I was 17 when I became entangled in a sexual relationship with a 33-year-old, a stranger I met on a Long Island beach after sneaking out with a girlfriend on a family vacation.
As my friend and I lounged on a lifeguard chair, venting about our sexual frustrations as high school outcasts, two men greeted us, climbed up at our invitation, and offered us each a can of Corona. After one guy went home, the other invited us to join him, without our clothes, in the water.
I had never had a boyfriend. I had never even “hooked up.” And here I was, naked, with a man I barely knew.
As we swam ashore, our conversation returned to sex. His mom was an OBGYN, he said, so he “knew everything.” Titillated, I tested how far this could really go with a question about female anatomy. After he offered to answer with a “demonstration,” my friend took the cue to go home.