Doing It For The First Time… In Another Language

You may be of the persuasion that you can lose your virginity only once, but this isn’t so. Don’t flinch – there’s no need to submit yourself to any surgical tissue reconstruction. All you have to do to re-live the awkward experience of your fist time is get down to it in another language.

Now, unless you’ve been watching porn in your target language, you probably won’t be au fait with the colloquial terminology referring to the fun parts of human anatomy, never mind being capable of engaging in saucy repartee.

On the upside, your first carnal encounter with a native speaker of the language you’re currently struggling to get to grips with is a golden opportunity for acquiring vocab that you won’t find in any textbook. And seeing that language learning (besides eating cake) is my all-time favourite hobby, that’s more than enough to motivate me.

Right then… let’s scroll back about nine months, when my Spanish was still abysmal.

So, here we are, in my living room, him gagging for it, me gagged by lack of vocab. I do take comfort in the knowledge that men all over the world function pretty much the same on a basic level. And that there is no higher level.

The session kicks off well. Of course, proceedings are punctuated by me asking for the name of various bodily protuberances, as we happen across them, but this doesn’t seem to be disturbing the flow too much. He’s one of my intercambios, you see, and used to enduring my constant questioning without complaint. I refrain from jotting things down in my notebook. A man’s patience can only be pushed so far.

Curiously enough, he doesn’t seem at all interested in the corresponding terms in English. That’s probably because there’s no longer enough blood circulating above his neckline to power the memory banks. Fine by me, as long as I’m getting what I want. I can tell that his residual thinking runs along the same lines.

So, the clothes are off, we’ve made it onto the bed somehow. Things are in full swing, when he says something to me. I gather that it’s a request for me to change position, but I haven’t got a clue which way he wants me. I’m capable of understanding ’69’ in all Latin and Germanic-based languages, and I’m 99% sure that’s not what he’s after. Just as well he’s the burly sort who can shuffle me around and re-arrange my limbs in the desired order. Ouch. My poor back.

Now he’s asking for something else. I don’t quite catch it, not helped by the fact that we’re not exactly face-to-face right now, so I just say yes. Next thing I know, there’s a finger up my butt. Or possibly two. Aha. That’ll teach me.

About twenty minutes in, he shouts something. Although I haven’t come across that particular expression before, I have no trouble deducing its meaning. “Ah,” I say, “you use the verb ‘correr’ in the reflexive for that?”

Hmmm…. this doesn’t appear to be a good time to be discussing grammar. Fine, I’ve worked it out: In Spanish you’re running instead of coming. Shame that I’m not quite there yet myself… But from a language learner’s point of view, the whole undertaking was highly satisfactory.