I couldn’t think straight and as his hands began to wander I didn’t care where they ended up. Under my clothes they went and slowly found their way down, down, down… a gasp escaped my lips. Clothing was removed on both parts and my skin was very sensitive, I could feel every little brush of his lips on my shoulder, on my tummy, on my hips. I could feel his hands as they explored every part of me, from my hair to my toes and everywhere in between. Within minutes I was wet and ready to be taken, lust consumed me and I wanted… I don’t even know exactly what I wanted… I just WANTED. He put a rubber on and I opened for him expectant and waiting for the amazing feelings I was told would come, I knew there would be pain. But I knew it would pass and i was excited to finally experience what countless people had assumed I’d already done. He started and it was over in five minutes. I felt nothing, not even the pain. he got dressed and left. I never heard from him for about three months, he deleted me from Facebook and I only heard from him after the three months had passed for him to ask if I wanted to have sex again, because all he wanted was friends with benefits… So there it is… my first time. He was so small I didn’t feel it and I got nothing. Not even that first pain and I still don’t know what is so great about sex. that was one year ago when I was almost 18.

– Female, 1st Year, Linguistics

Short. Very short. Kind of shitty, in hind-sight, but I still felt like Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the movie 500 Days of Summer the next day.

– Male, Graduate Student, Political Science

TBH, pretty quick and a laughable mistake. With a friend I used to work with, we decided to have fun one night. She invited me to her UBC pad and we made love for like 10 minutes. Had a laugh in the morning, then had sex again, lol.

– Male, 4th Year, Business

I don’t really remember my first time. I wasn’t drunk or anything like that. In fact, I was in a loving, monogamous relationship and had been for six months. But even if I focus all my brain power on trying to recall that moment, it remains fuzzy. I can’t remember if it was awkward or lovely or painful or sweet or gross. Sorta anticlimactic, huh? I do remember he had a terribly small penis and his bedding was beige. So there’s that.

– Female, Graduate Student, French Literature