Last summer I was on location with some work colleagues. We had just finished six months’ research on a new archaeological dig. At the ‘wrap’ party we all ended up back at my apartment, where the drinks flowed.
There were ten of us, a fairly even mix of men and women, most of us in our 50s, and as the night tipped over into the small hours, the conversation turned to the salty subject of our sex lives.
Then some bright spark suggested going round the room and asking when we all lost our virginity. There were the usual tales: drunken fumbles under piles of coats at parties and rushed couplings on the neighbour’s sofa while babysitting. Then it was my turn.
‘I lost my virginity aged 16 to a beautiful older Spanish girl on the last night of a holiday in Ibiza,’ I said. ‘We’d gone for a midnight swim and then afterwards, with the moonlight reflecting on our warm, naked bodies, and the waves pulsing on the shoreline in time to our racing hearts, we made love on the sand.’
The room went silent, as it always did when I told this story. I’d won.
The men in the audience declared me ‘a lucky b*****d’, while the women wistfully said that’s how they would have loved their first time to be.
Yet I chose to leave out the rest of the details, because that’s when things rapidly go from Mills & Boon to sordid.
Because my father, I found out later, paid that girl to have sex with me. And it remains the biggest source of shame and regret in my life, the results of which I still feel today.
I lost my virginity aged 16 to a beautiful older Spanish girl on the last night of a holiday in Ibiza, writes Sebastian Southbrook (file image)
Shocking as it sounds, on reflection you might think that – compared to many people’s first experiences – it’s not the worst way to lose your virginity; that I should consider myself a lucky so-and-so for having had an expert guide in my first sexual encounter.
Yet my father’s ethically questionable endeavour to ‘make a man of me’ that holiday had such a negative impact on my teenage psyche that I’m convinced it’s the reason I’ve never been able to maintain a long-term, loving relationship with a woman.
Today, I’m 57, and more than 40 years after it happened, it kills me to confess it remains the best sexual experience I have ever had – and one I’ve never been able to replicate with anyone else.
I recognise that I should have had therapy for this a long time ago, if only to quell the rage I feel towards my father.
There are so many unanswered questions I have for him. Why did he assume I needed his help – and his money – to seduce a woman? Did he treat all women like this? Was sex just a transactional arrangement for him? Did he regularly use prostitutes himself?
I think, deep down, I know the answer to that one.
Dad died five years ago, and I regret every day of his passing. Not only because I miss him (I do), but because I never had the backbone to ask him – why? As it is, I’m not even sure if he ever knew that I’d found out what he’d done.
A successful and wealthy banker, Dad split from my mother when I was five, and I didn’t really know him.
Each summer, my older sister Nellie and I would leave our Wiltshire home and be packaged off to spend a month with him in some exotic location. He never set boundaries or treated us as his children. I think he saw us as an experiment, sending us off to play with locals and seeing how we would cope.
When I was 16 and my sister was 18, Dad took us to Ibiza for the summer. This was in the early 1980s, when there was a big alternative eco hippy community scene; we loved it.
I was a quiet, introverted boy and this, I can now see, disturbed Dad. He was a huge character who could start a conversation in an empty room, and had that fizzing type of sexual energy you’d associate with the lead singer of a band, moving from one dazzlingly attractive woman to another. I suspect he was secretly despairing that I was turning into a very different man to him.
We’d gone for a midnight swim and then afterwards, with the moonlight reflecting on our warm, naked bodies, we made love on the sand (file image)
Dad, like clockwork, asked me each summer: ‘Popped your cherry yet, Seb?’ My continued blushes served as his answer.
By the time I had turned 16 – still shy and bookish, my confidence not helped by frequent acne breakouts – he even asked me if I actually knew about the birds and the bees. Shortly afterwards, a copy of the Kama Sutra turned up on my bedside table.
So I became his project that summer, as he endeavoured to impart some of his alpha-male attributes. He taught me how to fish – not with a rod, but how to dive using only a mask, snorkel and harpoons. When the sun began to set, we would go to his favourite family-run bar and restaurant. One of the young women we would see there, Maria, took a shine to me – or so it seemed.
She would rush over effusively to seat us, giving us generous plates of olives, bread and garlicky aioli, and we’d chat at the end of her shift.
She was only three years older than me, and with her young, firm body, long, black hair and sun-kissed skin, she became the subject of my feverish teenage fantasies.
I was far too shy to ask her out, however, and with our departure date drawing near, Dad obviously decided to step in.
On our final night, there was a party in Maria’s parents’ restaurant. Once the guitars started playing, Dad and Nellie took to the dance floor, while Maria sidled over and asked whether I’d ever indulged in a midnight swim – I hadn’t.
She took me to a quiet cove where we skinny-dipped and, afterwards, she began to kiss me and guided my hands over her body, carefully, slowly seducing me, making sure, at each step, what we were doing was what I wanted.
It was the first time I had touched a woman’s breasts or seen a woman’s naked body in real life.
Not surprisingly, the act itself was over in moments, but Maria held me in her arms afterwards, telling me how amazing I was and how much she liked me. And I believed her.
I packed for our flight home the next morning in a love-sick daze, replaying every erotic moment in my mind, aching for just one more kiss.
Yet it wasn’t to be. When we dropped by the restaurant to say goodbye, I told Maria we were going and she simply replied: ‘I know.’ Addresses and phone numbers were not exchanged. I climbed in the taxi and left – my heart broken.
We were in the airport bar, awaiting our flight, when the veil was lifted on my beautiful night, revealing it for what it was.
Dad was holding court with some of his friends and Nellie was off buying magazines when I overheard him describe how he had paid Maria to seduce me. ‘The lad needed to know how things work!’ he said, as everyone guffawed.
I inched closer and listened, appalled, as he explained how a lot of the women who worked at that bar earned extra cash sleeping with the clientele. It was no big deal, apparently.
In the airport bar, awaiting our flight home, I overheard Dad telling his friends how he had paid Maria to seduce me (file image)
I remember feeling nauseous, going hot and cold the entire journey home. Until I’d heard Dad, I had been convinced that a girl finally liked me for being me.
More than that, that she had actually fancied me enough to want to have sex with me. To realise it was all a sham – and that my own father considered me to be such a hopeless case –was utterly devastating.
Back in England, Mum was worried that I had picked up a bug, whereas my sister joked that I was in love. I couldn’t tell either of them the truth; I just wanted to expunge the whole humiliating night from my mind.
Eventually, I confided in Nellie. She simply told me that I should consider myself lucky. And that was that.
Shaken, my next sexual experience wasn’t until a couple of years later, with a girl I met at the University of York. I was her first lover and, a couple of months into our relationship, I made the mistake of confessing to her what had happened.
She was, in turn, fascinated and utterly appalled. After that, whenever we had a row it was the first thing she would bring up, telling me on one occasion: ‘At least I wasn’t desperate enough for sex that my dad had to pay someone to sleep with me.’
I made a promise never to tell future girlfriends after that.
But I never got as far as having any other girlfriends at university. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to have sex – I still fantasised about Maria, my body responding accordingly in a way that made me feel horribly manipulated – but I didn’t want to risk true intimacy, to put myself in a position where I would be vulnerable again.
While I did sleep with some of the women in my friendship circle, at the back of my mind the whole time was this question: did they actually like me, or was there another reason for them being in bed with me?
Throughout my 20s I was in and out of relationships – despite Dad’s fears for my future, I matured into a tall, broad-shouldered man whose athletic looks were accompanied by a quiet outward confidence that women found compelling – but I could never get past those early stages of falling in lust and having sex. Whenever emotions went beyond that, I was out.
It was rare that I would have sex sober, because whenever I did, I struggled with maintaining an erection. I’d over-think the act and a mental image would intrude of my father handing over crumpled notes to the woman I was about to sleep with.
I wasn’t stupid – I knew I needed to put these circling thoughts to bed, but I didn’t know how.
Against my better instinct, I got married in my mid-30s. Helen was perfect. She was a mental health nurse, had endless patience and I had even told her about what happened. She had only compassion for my younger self (which, on reflection, was perhaps the worst response because I often saw pity in her eyes).
By now, my rational mind knew my father had, misguidedly, meant well. Yet while we never spoke about it, I could never forgive him for it. Whenever I tried to talk to Nellie about it, she would shut me down, admonishing me for ‘over-thinking things’ and reminding me that our childhood was a pretty decent one.
And yes, she’s right – it was. But even so, losing my virginity in such a way still cast a shadow over my life.
It even haunted me on my wedding day. Dad insisted on giving a speech (and I couldn’t stop him because he paid for most of it), which meant that, rather than enjoying the day, I was absolutely petrified of what he was going to say.
He wouldn’t bring that up, would he? Knowing how mercurial he could be, I wouldn’t have put it past him.
Thankfully, he didn’t. But, nevertheless, my memories are tainted, once again, by what happened in Ibiza.
Helen and I split after six years. She wanted stability; for me to stop accepting projects that took me overseas, but I couldn’t (or, truthfully, wouldn’t).
To my mind, all our problems led back to the bedroom. Whenever I instigated sex, if Helen was anything less than wildly enthusiastic I assumed she was only doing it because she felt sorry for me.
And desire is a funny thing. Though that night on the beach would ultimately prove so traumatic, it had been wonderful in the moment, and by happening at such a formative age it had indelibly shaped my sexual road map and sense of arousal.
I wanted Helen to replicate Maria’s movements, her touch. While Helen wanted the lights on when we made love, I preferred them off, conjuring the velvety blackness of that warm Spanish night. I hated myself for it.
Helen did suggest I see a sex therapist. No thank you. That’s not to for me – and, ultimately, we weren’t to be for each other.
I’m no monk and, since then, I’ve had relationships on and off during my 40s and 50s.
More than once I’ve been accused of being a commitment-phobe and, guilty as charged, I am. I just don’t think I will ever feel safe enough in a woman’s company to take the leap of faith that a true relationship requires. Part of me will always be that young boy who equates being swept up in his desire with the crushing realisation of just how powerless and foolish he really was.
The longest relationship since my marriage has been three years. I always keep my own place rather than moving in together. I’ve never had children and I’m still the first volunteer for overseas projects. In truth, I know I can’t outrun these feelings but, dear God, I try.
I even went back to Ibiza once to see if I could find Maria and ask her if any of it was true. Did she have sex with me because she liked me, or was it only because my father had paid her?
However, this was before social media and phones, so, of course, I never did find her. That sort of reunion and emotional closure only happens in fairy tales.
And so, it remains a delicious, yet oh-so-painful, memory I can still conjure up in a heartbeat.
Yes, I became a man that summer, but the humiliated boy in me lingers still.
- Sebastian Southbrook is a pseudonym. Names have been changed
- AS TOLD TO SAMANTHA BRICK
