Interview 08

Age at interview: 19

Brief Outline: She describes her first sexual experience as a bit traumatic.

Background: Full-time university student who lives at home with her father. She prefers to use her GP for family planning.

She says that trust is important in a first sexual experience.

I think you need to trust the person you are with because if it is going to hurt you need to know that they are going to be gentle with you. It was very, very problematic because it hurt me and him and ended in tears, basically. We did it but then we sort of drifted apart and a couple of months later we broke up. We only did it that time. I wasn't disappointed but I was a bit upset by it. I don't think it was anyone's fault. The boy that I went out with first as a proper relationship, he was just, he wasn't serious about, it was just a bit of fun to him and I was quite upset when we broke up. So I think that girls tend to take things more seriously.

Believes sex should only happen in serious relationships.

Whoever I've slept with is someone who's meant something to me' because I'm the kind of person that just wants to be in a long-term relationship, I want to know the person. It's just something I wouldn't do

Believes that sexual relationships are easier if you are friends as well.

We're just really good friends; we do loads of things together. I'm with my second sexual partner now and it's a lot easier for me because we're much better friends than I was with the other boyfriend and he's very understanding.  

We just sort of worked through the problems of sex. There's good and bad things about that as well because, obviously, there is different levels of desire and what the other partner wants to do and things like that.  

But if you've got a good relationship, if you're good friends, then you can usually sort that out and talk things through and compromise. The best thing for me about being in a relationship is having like a best friend. My current boyfriend, I can tell him anything and I would hope that he would do the same. 

Describes her good sex education at school which included handling condoms and workshop activities.

I think my school gave us everything that we needed to know so I suppose all the schools in the country just need to use the same sort of format. 

We had these personal and social education lessons once a week and it wouldn't always be about sexual health, it would be about sort of personal things, getting a job, things like that. And in every academic year in the school we would have covered it at least once a session about sexual health and we'd get leaflets and handouts about contraception, the risks and things like that. 

We had quite detailed explanations about possible diseases that you could get and sometimes quite gory details, probably to scare you into using the contraception. I think they should try and cover the importance of a relationship. I don't think they are. 

I think it might help people more because when you're going through that when you're young, it's the first time that you've been through it and sometimes you need someone to help you, also the information.