“Yes, I’m a 27-Year-Old Virgin”
I’m lying on my back in a king-size bed at the Hotel Chelsea in New York City, wearing nothing but my underwear. Next to me is a man I’ll call James, an insanely attractive British guy (think a younger Clive Owen) I’ve had a crush on since we met last year. Hands down, he’s the most handsome man I’ve ever seen close up, not to mention naked. I sneak a peek at us in a massive mirror across from the bed and think, I like him—a lot—and I might have sex! Yet I’m still not sure I can go through with it.
Let me explain: I’m a virgin. As a practicing Mormon, I’m supposed to wait until marriage to have sex. But not just intercourse. I’m really only allowed to kiss sitting up. Which means I’m definitely not supposed to be in bed with a naked man. My life was supposed to go like this: get married in my early twenties to another Mormon in a Mormon temple, have children, raise them, marry them off, become a grandmother and die.
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when I strayed from that course and ended up, at 27, single and perilously close to losing my virginity every other week. Perhaps it was the day I received my college acceptance letter from New York University. My mother was terrified. “Elna,” she said nervously, “the first thing that will happen in New York is you might start to swear. Swearing will lead to drinking, and drinking will lead to drugs. And Elna,” she continued, looking directly into my eyes, “what would you do if a lesbian tried to make out with you?”
My mother, who once referred to Manhattan as Babylon, sat with her arms folded, waiting for me to answer.
“I’d say, ‘No, thank you … lesbian.’” 
She rolled her eyes. “There’s one more thing,” she said. “There are clubs in New York where men pay women to dance with very little clothing on. Don’t do that.”
Despite her concerns, I was pretty straitlaced at NYU. My friends, however, weren’t, and I found myself fascinated by their hectic dating lives. As a Mormon, my one illicit curiosity had always been sex. With men. Sex, boys, penises. Not that I’d ever sated that curiosity in my boy-free teen years. In fact, I was so clueless about the opposite sex that when I tried sketching a penis in a college art class, my best guy friend thought I’d drawn a tugboat.
Which makes complete sense, really, because everything I knew about sex I learned in church. I remember a Sunday school class on chastity when I was 13. The teacher walked into the classroom and slammed a tray of cookies onto the table with a loud clank.
