You never forget your first time. For some people, this is a bad thing, a crippling experience that can take a lifetime from which to recover.

Which is too bad, since my own first time was fantastic. Mutually pleasurable, loving and tender, deeply and deliciously satisfying to the mind and soul. Didn’t get caught, didn’t cause traumas, didn’t develop any bizarre or inconvenient kinks by accidentally imprinting on obscure undergarments or rubber-tube-related accessories, and no one got pregnant, bruised, or mysteriously itchy. Both people involved (me and her) still, years later, look back on it as a wonderful experience.

No reason to tell you all that, really, I just like thinking about it.

But I feel that too much attention is paid to the first act of intercourse. All the pressure, personal, social, and peer, is on losing your virginity, getting laid, losing your cherry, and finally becoming a man and/or woman. Such a huge build-up for a fairly simple set of exercises and is it worth it?

There’s an unrealistic expectation that penetration is the only act that matters, the only act worth memorializing, and that’s just silly. What about all the other high-water marks in your sex life? Why skip over all the other triumphs under the sheets? Just look at all the exciting “firsts” that still brighten my lengthy bathroom visits.

The first time a girl let me see her breasts on purpose. That was a pretty damn important first, let me tell you, especially for someone as tit-happy as I am. I spent hours in high school peering across the aisles for wide sleeves, loose necklines, and tank top gaps until I could mentally piece together, an inch of untanned skin at a time, an entire boob. But the first time a girl shyly unbuttoned her shirt and let it fall aside to display soft, rounded flesh to my eager eyes, that memory is burned into my brain much more vividly than, say, American History, or my blood type.

The first time my tongue touched a girl’s tongue and she was awake and everything.

The first time my lover spent the night. Incredible as the sex was, it barely compared to waking up wrapped around a warm and wriggly lady. Crawling out the window to get her home before my mom came in calling upon God and all the saints to give her strength before she had an embolism and dropped dead of shame and embarrassment, that was just icing on the cake.

The first time I got erect for a reason. Scared the hell out of me, I thought my spine had telescoped around under my butt. Fortunately I soon came to grips with it.

The first time someone put their mouth below my waist without losing a sports bet first. Good times, good times.

The first time I really understood what that little button on the girl was for and why it liked being kissed so much. I only had to wear the neck brace for a couple of weeks and I can almost turn all the way to the right now.

The first time I went through an entire sexual encounter without having to say “sorry” or “Don’t shoot, I’m unarmed!” even once.

The first time I had sex in public. Exhilarating and wildly liberating, even though I didn’t actually know at the time that everyone in the orchestra pit could see us. That still counts, right?

The very first time I peed within minutes of an orgasm. You don’t see it mentioned much in the literature but it’s like pouring sweet iced tea over a first degree burn, only in a good way. For weeks, before the novelty wore off, I was having orgasms as fast as I could just so I could hurry up and pee afterwards.

The first time I had sex with more than one other person. A truly mind-expanding encounter that opened my eyes to vast new vistas of sensual enlightenment, even if they did keep sending me for pizza.

The first time I turned down a sexual offer from a beautiful woman. I gotta admit, I’m really looking forward to this one.

No matter what the state of your sexual history, if you look you’ll find things to commemorate, even if no one was there to back you up. Or, if you have absolutely nothing you want to bring out of the Repressed Memories crypt without trained medical help standing by, you can just think fondly back to someone else’s sex life and go from there.

Such as my first time, which, as I mentioned before, was totally great.