During my first year in the university, I can say that, still, our life as students is still guarded by the university administration. First years are not allowed to join any fraternity or sorority. Acquaintance parties are exclusive for first years and peer counselors. No alcoholic drinks within the dorm’s vicinity. Students should be inside before the curfew strikes. But when I became a second year student, everything bursts.
While I was busy struggling with the demands of my degree, a lot of my schoolmates were exploring the other side of life. They were partying every weekends and walking around the campus on moonless nights. God knows what they were doing. I amused myself with campus gossips while they were discovering the wonders of each other’s bodies (And somehow, I was curious to know what they had discover…Hahaha). I’m not really envious of their carefree attitude. In fact, I salute them. They know what they want at that point of their life while I was caught between what I want, what my parents want and what the society wants.
As time goes by, I started to open myself with my girlfriends and my guy classmates. We started to share our views about sex but we were careful of any information we tell each other. We started to go out in groups. At first, I did not know that there are people who really engage in premarital sex. I grow up thinking that premarital sex is a sin. The thing was, I never discriminate the people I know, especially women. What I know was I’m curious about it. I mind my own business, they mind their own but a little gossip won’t hurt.
I’m not spreading lies if that’s how you interpreted my last sentence. What I mean is, I find amusement in those stories about my schoolmates doing it at the most unusual places around the campus (Trust me, you wouldn’t want to know where they were doing it). I commend them for being a daredevil.
As you know, in my country, virginity is BIG DEAL. Filipino men might like to engage in premarital sex but they want their future wives to BE a virgin. This is what my guy friends told me. What an irony. And this is what one of my classmates thought: Screw them! (I don’t know if that’s literally or figuratively) At seventeen, I was not aware of cursing with elegance. But for a classmate, she used this to attract an attention from the opposite sex. Another acquaintance talked dirty whenever around men. She said that most men are turned on by this. Another one was showing off her cleavage. This, according to her, is her perfect ammunition against men. In a span of two minutes, men were flocking around her.
And while they were doing this, I maintain my distance at the sideline, contented of being a spectator. But then, I started to notice that I was little by little becoming like them. I’m not saying that it was a bad thing. In fact, it signals that I’m ready to take my life to the next level. I started to participate in their ‘intellectual’ discussions which is another term of talking about sex. My professors also took our discussion to a much higher level. This time, he was even translating it in layman’s term. We started to be matured students. We do not laugh inside the classroom because we always reserved it outside.
We started to get rid of our shyness. Suddenly, discussing sex has been part of our routine. Not a day would pass without mentioning the word ‘sex.’ I become more open towards the idea. I went to the library to borrow sex books. I’m determined to cure my ignorance of the subject. If I can’t beat my classmates with the application, I thought, I will beat them with theory. I borrowed books of Dr. Margarita Holmes, Elizabeth Abbott, Gabrielle Brown, and Susan Lyndon. I started participating in sexual forum too (Don’t ask me the name, that would be the last thing I would do).
Books are there for imagination. I don’t need imagination. I have plenty of that. What I need is the actual thing. And NO, I’m not thinking of doing it. I’m thinking that I should start watching porn. I asked my best friend, Celine, of the best porn sites and she gladly help me. Okay, so I’m really conservative. I can’t help it. I was raised to be like that. I remember, my mother would keep out of my reach those R-18 newspapers and even pocketbooks. There’s no porn in our house or maybe there was but as usual, it was restricted (I remember one time, I accidentally saw a BOMBA tabloid, HAHAHA! My mother was really shocked that I’m holding it. Remember those sexy women with stars on their private parts?). 
When I first watched porn, I was alone. I could not think of a good reason why I should watch porn. With movies and inside the classroom, that was acceptable. But a seventeen- year old Filipina girl watching porn? You’ve got to be kidding me. My friends would probably discriminate me. They knew me as the conservative, prim and proper Madi. And they knew I was innocent. I hate explaining to people too so in the end, I watched it alone. Err, how would I explain the feeling? Well, at first, there was foreplay. I read that in Holmes’ book. She said that foreplay is there so that the girl would be wet or to heighten the libido (While I was writing this, I can’t help but laugh. Couldn’t imagine that I was this conservative! Shoot!).
What is wet? I didn’t know that time of course. I just learned it two years later. And then without further ado, they did it. At first, I was covering my eyes but what the hell? I’m the only one in the room. No one would tell me to my parents. And then, amid those moans, I felt a strange sensation in my lower belly. I think I’m going to pee. I went to the comfort room after securing my laptop. When I sat down at the toilet bowl, I didn’t pee. That’s weird right? But it wasn’t at all when I learned two years later.
That was the first and last time I watched porn during that year. My second time to watch porn, well, it was not really a porn. It was a pornish movie. I was with my roommates and classsmates. And again, that feeling that tells me I should go to the bathroom to pee. And what? To miss the exciting steamy scenes in the movie? No goddamn way. After watching the movie, I felt that my lower belly was aching. I wonder if my roommates were feeling the same way too? But I know better than to ask them (Hahaha! They might throw dagger looks and think that I’m becoming a maniac).
I was in third year when I became vocal in asking my guy classmates to lend me their porn collection. You can say that we became all matured now. They just looked at me with astonishment and sometimes, they joked that I should pay them in exchange of porns. My laptop too is full of pornish movies. You can only see two things in my hard drive. Papers and Porns. Our relationship, that is, me and my classmates also went to the next level. Every end of semester, we go out of the school and spend overnight somewhere. Then, we became naughty, I mean, they became naughty, with yours truly, observing them from the sideline. I started to become friends with alcoholic beverages. Most of my classmates were introduced early to them though. But that’s the end of it. To satisfy your curiosity, we do not taste each other, maybe out of respect. Or we just want to go out of fashion. We don’t believe in friends with benefits but we strongly believe in no strings attached.
