Doing the dirty.

The horizontal mambo.

Mattress dancing.

Getting it on.

Hanky panky.

The birds and the bees.

A home run.

No matter the reference or outcome, it all starts in the same place. In the end, one thing always leads to another. From never having had sex to your twentieth time, sex can be perceived and thought of in many more ways than one. Sometimes it’s thinking of it as simply as America’s past-time: baseball.

First base

Even though sex is oftentimes considered one of the most primal acts in the animal kingdom, the desire to participate in it is something left to the human mind. For some people, sex is more than a physical act; rather, it is an act of love reserved for “forever.” Sophomore Nikolai Kuvshinikov believes that waiting to have sex until marriage is an important piece of his moral compass.

“Sex is a really special bond that you can’t just throw away on some chick; it’s an emotional bond as well,” Kuvshinikov said, “Sex is a really important thing in a marriage. It’s a special bond between a husband and a wife. It’s when you’re in your most vulnerable state, and this openness with somebody should really be the person that you want to spend the rest of your life with. When you save sex for marriage, it sort of proves that you are with that person because you love them for them, not because they’re hot or something. It’s a great way to test the relationship and practice self-control.”

Growing up in a Christian household, Kuvshinikov’s parents raised him to abstain from sex and have greatly influenced him in keeping his pledge to wait to have sex until marriage. From his point of view, waiting to have sex until marriage should be an obvious decision to everyone. Having sex not only makes or breaks a relationship, but it also shows that there is a special bond between the two participants.

“With sex comes a very intimate and emotional bond, and if you break up with that person after you’ve had sex with them, that could lead to a major heartbreaking breakup. That’s kind of how sex works. Sex is designed for marriage. If you have sex before marriage, with someone other than your spouse, then you’ll most likely compare the two.”

Other than waiting for “the one,” there are also a lot of other casualties that come along with having sex too early, or before the person is ready. Unwanted pregnancies and STDs are a big concern when it comes to having premarital sex. The concern of being aware of your partner’s past suddenly becomes primary.

“I have stuck with this pledge my whole life and I’m obviously not ashamed of it,” Kushinikov said, “Why wouldn’t you want to save something so incredibly special for the person you are going to spend the rest of your life with? Personally, I want to save this special moment for my wife and I want to know I’m with her because I love her, not her sexuality.”

Second base

Sex can seem to be a very scary concept for most young teens.The thought of risking your health, heart and reputation isn’t something a high schooler takes lightly. For freshman Christopher Penn, sex is being too afraid to step up to the plate.

“None of my friends have had sex,” Penn said. “I don’t think a lot of freshmen really think about it.”

As a freshman, the thought of having sex so early can be terrifying. From insistent parents to health classes that condemn the very act, sex can seem like a foreign language. The chance of getting a girl pregnant or catching an STD isn’t worth it when you aren’t even trying to have sex.

“Last year in health they talked about the STD’s and unplanned pregnancies that could result from having sex, and to not do it when you’re so young because the odds of those things happening are very high,” Penn said, “My parents haven’t really talked about it at all, they assume I’ll get educated from school.”

Coming into high school can open you up to many new experiences, and often times sex can be one of them. Being exposed to an older and more mature atmosphere can in turn force a teenager to believe he or she needs to be more mature, and perform more mature acts to fit in. But according to Penn, not every single freshman is striving to lose their virginity so quickly.

“Being a freshman looking at upperclassmen, you see them as mature adults. On the topic of sex, I would say I’m not ready for that.”

Third base

In most every teens high school experience, there comes the time that opportunity knocks to finally “get lucky.” A girl and her boyfriend finally home alone. A heat of the moment decision at a party. No matter the situation, the possibility of having sex can be scary as well as exhilarating. But deciding if it’s the right time and place is a commitment that is undoable. For Anna, her chance to seal the deal had shown itself multiple times.

“There were two situations where I almost had sex,” Anna, a student’s name who has been changed for anonymity, said. “The first one I was just hanging out at my boyfriend’s house, and we had been dating for about two months at the time. This specific day was the first close call we ever had, and it was completely in the moment and we got about as close to doing it as you can get without actually doing it.”

Wanting to give up something so valuable comes with having certain boundaries. When Anna and her boyfriend were caught up in the moment, something told her that it wasn’t the right time or place to lose her virginity.

“Right when it was about to happen I snapped out of [it] and told him no,” Anna said. “Prior to this day, we had talked about sex multiple times but I wanted to wait. He was the first guy I had ever done anything with, and when I did decide to have sex I wanted to be 100 percent positive that I wanted to. I never thought he was going to leave me after we did it or anything, I just didn’t feel ready and if I would have done it that day I knew I would have regretted it later.”

When one makes the decision to have sex, it shouldn’t be influenced by anyone other than the two people who are deciding to participate. But oftentimes, the opinions of others can pressure two people into having sex too fast. Everyone, regardless of your sexual history, has the right to say no. So when Anna decided the time was right, she was grateful that she waited until the stereotypical “perfect” moment.

“This day was maybe about a few weeks to a month after the first close call,” Anna said. “The reason I told him yes was because I honestly just felt bad. He’s 18 and he was still a virgin, plus I could tell he really wanted to have sex. He never intentionally pressured me into it by any means, but at the time I just felt like I was keeping him from it when he could have been dating a girl his own age that would have wanted to. So I said yes.”

Home run

For some people, sex is just that: sex. No matter who you do it with or how many times, the amount of sex he/she has doesn’t define them. But as a high school student, being judged for your sexuality and sexual behaviors is inevitable. And in some cases, your closest accomplices can be your biggest critics. For Jennifer, a student’s name who has been changed for anonymity, sex is something that she is judged harshly.

“I have a lot of sex,” Jennifer said. “It’s not that I’ve had a lot of sex with different people; it’s that I’ve had sex over and over with the same people,” Jennifer said, “I get slut shamed a lot, especially last year. But, since people have noticed that I don’t sleep with everyone, they know I’m not that person they thought I was. I don’t think you should regret the sex that you’ve had, but I think that the stories are more regretful when you tell them.”

Jennifer finds sex to be something that she uses to express herself. From random hookups to an intimate moment with a significant other, sex can have multiple different meanings and hold various types of feelings.

“With some of my past boyfriends, sex sometimes means something and sometimes it is just the lust of it. Not necessarily loving that person,” Jennifer said, “If it’s like a certain event or the feeling is there, that connects with love. But if we’re watching a movie and something connects and then we just [do it]; that’s not love.”

Jennifer doesn’t feel the need to be ashamed of her past lovers. For her, keeping a list of her sexual encounters is smart. Knowing the people that she has slept with makes it easy to identify people in the case of a pregnancy scare or an STD.

“I keep a list because I feel like I need to know. It’s important in case something ever happens,” Jennifer said. “Freshman year I had a pregnancy scare with my first boyfriend, but it ended up being because of my birth control. I went to my mom to talk to her because I was scared. I was young.”

Having younger siblings makes the opportunity to teach the pros and cons of sex relatively easy for Jennifer. But when she gets reprimanded the most by members of her family, that makes her situation slightly more difficult.

“I have freshmen ask me all the time what it’s like and what to do, and I’m open and honest,” Jennifer said. “I mean my little sister is one of my biggest slut shamers. She asks me questions and I’ll answer them, but when she does slut shame me I still hold true to being open and honest about my body. Maybe I shouldn’t be as open with people, but it’s important to talk about it.”