What did I know about sex growing up? I’d have to say close to nothing. And I thought I was the only one left in the dark.

My mom was raised Catholic so it was just something you didn’t discuss. She never told my sister and me about menstruation so when I got my period I thought something was super wrong and that I would drop dead at any minute–really. Then when I told her, she just warned me that I could get pregnant now. Mom never even said the word “S-E-X.”

My all-girls school wasn’t much better. By the time I left there, I still basically still knew nothing about sex. Our sex ed was a one-time session around 8th grade with some wacky teacher waving around a banana covered with a condom. Her spiel was that AIDS would kill almost anyone who was sexually active.

I assumed that the lack of info I had around love, sex, dating and my body was just a female thing. Like we women didn’t really know much, but the boys, they knew everything. And when they talked? I was going to listen.

Since there were no boys in my everyday life, I started dating the first dude who rode through my block. We had our first kiss when some time after my Sweet Sixteen. He pulled me in and tongued me down right in front of my parents’ house! I was terrified and titillated–and felt like he must know exactly what he was doing. We started getting together for hot makeout sessions in the back of his mom’s blue Volvo.

There was lots of groping and sailing into third base with our hands all the way. It was hot and steamy, but not all that satisfying. Bombshell confidential: When I masturbated in the shower it was much hotter than my sessions with him. But he was a dude, so he had to be a sex wiz, right? He knew everything about sex? I just didn’t know how to enjoy it or something?

When we decided to go all the way, it was over before I even knew it started. Later I asked him if that’s basically, you know, all there was. I couldn’t understand what all of the fuss was about. It was then that he explained that he was a virgin too! We both had our first time together. My “love guru” didn’t know anymore than what I knew.

My point in telling you all of this is that some guys–even the guys who are just as inexperienced or less experienced than you–will try to tell you what’s “right” or how things “work” with sex. Some guys tell girls that if they have blue balls and don’t get sex, they’ll die (HA!) or that there’s no way that you can get pregnant if you have sex, say, in a swimming pool (soooo not true!). Some of these guys are flat out liars, and those guys should be avoided at all cost, but then other guys are just telling you what their friends or older brothers told them. Chances are, they don’t know any more about sex than you do.

So, educate yourself, girl. Poke around this site–poke yourself a little, too!–and be honest with your partners. You’ll figure it all out in good time.

Did your parents ever tell you about sex? Have dudes tried to tell you things that weren’t true about sex? Tell me everything in the comments!

Need Birth Control? Here’s Help!

---