I Lost My Virginity at 40

I had been a chubby little girl since childhood, Grandma's favourite. The people around me expressed love through food, and I kept gaining weight.

Then came teasing and exclusion from others, and I escaped into the happiness sweets gave me.

Eventually I reached the point where I wanted a relationship.

But until I could love myself, I could not expect someone else to accept me either.

Like many people in that situation, I began building walls around myself.

At the time, I believed that being slim and attractive was the path to happiness and love.

Today I know it is not necessarily that simple.

Nearly six years ago, after all my previous attempts had failed, I finally decided on a drastic solution.

I underwent stomach-reduction surgery.

I lost weight and began exercising too.

Sport became the substitute for sweets.

A series of plastic surgeries followed to remove the excess skin that remained after the weight loss.

My body changed completely.

I became an attractive, shapely woman — at least that was what the mirror showed.

But somehow I still could not see it.

I kept waiting for confirmation from the outside world.

It came, but not in the form I had expected or hoped for.

Emotionally, I was still the overweight girl.

I could not step outside the wall I had built.

The sudden change frightened me.

I felt defenceless and lost in this new world.

Exactly a year ago, I became involved in a workplace “relationship”.

I had been listening to beautiful words for a long time, and one afternoon I decided to be bold and wrote to the man.

The conversation moved quickly.

Five hours after our first message exchange, he was already in my apartment.

He did not hesitate much there either.

Very quickly he threw me onto the bed and for an hour and a half or two hours barely moved away from me.

The experience was awful.

Inside me there was only a monotonous mechanical rhythm.

I did not matter.

My feelings did not matter.

My body did not matter.

Nothing did.

Eventually he left.

And after that, he really left.

It was the first time in my life that I had allowed someone that close.

Afterwards, whenever we met, he only said hello.

We never spoke.

I suffered.

I doubted myself.

I searched inside for the mistake — what had I done wrong, and where?

By summer I had completely collapsed.

I cried constantly and had no motivation.

Nobody around me ever saw any of this because outwardly I continued to show the strong, balanced, smiling face everyone knew.

Everything was theatre.

Inside, I felt as though I was dying.

In October I finally went to a psychologist to help me find my place in the world with my new body.

Therapy has been going well.

But the real breakthrough happened this week.

On Tuesday I had a business meeting in an office inside a villa on the Buda hillside.

The surroundings radiated indescribable harmony.

All of Budapest seemed to lie at my feet.

The moment I walked through the door, I felt an inexplicable sense of calm.

It was almost as though my client and I had met before.

The assistant brought me tea and we began talking.

The atmosphere around us became warmer and warmer.

He looked at me so intensely that it felt as if he could read my thoughts.

It was frightening and comforting at the same time.

We arranged another meeting for Thursday.

I went home, but I remained so affected by what had happened that before falling asleep that evening I needed to touch myself.

I hoped the magic would not disappear before Thursday.

It did not.

The same environment and atmosphere greeted me that morning.

Again, calm and an almost incomprehensible sense of trust took hold of me.

I surrendered completely to the feeling.

I lost the control I usually cling to so tightly.

I undressed and sat beside the conference table, naked, on a chair with a man I barely knew.

And I was not uncomfortable.

Quite the opposite.

He was more embarrassed than I was.

But he crossed his own boundary too and undressed.

It did not take long before I was sitting in his lap.

It felt incredibly good to feel desired.

To feel wanted.

Then something extraordinary happened.

He knew — he sensed — what I needed.

Nothing was forced.

Everything felt natural, gentle, soft and calm.

For me, it felt as though our souls were dancing with joy and had become one through our bodies.

The sensation was intoxicating.

Looking into his eyes and seeing his pleasure was an indescribable form of happiness.

That was the moment THE WOMAN was born — the woman I had hidden for so many long years.

This man dismantled my walls.

We said goodbye slowly and held one another for a long time because both of us knew that the magic ended there, in that moment.

---

There would be no continuation.

The company I represented also signed the contract.

Each of us had crossed our own boundaries.

From there, our paths separated.

It was only a few hours, but intensely powerful for both of us.

Now, as I write these lines, I feel that I have finally begun to live.

I no longer need to satisfy anyone or anything.

And if I ask whether I lost something because my first sexual experience came so late, today I believe the opposite.

I gained something.

At forty, I feel like a free, independent, sexy Woman — in every situation life can place me in.

(The cover image is only an illustration.)

Event photography – details.

Part of the BANHALMI ecosystem

For the professional context and practical side of portrait photography, visit the BANHALMI professional website. Related art series, books and exhibitions are preserved in the BANHALMI ART archive.