Apartment613

Photo courtesy of Jessica Ruano.

A professional sexual health educator with an alarming lack of tact, Nadine Thornhill is used to airing out other people’s unmentionables. Dirty Laundry runs once each month on Apt613. To ask your questions, or to say hello to Nadine, contact her atdirtylaundry613@gmail.com.

Dear Dirty Laundress,

Can you please provide me some details about how to break the virginity of girl at first? What is the distance of hymen/virginity from the opening of hymen, please tell me in inches, is it 2 inch or….?

How I should deal with a girl since she doesn’t spread her legs while having sex. She has been always scaring from its pain??

Can you also tell me, how much size of a man’s penis is enough/required to be entered inside, so that virginity of a girl can be broken or torn? 

I will be really appreciative and thankful if you could help in this matter.

Human genetalia and what we do with it is complex and individual and the hymen is no exception. The hymen is a thin membrane found at the opening of the vagina. If it hasn’t been ruptured or dissolved, you can see it. According to sexual lore, hymens remain intact until the person “loses their virginity” through penetrative vaginal sex. Sometimes this does occur; however, hymens are like snowflakes. No two are quite the same.

You’ve used the term “virginity” and “hymen” interchangeably, so I’d like to address that first. Virginity is the state of never having had sex. It is impossible to determine a person’s virginity based on the presence or absence of a hymen. Hymens can rupture or dissolve at any point in a person’s life from exercise or other vigorous activity. Conversely, some hymens remain intact through penetrative sex. And some people are born with partial hymens or without a hymen at all. Some people experience bleeding or pain or both when their hymen is broken. Some people feel nothing. Some people don’t even know it’s happened.  All of this to say that the hymen doesn’t really have anything to do with virginity, so don’t get too hung up on it.

Photo courtesy of Jessica Ruano.

A professional sexual health educator with an alarming lack of tact, Nadine Thornhill is used to airing out other people’s unmentionables. Dirty Laundry runs once each month on Apt613. To ask your questions, or to say hello to Nadine, contact her at dirtylaundry613@gmail.com.

Dear Dirty Laundress,

I’ve been with my guy for over a year. We have sex pretty regularly not every day but a few times a week at least. The problem is lately I’ve caught him touching himself. I came home one day and saw him doing it. I confronted him about it and asked him why he was doing that. I asked him if there was something wrong with our sex life. He said no. He promised he wouldn’t do it again, but since then I’ve heard him get up and sneak into the bathroom at night when he thinks I’m sleeping and I could tell what was happening from the noises I heard. What should I do? Should I confront him again? Why is he doing this? I’m certainly not frigid or putting him off, so why won’t he just come to me if he wants sex, instead of going behind my back? He said I wasn’t doing anything wrong, but now I think I must be.

Hands Over Me

I doubt your boyfriend’s wanking is because he isn’t satisfied with the sex the two of you are having. People masturbate. It’s a pleasurable habit that many, many people have because it feels good in a way that’s different from getting off with a partner.

Masturbating isn’t just the thing that people do to get by when they can’t get it on with someone else. It’s a full, exciting, sexual experience unto itself – one that many people want to have regardless of their relationship status. Many happily coupled (tripled, quadrupled and so on…) people enjoy phenomenal sex with other people but still touch themselves on a regular basis.

I don’t know if you asked your boyfriend not to touch himself or if that’s something he promised voluntarily. Either way, I don’t think that’s a constructive or realistic solution.

While I generally think it’s healthy to speak up if a partner is doing something that makes us uncomfortable, ultimately it’s his body and he should feel free to touch it how and where he wants to.

Sex leaves many of us feeling vulnerable and sometimes insecure. Masturbation is something a LOT of people do, but few people talk about. So it can be jarring to discover a sex-mate going to town on themselves. But rest assured that when it comes to your sexual activities, there’s nothing wrong with what either of you are doing.