July 5th, 2014

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blog My First Kiss and Lessons I Will Teach My Daughter

By: Allegra Johnson When I initially thought about a first-time event in my life to share, I really couldn’t think of one. To be honest, my life is pretty dull. My memoirs won’t be a best-seller and I’m okay with that! I haven’t had any extremely interesting first-time experiences. I’ve never been drunk, I’ve never passed the Bob Marley, or been on a motorcycle or had a wild weekend in Las Vegas; yup I’m pretty much a lame (and I’m okay with that). Sure I could talk about my first live newscast or the first time someone actually paid me to do makeup, but to me those events aren’t that fascinating. So, I replayed events in my life the same way you press rewind on a DVR, and then I had an AHA moment. Duh, my first kiss was hands down one of the most riveting things that happened in the past 20 years of my life. Obviously, I don’t get out much, lol. So my first kiss happened when I was in 9th grade and I was 14- years-old. At the time, I didn’t really understand how that first lip lock actually impacted my young life. But as an adult, I can look back and really understand the lessons from that experience and pass them on to my daughter. The Kiss So the plan was for him to meet me at the KFC in Homewood, right in the middle of both of our schools. We were just going to hang out. My plan was to stop pass the store so I could buy a pack of gum before we met. Instead of meeting me at KFC, he came up to my school. A girl from my school saw us and gave us both the side eye. Oh, I forget to mention that this man-boy and his twin brother were notorious teenage womanizers! For some reason I was oblivious to this, or maybe I didn’t really care. I liked this boy, he was cute and he made me laugh. At 14 that was the only thing that really mattered. So we talked on the phone late at night, our song was Weak by SWV and I felt good about the situation. We were supposed to go to his house, but for some reason we went to his uncle’s house. I’m not sure why I agreed to go there with him. My naive mind thought it was alright to chill in some random dude’s crib. We started off in the living room. We were just kissing very PG 13. But we ended up in the basement…ummm. I went from holding a boy’s hand to getting freaked on top of a bench press. It was first to second base in a matter of minutes. I couldn’t believe that he actually put his tongue in my mouth. I had no idea that’s what kissing was all about. I’m pretty sure he was trying to have sex with me. We did just about everything that actually leads up to sex and I had no clue that I was engaging in foreplay. Everything happens for a reason. We did not have sex, and that leads me to my first life lesson I want to pass on to my daughter.

Life Lesson #1: As a woman, you are in total control of your body and what you let happen to it.

I didn’t feel like he was pressuring me to do anything, but I didn’t realize how much power I had over my own body. Nothing happened that day that I didn’t want to. As women, it’s important for us to understand the impact of our Yes and No’s. I don’t ever want my daughter to feel forced or intimidated to do anything she doesn’t want to do. All in-all, my first kiss was good. It was extreme and I guess that’s why I didn’t get kissed again for nearly 7 years! I didn’t have a boyfriend through the rest of my high school and I didn’t date anyone in undergrad and I really regret that. And that brings me to my next life lesson.

Life Lesson #2: Date, have fun and learn how to positively interact with boys.

I want my daughter to hang out with and date a lot of different types of boys. I understand that is a controversial statement, so let me explain. When I mean date, I don’t mean have sex or become super serious. During adolescences, I think it’s important for boys and girls to interact with each other. Date, go out and have fun! The way we learn to interact with the opposite sex during this time, will determine how we relate and interact with the opposite sex as adults. As a young adult I was terrified of men! Most of my male friends were the boyfriends of my gal pals. So I never learned how to flirt (a skill all people need) and I didn’t know what to expect in a relationship. I truly believe that a lot of the issues in my marriage would not have been issues if I just understood the male psyche more, and in order to understand men, you have to actually interact with them.

Life Lesson #3: Give boys permission to be good to you.

Okay, sure I can open the door for myself, I can bring the groceries in the house and I can also put oil in my car, but why should I do it myself, especially, when there is a man around. I know, another controversial, unpopular opinion but I’m old school. Men love to feel wanted and needed. So as women, we should let them have that. I love Cynthia’s post: 4 Ways to Make Him Feel Like a Man. When you give men permission to feel wanted and needed by you, they will respond accordingly. I want my daughter to understand that she can do anything for herself, but if a man does it for her instead, it’s okay. It doesn’t mean that you are less of a woman if a man helps you. Ladies, we DO need men! The one thing I did learn after that first kiss was I knew what kind of boys I liked. In the ninth grade I was already 5’7, so I knew that I liked a boy who was way taller than me. I knew that I liked a boy who I could talk to and respected me and I knew I liked a boy who could make me laugh because I was pretty damn funny myself. I never really thought about that kiss again until about 20 years later. Recently, I saw the boy, (now a man) that participated in my first kiss. I had seen him from time to time and said hello and kept it moving but it was during an event where I was working and I saw him and his brother. And just for one moment, I was instantly taken back to that first kiss. Seeing him, made me think about the significance of what that kiss actually was. Besides him, there are only two other men in the world, who could say they kissed me like that. Since, one of them was deceased and the other one divorced me; it was the kiss of the man standing in front of me that was the only one that seemed to truly matter. That moment made me wish that I could have better understood the lessons that the experience of my first kiss taught me. When my daughter is a little older, and if she asks, I will tell her about my first kiss (she’ll be devastated to find out my first kiss wasn’t with her father). But when she is much older, I will tell her that her father was my first everything else. I hope that she will want to follow in my footsteps and save that special moment for her husband. But if she doesn’t, I know that it will be with someone who respects her, makes her laugh and is taller then she is; because she’s going to be pretty tall.