I lost my virginity to my high school sweetheart when I was seventeen. I can remember being very deer in headlights, on my back, saying, “I love you” over and over and over until he was inside. And when he came, I looked up at him in my vulnerable state and asked “Can I try on top now?”

Because sex is fun.

When I was little, I played doctor with any willing playmate. I started humping pillows until they gave me orgasms when I was something like twelve. I scoped things out with a hand mirror. I helped a friend put in a tampon. I looked up sex in the dictionary and, when my dad stole cable for a few months when I was fourteen, I totally watched porn.

Don’t get me wrong, I romanticized sex. I did. I refused to sleep with my boyfriend of a year because I was not ready or willing to have that moment with him. I waited for the right guy and I am grateful that I loved him and he loved me back. But when we did it for the first time, it was not perfect. He was much taller than me and I could not properly kiss him. It also hurt pretty badly. When I ended up not enjoying myself for the minute or two that it lasted, I asked to try things my way.

And, as the years passed and I had new boyfriends, I tried other things. I suggested watching porn to my nineteen-year-old boyfriend that only wanted to do it missionary. I asked another boyfriend to go down on me while I was on my period because that sounded good to me. And when a different boyfriend asked me to purr during sex, you better believe I purred in his ear and then I licked and bit it. When I started dating a guy who had a reputation of being “nuts” in bed, I did not flinch when he suggested sticking a finger up his butt or asked me to spit in his mouth…I happily obliged. I did it all with confidence and without fear that I was going to A) freak the guy out B) not enjoy myself or C) look fat/weird/funny/ugly.

(Have I freaked a guy out? Yep. Exactly one guy in nine years. Have I faked an orgasm? I have. Most of the time I did it because I knew it would the guy off and that was what I wanted at the moment, though. If it is truly bad, I stop. And if a roll forms while I am in one position or another I think it is sexy as hell. My body is working it.)

I try new positions, I sext (I am sexting with the hot guy I obsessed over in high school while I write this, guys), I do not fully shave, I ask for what I want and I love watching it happen in a mirror. Because, to me, sex is fun. While my confidence may lack in other areas, I am not going to second guess that I am hot shit when I am doing my thing.

I have never lost sight of the fact that sex is something free, amazing and primal. You should do it with confidence and love. But keep in mind that love is not always going to be for the other person. That love should always, first and foremost, be for you. I took time on my own (and eventually with others) to determine what I liked. I come almost every time I have sex because I am relaxed enough to get mine. I do not worry if whatever flew out of my mouth crossed a line, if I am going to queef, or whether I am bloated that day. And, if I am not with someone who is blowing my mind, I am picturing someone who is. And for the few times that I have loved someone so much that no one and nothing else entered my mind during sex, I enjoyed that closeness to the full extent, too.

Sex is an opportunity to let loose, to do you, to let your freak flag fly. Get into it. Whether you are taking home some random or losing your virginity for the first time at 30, live that shit up. You deserve it and I am cheering you on.