Interview with Lucy, 18-19, working class, no religion. Women, Risk and AIDS Project, London, 1990. Original version. (Ref: LSFS36)

This interview is part of the Women, Risk and Aids Project (1989-90) archive which was created as part of the Reanimating Data Project (2018-20).Original transcript of an interview with Lucy, who is working in accounting after completing her A-Levels. She is still living at home with her mother, but her boyfriend is allowed to sleep over. Lucy describes losing her virginity in a one night stand, which she feels a lot of regret about - she had just wanted to 'get it over and done with'. It had hurt a lot, she didn't enjoy it very much and felt that asking him to use a condom would have been too awkward. She had thought that only men got enjoyment from sex, and was surprised when she had her first orgasm. Lucy thinks that there are generational differences in understandings of sex, disease and risk, especially after conversations with her mother, who is now in her 50s. She thinks that public health campaigns targeted at young people could be much more realistic, especially anti-drug campaigns. Her sex education in an all girls' school was very late and very limited - there was a lot of talk around sex at her school, but masturbation had remained a taboo subject.