Not every women’s first sexual experience is the same. For some its what they expected and for others its nothing like what they thought it would be. Both Ifemelu in Americanah and Esther in The Bell Jar experience having sex for the very first time and it didn’t seem to be what they expected it to be. They both had different experiences but the same outcome, which is they weren’t as satisfied with the feeling afterwards. Ifemelu’s first time starts when she is giving Obinze a massage because his muscles are aching after he has played basketball. Obinze is enjoying the pleasure of the massage and decides to take things further by undressing Ifemelu. Now Ifemelu wasn’t new to the feeling of him undressing her except this time he would be undressing all over her, “when he undressed her, he did not stop, as usual, at her underwear (Adichie 71 pdf). Ifemelu imagined it happening differently she “assumed they would make a carefully planned ceremony of it” (Adichie 72 pdf), Obinze did not use a condom and I’m guessing that’s not how she planned it; especially since she could get pregnant. Obinze didn’t mind not using a condom since they “we’re going to get married anyways” (Adichie 72), but Ifemelu feels that hes only saying that in the moment. Ifemelu loves Obinze very much and thought her first time having sex with him would be special and although it may have been “the unplannedness of it all had left her a little shaken, and also a little disappointed. It seemed somehow as though it had not been worth is after all” (Adichie 72). A women’s first sexual experience should feel like everything she hoped but Ifemelu did not feel this way. Instead she was worried the whole time about what she would say to Obinze’s mom and how she would react and just how unplanned it all had been.

In The Bell Jar Esther also had an unsatisfying first sexual experience with an math professor named Irwin. Esther feels that Irwin would be a good man to sleep with being that he was smart, experienced being an older guy, and no one really knew of him so it no one would ever know. As there about to have sex Esther awaits for the big change in her life that’s about to happen, ” I lay, rapt and naked, on Irwin’s rough blanket, waiting
for the miraculous change to make itself felt” (Plath 120 pdf). As it is happening all she can feel is a sharp pain and in the end she starts to bleed, Irwin treats it as its nothing, “Oh, that often happens, Irwin reassured me. You’ll be all right” (Plath 120). Esther imagined a completely different feeling of being a new person, ” I wanted to brood over my new condition in perfect peace. But the towel came away black and dripping” (Plath 120). Esther and Ifemelu are both females who had sexual intercourse with the opposite sex and played the role of being a virgin who was experiencing sex for the very first time. In the end, after their sexual experience neither of them feel satisfied. The consequence of having sex Ifemelu ends up having stomach pain, she throws up in fear that she is pregnant and wonders what will happen, just full of worries and disappointment. Esther is feeling pain instead of pleasure during and after her sexual experience and doesn’t seem to really feel a change in herself so much like she wanted to feel. Both women’s first sexual experience was different but both felt very unhappy with the outcome.