I wasn’t alone.
One of my friends told me that the first time she had sex, all she felt was wetness everywhere and pain. Another told me that her first time hurt so much that she ended up crying. These weren’t isolated experiences—they were common, shared, and yet rarely talked about openly before they happened.
That realization was both comforting and frustrating.
Comforting, because I understood I wasn’t the only one who had gone through something difficult.
Frustrating, because it made me question why no one had talked about it honestly beforehand.
In a lot of ways, that experience became a turning point for me. It forced me to learn things I hadn’t fully understood before—about the importance of foreplay, about arousal, about emotional comfort, and about how essential it is to feel safe and relaxed during intimacy.
Because without those things, everything changes.
