Calvin (17) had a lot to learn about sex

'Top and bottom? My best (girl)friend had to tell me.'

Who else is going to teach you about dating guys when all you know is what your biology teacher taught you in just 15 minutes with a cucumber and a condom? Calvin (17) from Maarssen  tells us about love, sex and exploring and identifying his boundaries.

“The first time I had sex with a guy, I hadn’t come out of the closet yet. I really liked being with him, until I broke up with him. He stayed at a supervised independent living facility in Limburg, so I travelled back and forth a lot in that period. After about nine months I got bored of him and when I broke up with him, all hell broke loose. He completely flipped. I finally told my parents what had happened and my father went with me to pick up my things. For seven months after that he stalked me, calling me all day long every day. He is in a juvenile detention centre right now and I found a new, sweet boyfriend who I be boring with and sit on the couch with and watch Netflix. It’s wonderful.

Dating with little prior knowledge

I started having feelings for boys around nine years of age and when I was 14 I installed a couple of dating apps – I just pretended I was 18. Before I knew it, I was dating on Tinder and Grindr. I wasn’t always as careful as I should have been. When I look back I think: boy, that could have gone really wrong. I have been in situations where I had a vague feeling in my gut. I usually made up an excuse to sneak out: something like my mother had apped me to come home right away.

Before I had sex for the first time, I looked up most of the information on Google: how it all works, how to do it painlessly. That was because I hadn’t come out yet. I mean you don’t learn hardly anything at sex ed class at school. All they did there was fool around with a cucumber and a condom. I hardly even knew anything about heterosexual sex. I asked my mom about it recently and she explained everything to a T, during a dinner at the restaurant where I work. My colleagues were like: what the hell is happening?

Poppers stop HIV?

I’m not really afraid of STIs and HIV; I protect myself adequately. I got vaccinated for hepatitis B when I was fairly young, so I’ve already all three shots. I also go to the hospital for a STI test every three months. I have safe sex, but you never know what might slip through the protection. Only thing I’m a bit afraid of is HIV. I know you can live a healthy life when you have it, but if you do get it, you’re screwed - you have it for the rest of your life.

Being properly prepared for sex is extremely important. People have tried to make me believe the weirdest things. Like this one guy in the pub told me that poppers would protect you against HIV. I warned him they wouldn’t. I did have some questions about some terms, like top, bottom and versa. I had no clue what those words meant. My best (girl)friend, who knew an awful lot, finally explained it to me. You read a lot about all kinds of different genders nowadays, which I don’t know much about either. There are probably about 26 letters in the LHBT alphabet by now. Sometimes I wish I had a manual.”

Editor's note

Men to Men regularly interviews men about how they protect themselves against HIV and STDs and their sexual experiences. We believe it is important that people are well informed and can think carefully about how they want to protect themselves. We hope that the various personal experiences contribute to this. They do not necessarily represent the Man to Man point of view. This story was previously published on Winq.nl.

Text: Martijn Kamphorst
Photography: Ernst Coppejans

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