Sex Lives: A Poly, Pansexual Guy Who Knew He’d Marry His Wife The Night They Met

Sex Lives chronicles the evolution of one person’s sexual history. This week: Ricky, 39, in Philadelphia.

I’d be shopping with my mom in a department store, wander off on my own, and end up in the underwear section. I felt like I was seeing something I wasn’t ready or supposed to see. And then, I realized that I was looking at the men’s underwear models just as much as the women’s. When I got into my twenties, I was like, Oh… that was there from the beginning.

My dad had a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition one year, that I still remember the cover of. I was like, Holy hell, yeah, I’d like to fuck that. There were multiple people in that magazine, but Kathy Ireland was definitely on the cover. It wasn’t a feeling that she turned me on unambiguously. Instead, I was like, That’s a beautiful human being that I would like to do things to.

I guess I started masturbating by accident. I was a stomach sleeper, and as I began to get a little bit older, I would start to hump the bed—like rub against the sheets or something. It just felt really good. And then I was like, I’ll keep doing that because it feels really good. So, it was accidental at first. And then there was a local news story like, “You won’t believe how kids are using this new thing called the Internet—there’s porn on it!” And I was like, “There’s porn on it?!” I immediately went to sit down at our computer. This was back before smartphones, so you had to find it and be patient with download speeds. There wasn’t just porn, there were masturbation how-to guides, and I was in like second or third grade, and I was like: Oh, there’s multiple ways to do it, I guess. But I was like, that sounds like a lot of work; wouldn’t your arms get tired?

I have a weird first-time story. I was 17. I’d gone to a midnight showing of a movie with my friends, and we were leaving—my buddy and I—and we were in his car, and we pulled up at a red light next to a car with two girls in it, and they were looking at us, and we were looking at them. Then we stopped again at the next red light, kept making eyes, and pulled into a parking lot; we just wanted to talk to them. I got my first blowjob that night in the backseat of my friend’s car, and we exchanged numbers. But we met up in that parking lot a week later, and I lost my virginity to that girl in the back of that car. I never saw them again after that—I don’t even know her last name.

Right before then, I had been in a serious relationship with someone I thought would be “The One.” I felt like that was kind of it. A lot happened, but basically, she experienced a huge tragedy, and we broke up because she didn’t have time for anything to happen. And then I felt like, Wait a minute! I was supposed to have sex, and I didn’t! The next opportunity—in that parking lot a month later—I was like, well, screw waiting for the right thing.