You wake up. It’s fairly early in the morning. You reach for your head, which is pounding. “What happened last night?” you ask yourself out loud, even though you vaguely remember. A million questions run through your head: “How much did I actually drink?” “Did we use protection?” “I wonder if I’ll see them at school.” And then you wonder if the other person remembers, too.
While some students think they have handled sex responsibly, not all students feel this way.
“When I’m [intoxicated], I always handle sex poorly,” an anonymous senior male said. “I thought I’d grow from my experiences, but I didn’t learn anything.”
The anonymous senior male said that he has had three partners.
“I was dating the first girl, and the connection was good,” he said.
The male said that he was not so connected with his next partner, who he met randomly while on vacation.
“We were both not in the right state of mind when we met up,” he said. “One thing led to another, and we started hooking up. I still had a girlfriend.”
The anonymous senior male said that although he had a condom with him, he forgot about it, and he didn’t use it.
“She kept saying she didn’t want to have sex because I didn’t have protection,” he said. “I didn’t ask her to have sex, but we did anyway. We didn’t have sex for very long, because we both passed out.”
The student said that his second partner was not even who he was originally going to hook up with that evening.
“I was sitting on my bed with a different girl than I woke up with the next morning,” the male student said.
The student said that when he returned home, he lied to his girlfriend about what happened, and even though they are not dating now, she still doesn’t know what actually occurred during his vacation.
“I couldn’t sleep for weeks,” the student said. “But I actually felt more irresponsible for not using a condom.”
The student said that after he broke up with his girlfriend a month or so after the incident, he had sex while intoxicated again.
“I met her randomly, also,” the student said. “I still don’t remember her name.”
The anonymous male said that he also repeated another mistake.
“I didn’t use protection again,” he said. “But I also felt emotionally irresponsible this time for not knowing as much as her name.”
The student said that it’s important to always carry a condom, but other things are important, as well.
“It’s very important to know the other party,” the student said. “I need to learn how to be more responsible.”
Senior Jon Vagnier said that he had sexual relations with someone he met on vacation, as well.
“I was 15, and she was my first partner,” Vagnier said.
Vagnier said that his feelings about his experience are mixed.
“It was definitely fun, but I’m not going to get that first experience again,” Vagnier said. “I wish I waited. I would have rather shared the experience with someone I knew more than [just] some random girl.”
Another anonymous senior male said that his first sexual experience was casual, also.
“We hooked up a couple times before, and when we went up to a room at a party, it just kind of happened,” the student said.
The anonymous male added that there wasn’t much discussion about having sex before he and his partner actually engaged in it.
“I walked out of the room first, and then she did,” the student said. “After that, it was obvious that everybody knew what happened. It didn’t really affect me that everyone knew, but I was worried about how it was going to affect her.”
The anonymous male said at a sports practice the next day, it was evident that everybody on his team also knew.
“I was kind of cocky I guess, but I was still worried about what she was
thinking and how she felt about what had just happened,” he said.
The student said that althoughhe used protection, he still felt irresponsible.
“It probably wasn’t responsible because the first time for a girl is most likely pictured to be more romantic than what actually happened,” he said. “It wasn’t completely random, but it wasn’t like we were going out for two years and had been talking about it for a while.”
Although the male said that his first experience with sex might not have been perfect, he added that his experience didn’t change his view of sex as a whole.
“If the girl’s ready, I’m ready,” the male student said. “It’s always up to her. That’s how it was before, and that’s how it still is.”
An anonymous senior female said that her first time was also unexpected.
“My first time was very spontaneous and out of nowhere,” the senior female said. “We were good friends that always hung out, and one afternoon it randomly happened.”
The student said that her first sexual experience was actually surprising.
“I remember thinking, ‘Wow, that just happened, and that isn’t what I thought it was going to be like,’” she said.
The female student said that the experience was somewhat forced, and she wasn’t really sure she wanted to have sex.
“He just kind of said, ‘Let’s have sex,’ and I said it wasn’t a good idea because he had a girlfriend at the time,” she said. “But after a while of him convincing me to, it just happened.”
The student explained that the experience ruined her friendship with the person.
“We didn’t really speak to each other again,” she said. “I regret it, because it was dumb to do it with that person, and it meant absolutely nothing.”
The student said that her second partner was a steady boyfriend whom she wanted to have sex with, but that was not the case for her third partner, who she was not dating.
“It was a party scenario, and I was intoxicated,” she said. “I felt a little bit of pressure because I had no idea what was going on and they wanted it to happen.”
The anonymous female said that despite the bit of pressure she felt, she still remains good friends with the person who it happened with, although she does somewhat regret the experience.
“I definitely wouldn’t have done that if I wasn’t drunk,” she said.
The second anonymous male, on the other hand, said that he is content with the decisions he has made thus far.
“Even though I haven’t always been responsible, I still have no regrets,” he said. “I feel that everything happens for a reason.”
Unlike the first anonymous senior male, the anonymous female student said that she has learned a lot from her experiences.
“You should be very wise when drinking and not have it happen because you’ll regret it,” she said. “Have sex with someone who you’ll stay friends with afterwards, and don’t feel pressured into doing it if you don’t want to.”
