Anson Stevens-Bollen
Have you ever participated in a story exchange about how you and your friends lost your virginity(ies), and someone says something like “now if, we’re talking about losing my sober virginity, that wasn’t until my 30s?” Say what?! Your sober virginity?
While it could sound self-explanatory to some, others might need to run and check urbandictionary.com to learn a sober virgin is someone who has never had sex whilst sober or not under the influence of drugs. Personally, I think sober virginity is on a bit more of a spectrum than that. People who are sober or sober-curious can also experience losing their sober virginity, and it might mean something completely different to those folks than it does to someone who has sex for the first time without being under the influence. Lucky for us, I have some questions in my inbox from both ends of that spectrum.
One of my friends is an amazing and powerful woman, and I was stunned to recently find out she has never had sober sex in her life. She is not an alcoholic. Is this more common than I think?
-AM I MISSING SOMETHING
Although the actual statistics are hard to get a handle on, likely because any study would require self-reporting to some degree, my lived experience tells me inebriated sex is indeed more common than you’d think. A dated and poorly phrased 2009 article from The Daily Mail titled “One in 20 women has NEVER had sex sober as they lack body confidence” seems to be one theory. And though I couldn’t find anything similar about men online, and as much as I dislike the clickbait of that headline, there is some validity to the whole “where there’s smoke there’s fire” thing.
Lack of self-love and body-acceptance, sexual insecurity or immaturity might all play into a need to have intoxicated sex. Research from the National Library of Medicine also shows some people’s libidos increase with alcohol, while other research shows the opposite. I’ve always wondered if that is a real chemical reaction taking place in your body, or if alcohol lowers your inhibitions enough that you finally feel free to express you actually have a libido. Probably a bit of both.
Maybe your friend is so strong and powerful in her everyday life that the bedroom is where she wants to completely let go and be submissive. Sometimes people can only access that side of themselves with things like alcohol. The self-reflector in me would challenge that, but the powerful woman in me also totally understands.
I am recently sober and working AA. Although I am not ready to be with someone again, I am thinking about what triggers having sober sex may bring up for me without my ex-bestie Miss Jim Beam. Any advice on how I mentally prepare myself for my first sexy and sober experience?
-FEELING LIKE THE FIRST TIME
What immediately comes to mind is an Instagram reel I stumbled across that posited “the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, it’s community.” Maybe you’ve heard that before, but I never had. Now, I’ll be the first to say community doesn’t always come effortlessly in Santa Fe, and it’s easy to isolate here, which is why I’m so glad you are working AA and that you’ve submitted a question; these are places where community happens. As I’m sure you’ve discovered, there are numerous schools of thought about how long you should be sober before entertaining a new relationship, sexual or otherwise, specifically because it can and will be triggering. Hopefully you have a sponsor you can talk to about this, as well as a therapist who can help you identify some of your triggers.
That said, sometimes you just won’t know what triggers you until it happens in real time, so the best thing you can do when you’re feeling ready is to set yourself up for as much success as possible. Maybe being around people drinking doesn’t turn out to be a trigger for you in daily life, but I would still advise you to choose a sexual partner who doesn’t need to drink to do the deed. Sex isn’t a place you want to be patrolling your boundaries as well as someone else’s behavior.
As always, communicate with your partner, even if they are just a partner for one night. You have full permission to ask for what you need, and I know if you keep calling on and building upon your community, you’ll find the language for all of it. There are so many reasons people use alcohol as a vehicle to have sex, and not all of those reasons are unhealthy. As someone who lost her virginity and her sober virginity, let me just say you are missing out on some of the best sex of your life if you haven’t tried it without the help of Miss Jim Beam and her friends.
Layla Asher is a local sex worker on a mission to spread radical self love to her community and the world. Want to ask your local sex worker their expert opinion on something? Let’s start a sex positive conversation that keeps respect and confidentiality at the forefront and judgment a thing of the past. Submit questions to thenakedlayla@gmail.com and include an alias that protects your anonymity.
