So how old were you when you first started having sexual feelings?

Okay, for anyone who's comfortable talking about this stuff: How old were you when you first started having sexual feelings? And if you're very comfortable with this subject, then what first prompted those feelings? And how old were you when you learned what sex was? I'm just being nosy here, and I'll share my own information:

I was around 9 or 10 when I first started to have sexual feelings (I had no idea what sexuality was so I didn't understand it). I've made it abundantly clear in my other thread what prompted those feelings (I guess I was a pervert well before I ever knew what the word meant!). I was 11 years old when I learned how to masturbate (still had no idea what sex was or that that was sexual in nature). (To this day I remember my shock at stumbling on the definition of the word "masturbate" and realizing what I'd been doing!) I was around 15 when I actually learned what sexual intercourse was (I led a very sheltered life or I might have learned that earlier on). And I was 20 when I lost my virginity!

I should definitely get "Too Much Information" Points for this thread.

{On a side note, I favor sex education being taught from a very early age since it would have helped me out to understand my feelings. But I'll save that for another thread.}

Sidony

i first heard about sex from my friends when i was 7. and i remember the incredulity: why on earth would people want to do THAT for????? then i found this book at the library. it said something about how it is like 'an itch that feels like it needs to be scratched' and that seemed to make sense to me lol. it also confirmed what my friends had said.

i remember learning to masterbate (to orgasm) when i was 14. i think i made a conscious decision to try it and it took a couple of times for me to figure it out.

sexual feelings... not sure about that. i'm fairly sure that i had sexual activity before i developed desire for another to touch me in that way.

apparantly infants figure out that touching themself feels good. boys more than girls (i guess the penis is more salient). i don't remember any of that though.

does anybody remember being toilet trained? i'm asking because (don't ask me how) but people here got into a conversation about that the other day and i couldn't believe that they remembered. i have no memories of that at all. (not to detract from the current questions).

I remember sexual feelings and masturbating (at first, it was just rubbing against a pillow or a blanket bunched up) around the age of 7 or 8. I knew how babies were made around that time, or maybe 6 or 7, because my mom told me, and I immediately ran and told my best friend, who was my next-door neighbor!

I probably started rubbing with my fingers on the outside of my panties around 8-10. I also had fantasies, but I'll not share them here, now. I was very interested in reading and learning about sex, so I read a lot of books and magazines on the topic, plus watched a bunch of documentaries. I learned both pleasure and health information, plus I think it was in my teens when I started reading erotica and erotic comics. I knew more about sex than my friends, who were having sex. (I wasn't.)

Yes, you're right, Alexandra. Infants are often found to masturbate.

I do remember being toilet trained. I can remember at least two specific "sessions."

Oh! I'm editing this to add, I didn't have sex until very close to my 23rd birthday.

I'm not really sure, but I know it was very young. I'm a survivor of sexual abuse so I was exposed to alot at a very young age which, in turn, created feelings and thoughts that weren't understood but still there due to exposure.

I don't know when I had my own feelings for something real or normal/average? It was always weird for me.

I do know that I first enjoyed sex at age 24 but I really have no clue when the sexual feelings started for me that came from within me and not from an outside source. Alot of that time is still "dark".

This is interesting for me to read. Thank you for posting it!

KD

KD

I think I was fairly young when I had sexual feelings, but can't nail down an age. I remember getting pretty hot an heavy with a boyfriend at 14, but we didn't have sex. I enjoyed fooling around a lot though. I was a virgin until I was 21. But then I busted out the gates with a vengeance. Now I definetly have some issues surrounding sex that I've been working on. I had it in my head that a guy wouldn't like me unless I slept with him. I had also decided that men needed sex all the time and I had better do it all the time to keep them happy. I've worked through a lot of that, and these days sex is much more enjoyable for me, because I only do it if I want to.

I can really take it or leave it though. Its been about a month and I don't miss it yet haha! I mostly miss being close to someone. I crave that. Just cuddling, watching a movie on the couch, holding hands. My last relationship was kinda strange, because he was an ex boyfriend and I told him we had to wait for sex. I had decided I needed time to date a guy before we hopped in the sack. So we waited about a month and a half, even though we had been intimate in the past. I really see now that I need that period to see, for myself, that the guy is in it for more than just sex, because my sexual feelings were incredibly jaded.

Getting back on topic....I think my parents explained sex to me fairly early, probably around 12? Because the kids at school were starting to talk and I was asking questions. I don't know how I ended up with such jaded ideas as a young adult.

Thanks for this thread!

~Rayna

Hmm -

Well, it was during the year my family moved to Florida..... so I was 12 years old - and the boy that stirred these feelings in me was a neighborhood friend that lived four houses down from us and I often played / hung around with him with in a group of kids (boys & girls).

While I had not had any sexual relations with a boy - I did know of sexuality, for I was sexual abused as a child.....

My high school boyfriend (my husband now - 20 yrs) was the first and only guy I ever has intercourse with..... at age 16, and after 6 months of him trying to go past the point of now return.

LoVe,
Rhapsody -

Omg you guys dont know how better you make me feel. I started when i was around 7 and i disgusted myself. I thought i was the most terrible thing in the whole world. I didnt even know what i was doing!!! but i felt dirty. Thanks for making me feel...alittle less weird

Freud talks a lot about infants touching themselves and playing with themselves and about how the way that parents handle that can have lasting consequences. Apparantly some parents say things like 'if you play with it it will fall off!' or 'that is dirty!' and that can result in the kid feeling really ashamed about that. or if the parents react with disgust or by slapping their hands or whatever. sometimes religious beliefs can impact too.

i haven't spent enough time around kids to know...

and i don't have memories before i was 14 but that doesn't mean i didn't do anything until then...

Kaplan and Saddock (in their book on psychiatry) say that you shouldn't ask 'do you masterbate'? you should ask 'how often do you masterbate'? because people tend to say 'no' in response to the first question but are more likely to give an honest answer in response to the second.

i guess this kinda freaks me out a little bit given how relevant it is to all i am going thru right now- age 6 seems VERY young to be doing anything (on a very regular basis)- i have never given it much thought til reading this but now i feel like some of my 'issues' are being...validated...by this...

I agree....what a relief to find out that we're not as weird as we thought......I can remember doing what I called "excersises" when I was very young. What it was was the beginnings of masterbation.

This is why I believe sex education (not just what's taught in school, but stuff you can find in good books on sexuality). I was embarrassed at first about masturbation, and wouldn't admit I did it, even when I knew it was common, but I realized there was no shame in it, and almost everyone did it, so I decided to be open about it (meaning, I didn't go around saying, "Hi, I masturbate!" but that I wouldn't deny it if it came up or I would admit it if I got into a conversation about masturbation--not that that happened often ). At first, I was still embarrassed, but I admitted it, anyway, and soon, it was no big deal. I don't think anyone made fun of me, but if they had, I'd have been ok with it. I'd grown comfortable with the topic, and I knew, even if they wouldn't admit it themselves, the majority was doing the same thing.

These days, people are more open to admitting it, and that's good. Masturbation is how we learn to please ourselves, so we can teach our lovers what we like. It makes perfect sense, that it's natural to explore our own bodies before we let someone else explore it. I supported Jocelyn Elders when she promoted masturbation.

Yeah it does make sense. I believe in age appropriate sex education too. I guess there are a lot of things that it is okay to do in private but not public. Masterbating is one, and picking your nose is another, lol. I remember being really impressed with that book I found when I was 7. It was very age appropriate.

The stuff we did at school was a little bit late (truth be told). We had a 'puberty change' unit at our last year of primary school (maybe 9 or 10) but I remember that a couple of girls had got their period already. Apparantly the age is getting younger over time (with better nutrition and the like).

We did the unit again (but in more detail) both years of intermediate school (10-12). That was better. I don't remember anything about masterbation specifically though I remember them talking about wet dreams. I'm not sure they were allowed to talk about 'sex' and so maybe they weren't allowed to talk about masterbation? Not sure... Apparantly one of the teachers brought her IUD in so her students could take a look (yukko!) so maybe some teachers did talk about that. I mean if they are talking about birth control...

There was meant to be a proper sex ed. unit in our second year of High School (around age 14). I skipped health that year though so I never got to do that. Apparantly it was quite good. Education about facts of development and varieties of birth control. Also some discussion about relationships and the different values / limits / boundaries that people have. Also a big speel on 'no means no' and about myths like 'once i get an erection i just have to screw you because otherwise it hurts' etc.

I don't know. I don't have any memories of being a child at all. But my brother tells me he remembers when I was three and my holding myself telling people sometimes I hurt down there and sometimes it felt tickly down there. So Im guessing at 2 or or 3 years old.

One of the problems with school sexual education when it was accurate information was that they neglected to also teach the emotional consequences of sex. We learned the biological stuff, but not what to expect in terms of how we felt after sex, what happens with relationships, etc.

These days, schools accepting government funds have to teach abstinence and give misleading and even false information on sex. I'm not against teaching that abstinence is a great idea until you're truly ready for sex, and the only way to guarantee you won't get an STD (barring rape or perhaps extremely unlikely scenarios). Plus, the texts are sexist, and that offends me as a feminist. See http://www.nonewmoney.org/ for some of the things they're teaching. They're told to emphasize the failure rates of condoms, but what they don't tell children is, the higher number they give is when the condom is used improperly. It really disgusts me.

And, sure enough, teen pregnancy is rising.

I just wanted to gently stear the conversation back towards its original topic of "how old were you when you first started having sexual feelings?"

Sex ed is a very interesting topic though. Perhaps a new thread?

Thanks,
Rayna

Let’s see I started to have sexual feelings when I was 12. I spent the night at a friend. We were channel surfing when we stumbled on the play boy channel. We watched with out saying anything for a while. Next thing I knew we were all over each other. We made out for a while when I felt something wet in my panties I pulled away. That was the day I learned what sex was. I started masturbating when I was 13. I lost my virginity on January 20, 2001 to my rapist.

I'm sorry that happened to you, TMN.

i had my first kiss at 10 but didn't associate it at all with sexual feelings. those started at around 11-12 and i experimented with a local boy.......kissing and cuddling......lost my virginity at 19.

13 years old.

I was aware of masturbating for the first time (might have before but wasn't "aware") when I was 17 and after my orgasm (speaking of TMI :-) I had to figure it all out, "Oh, that must have been masturbation" LOL I was just a little naive/sheltered? I was mildly abused when I was 10 by someone who worked for my family but I only knew it was "wrong" didn't know why/what was going on. I didn't think/feel "sexual" until maybe 13 or 14 when my next door neighbor boy (2 years older than me) was messing with me.

I didn't have an orgasm till around age 11, I think. I'd heard of orgasms, but I didn't know I was having one. I was terrified! LOL! (And, I forget the statistic, but there is a small percentage of women who are fearful of their first orgasm!) I started praying, thinking God was punishing me! LOL!

I had my first puppy love experience at 10 she and I were best friends... and as best friends we did everything together, sleep overs, cooking,movies, then exploring each others bodies....

hmm. i remember when i was around 3 or 4 there was a boy down the road and we used to look at each other. one day my brother walked in on us and i was majorly embarrassed (i guess i knew that we 'shouldn't' be doing that). he never told my mother though i don't think. i'm sure she would have given me a hard time if he had.

and i remember messing around a little with one of my cousins (female). kissing and hugging. imitating what we had seen on tv i guess. must have been a bit older... did that up to around 10 or 11 i think. and i did some of that when i stayed with one of my friends from school too. and some of the looking stuff with a couple of my friends brothers when i was around 7 or 8.

i guess i never really thought of any of that as sexual, though. it was kind of playing and i'm not sure that i had sexual feelings associated with all that if that makes any sense. just a kind of curiosity as to how boys bodies looked different from mine.

and i guess there was the boyfriend / girlfriend thing at school too... from about 10 on... and there would be a bit of kissing. but i think it was more about imitating the older kids than from any urges / desire... dunno...

I remember when i was around 8 or 9 when a boy at my daycare and I would run off every day and "play doctor" translation: exploring each others' bodies. We were just kids messing around at that point though.

The first time i was really interested in sex was when i was 14 and i almost gave my virginity to my boyfriend of 3 months. I "chickened out" at the last minute...so you can imagine he wasn't so happy!

Then there was a drunken night at 16 that took my virginity, in the sense of penetration at least because we didnt' really do anything at all and stopped because it "wasn't a good time" (alcohol's effect etc). Then finally went all the way at 16 to a guy who had no clue what he was doing. So i left him on the bed and went off watch tv because spongebob was more entertaining haha!

Well in my neighbor hood, there were no girls so they were all boys my age. I remember a girl moved in across the alley from my house and we became best friends. She told me about sex when I was 5 or 6 and at the time I was in 1st grade. At the time, that's when Clinton was the US President. Then I remember walking into school telling people he had sex with Monica, and I was only in like 1st or 2nd grade hahaha.

I didn't recieve my first kiss till I was about 12, then lost my virginity at 16, which happened this year for me. And it was with my boyfriend which I am still with right now.