Growing up in a strict Catholic Vietnamese migrant family, I didn’t really stand a chance when it came to having a positive attitude towards sex. Sex was was a minefield of guilt and a topic to be avoided at all costs. My parents made sure my sister and I went to an all-girl Catholic school, removing us from any opposite sex interaction, just in case a conversation with a boy would - God forbid - get us pregnant.
So it’s no wonder I had no idea what to do with guys. I could barely look one in the eye or form a sentence around one until well into my 20s when I finally came to realise that not every male who talked to me wanted to have sex with me.
It also didn’t help that all my horny peers knew so much about a topic I was completely in the dark about. I was still sucking on Chupa Chups while they were doing…to be honest I never really knew, but I knew it was a hell of a lot more than me.
I wasn’t allowed to go to the parties my friends went to on the weekends, the ones with boys and pot and fumbling around under a blanket in the dark trying to be quiet so that all the other people in the room don’t know you’re cheating on your girlfriend with her friend while she was sleeping above them on the couch. True story - happened to my mate Allison. She’s still cut.
Madeleine Chu with friends. Source: Supplied
My parents knew better. They watched Australia’s Most Wanted and would point to the poor girl in the re-enactment like it was actual footage from a sexual assault and murder and say, “You see, she went to party. Now she dead. NO PARTY FOR YOU!”
And so, I would spend my weekends hanging out with my parents pre-approved people…my extended family. One Friday night when I was in my 20s I was in my favourite place: on the couch watching a movie at my aunt and uncle’s house after babysitting their kids. Cruel Intentions was on. My Caucasian uncle, (my aunt married a white guy - very controversial for her time) had left the room briefly and upon his return asked what he had missed out on. I said “Ryan Phillippe was going down on Selma Blair, whatever that means.” My uncle laughed me out of the room. My inexperience and lack of sexual knowledge was always ridiculed.
My parents knew better. They watched Australia’s Most Wanted and would point to the poor girl in the re-enactment like it was actual footage from a sexual assault and murder and say, “You see, she went to party. Now she dead. NO PARTY FOR YOU!”
You’re probably wondering why I lost my virginity so late and must be thinking that I’m some kind of hideous ogre that couldn’t get laid. Far from it. I’d rate myself a solid 7. I can turn it up to 8 on a day when I could be bothered. Or maybe you think I’m super churchy. Even although I was raised Catholic, I didn’t exactly listen or pay attention at mass. I also wasn’t waiting for marriage, I just wanted to like the person I had sex with and I didn’t think that was too much to ask for. But finding someone who I liked and who also understood me for the Aussie/Asian hybrid was difficult.
I did find someone though and he turned out to be super quirky, into indie music and an Australian-born Viet just like me. Funnily enough he is also Catholic. (When my aunt found out she literally ran across the room to high five me.)
Then we played the numbers game (never a good idea FYI). 'How many people have you been with?' I panicked and said 13. It seemed like a decent number for someone in their mid-twenties. It’s also the number that Famke Janssen’s character says in the movie Love and Sex which, at that stage, was my only frame of reference for all things to do with love and/or sex. “Whoa!” he said, “I’ve only been with five.” Dammit I should have said less. Too late now, I already picked my number and I have to stick with it.
Once upon a time women lied about their virginity being intact for marriage lest our husband’s family rejected us for not being chaste. Now we’re in a time when numbers matter and zero is the odd number to have.
So I ended up losing my virginity at the ripe old age of 25. An age where I honestly thought I was the last virgin on Earth. According to a 2004 survey conducted by The Australian Study of Health and Relationships the median age for first vaginal intercourse was 17, ('cause all that non-vaginal stuff just doesn’t count apparently). It found that 50 per cent of people had penetrative vaginal sex for the first time from 16-18 years old. That basically means that statistically speaking, cousins I babysat, whose asses I wiped, lost their virginity at the same time as me.
But it turns out, my partner and I were both lying to each other. Neither of us had been with anyone else which is virtually unheard of for people our age. It’s something we didn’t work out until a full year of being together. Now 10 years later, neither of us have been with anyone else nor do we want to be. And the sex is fan-bloody-tastic just in case you were wondering *winky face emoji*
Madalene Chu appears in the new episodes of the SBS series The Swiping Game: Is Sex a Deal-Breaker and Love Me, Love My Anxiety.
