Self Mockery: Sexual Inability & Instability Via 70’s Sleeping Fads-or- How Waterbeds are Not Your Friends

Do you remember your first time?

No, not your first kiss or your first romance. Boring. I’m talking about The No Pants Dance. The Devil’s Lambada. The Happy Humping Here-We-Go.

You know what I’m talking about...Sex. Specifically, your first time. What was it like? Sweet and romantic? Painful and awkward? Was it like the movies? No, not the online instructional videos which dominate 40% of internet traffic. I mean like the sex scenes in 80’s flicks where the couple makes sweet love in a blue filtered room, on white satin sheets while a power ballad plays in the background?

Well, however your first time was, I hope it was special and with someone you wanted to be with. 

Mine sucked. 

Not because of the girl, she was great. 

Because of her fucking waterbed. 

The waterbed fad was all the rage in the 70’s and 80’s and took a sharp decline in the 90’s when my young, sexual self encountered one. I’d slept on one before and hated it. The constant rocking and motion made me slightly nauseous. Nautical I was not. Thus, I never considered my first time a-rocking would come on top of this wood-paneled obstacle course. 

Let me paint the picture: it was 1991 and I’d just turned 16. I’d met this girl through a friend. We had a lot in common, loved the same books and enjoyed talking on the phone all night night. And, as young, horny minds go, sex was something that we talked about...a lot. A lot, a lot. 

She’d already had sex, whereas I had not. So, I told her I had, but only once. We decided when we got together next, we were totally going to do it. 

For you younger folks, all this shit predates cellphones with cameras, Skype, Instagram, Snapchat and all the other made-for-teen-sex social media outlets. God bless you lucky fuckers. So anyway, the day came and I was ready, I knocked out the first few rounds myself before going (when you’re that young, it’s easy and you don’t want to go into our first time as a 3-pump-chump). 

We talked, we hung out, we watched a video and then it was time. Time for The Sex. My mind was getting dumber as all my blood left my brain while my heart beat pounded out the drum solo to In A Gadda Da Vida. We kissed down the hallway to her bedroom, went inside and we sat down...on her waterbed. 

First, I almost fell the fuck over, trying to sit and kiss. When it was time to take each others clothes off, I damn near dislocated my hip and shoulder, trying like all hell to balance myself, maintain my pseudo suavity and an erection while also trying not to fall off this ridiculous thing. 

When the clothes came off, foreplay began. That was good and stable, no problem. But, when my turn to give was over, I tried crawling over the frame to get to my knees to put the condom on. Well, I slipped. My hand almost punched her in the face as my full body weight came down and my leg shot back, cracking hard against the goddamn frame and scraping the shit out of my left leg from my instep to my knee. 

“Are you OK?” She asked. 

“Of course,” I smiled, while inside screaming in pain. But, I was a 16 year old boy. I had the sexual tolerance of a viking. Hell, if she had told me to stick a lit candle in my ass because she thought it was sexy, I probably would have asked her where she kept her matches. 

OK, I honestly looked for a candle in a man's butt for this pic...but not that hard

So, once I had the condom on, it was sex time. So far, so good. Until the actual rhythmic act started. With each thrust, the waterbed would ripple and kind of push back, knocking me off my game (or what passed for “game” when you’re a virgin without the internet). It was like there was a third person in the bed and they were NOT helping. It was bloody well clear this bed was not on my team. I tried to find a pattern which made her happy, but all I heard, over the shitty goth music she was into, was the constant thwap-thwap-thwap of teen skin on vinyl. 

We changed positions, to the style of the dogs, and again, with my piss-poor sea legs, what started nice turned to hell very quickly as I lost my balance and nearly broke my dick off. I attempted several times to find the right balance of sexy and safe, never quite getting there. 

Sigh. 

Eventually this girl, who had the patience of a saint, took over, put me on my back and took care of business. This was far safer, and far better. I had a great view, despite feeling like I was drowning as I sunk down in the bed. 

All in all, as she put it, I did “fine” for my first time (Yes I told her afterwards). Based off my limited knowledge, “Fine” equated to a D+/C- and goddamn it, I’d take a passing grade. 

We never had sex again. We remained friends for several years but eventually lost contact. 

But I’ll never forget my first time. And how much I loathe waterbeds. I refused to go near them for years and was thankful when that fad was over. I felt like the waterbed was my enemy, and mad at me for having sex with that girl. Who would have thought a bed could be such a cock-blocker?

Over the years, I learned my lesson, I upped my game. I trained. I watched the videos...yes the dirty ones. 

And...not to brag...one day I turned that “fine” into a “pretty good”. 

And I knew that no inanimate object of leisure would ever make me its bitch again!

Until the night I tried to have sex in a hammock.

...Fuck that hammock. 

It was a lot like this...