Writer, April Would, felt shame for being a virgin in young adulthood. When she realized her relationship with her “first time” partner wouldn’t last, April questioned a lot of what she’d learned about sex and their own desires. Eventually, April delved into sex work and audio erotica, which led to even more epiphanies.
Hear April’s story in the new Girl Boner Radio episode! Stream it on Apple Podcasts/iTunes, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Spotify or below! Or read on for a lightly edited transcript.
Mid-20s “Virgin” to Phone Sex Operator: April Would
a Girl Boner Radio transcript
[Upbeat intro music] August’s VO: What would it take to arouse your life? To experience more connection? More pleasure? More realness? In and outside of the bedroom?
*****
April: I spent all this time feeling so much shame about not having sex at all. And now I’m immersed in sexuality. I’m made to feel shame about that, too. So it’s like, what is the right thing to do? The answer is there is no right thing to do. It’s all neutral. And it varies wildly.
[acoustic, encouraging music…]
August/narration:
Writer, April Would, never imagined she would one day engage in a particular type of sex work. Early on, sexuality was understandably confusing to her.
April: I remember my childhood. being filled with these moments of me overhearing stuff about sex at school and going home and saying to my mom, “That can’t be true.” And she would say to me, “No, that is true.”
I never got a sit down, capital T talk. I remember her explaining the mechanics to me and explaining, “You’re going to go through puberty. You’re going to get a period,” and all this stuff.
But sex was always purely…something married people do and it’s something grownups do. In terms of the emotion behind it, that was always kind of a shadowy thing. I never really questioned that. I think because I was raised Catholic. It was just something we didn’t really talk about, not polite conversation.
I remember being six or seven and masturbating in the bathtub without really any kind of clear notion of what I was doing. It was just like, oh, this feels good.
August/narration:
Well, it felt good at first.
April: I was using a bar of soap, which, ugh… I always referred to it as “it bit me,” which is just that it stung. It started to hurt. That was a very clear memory of, like, my body contains multitudes that I am not prepared for. And so I kind of was scared away from masturbation for years and years.
And I would sublimate my sexual feelings with writing.
August/narration:
April started writing very early. One story in particular stands out in their memory.
April: So I wrote this short story in I think second grade. The story was just basically a girl —myself, insert character — sitting on the side of the road, and two other girls approach her and just make fun of her. That was the story. There was no proper ending.
And maybe the adults were just like, “This is a bad story. Nothing happens in it besides the inciting incident.” But, looking back on it, I’ve tried to imagine, if I were an adult and a child that young brought me that story, I would probably also be like, “Are you okay?”
But I was writing it from a place of kind of titillation. I was exploring my kind of my feelings being turned on by power play, which have always been present. My earliest sexual fantasies, from as early I can remember, literally were always about power exchange, power play, sometimes degradation and humiliation.
When the adults around me suggested I change it and give it a happy ending where they all walk off in the sunset and become friends, I felt and intense shame. It was the first moment in my life where I realized, Oh… Whatever I’m feeling, this thing that I’m feeling is bad and it’s wrong and it’s something I have to hide from people.
I never identified those feelings as erotic or sexual, and none of the adults ever asked me,”Does this excite you?” or whatever, but there was a connection formed in my brain from a very early age of, this makes people uncomfortable and I should keep it to myself.
That ended up informing so much of my sexuality and experience with sexuality, from that moment until right now.
August/narration:
April told me that for much of her 20s, she carried intense shame about “still being a virgin.”
April: I went to a Catholic high school. I don’t know if abstinence has ever not been popular in a religious environment, but I was coming of age during a heyday of abstinence-only teaching. And, it was obviously not the most sex positive environment. It was very pro woman. It was very, “We’re all about female empowerment,” but not in terms of sexuality.
I remember there being a very noticeable moment when not having had sex yet was still relatively not unusual among my group of friends. And then we all got to college, and not just having sex, but everyone was suddenly in serious relationships, and I was not. I was not ready for that. I was on my own for the first time.
I wouldn’t say it was a choice exactly. Like, I wanted to have sex. I was curious about sex. But I kind of knew in my heart I wasn’t ready for it. Time just kept going by.
August/narration:
Plus, who would they even have sex it with?
April: I think a lot of people assume that sex just falls in your lap. Like you can’t leave the house without stumbling into it. But if you don’t actively pursue it, and you’re not in a social setting that paves opportunities for it, it’s not unusual to just not have opportunities.
And then you’re out of college and you’re an adult and everyone assumes you’ve already done it, and now you feel like a total freak. And you feel like you’re the only one, too, because nobody’s talking about this. And you’re not the only one.
August/narration:
There was another reason April was reluctant to have sex.
April: My OBGYN told me that because of some physical stuff, she was like, “Your first time is really gonna hurt. So make sure that it’s with someone that you trust.” I’m like, well shit. It’s yet another thing to add to the list of things to keep me away from sex with other people.
August/narration:
For years, self-pleasure still wasn’t a thing for April.
April: Oh, no, no, no, no, no… I didn’t masturbate. I would sublimate my sexual feelings with writing. My god, I reread some of my teenage writing. I was just like, “Kid, just rub one out real quick!” [laughs]
August/narration:
That changed one day during college, when their roommate was away for the weekend.
April: And I thought, I have real privacy for the first time in my life. I’m gonna do it. And I did it. It was very underwhelming, because I was still very scared of my body and I was afraid to touch myself. From my teen years, I treated my body like condemned property basically. It’s just like, Ugh, this thing I have to carry around.
I feel like it’s maybe not explicitly Catholic, but I think I absorbed that in some way of ‘your body is just your burden to bear for your soul and your mind.’
August/narration:
Once April got the hang of solo play, she kept at it.
April: I couldn’t stop. I do remember once I moved into my own apartment, when I was 23, and then I was living with a roommate and I bought my first vibrator, which was not a real vibrator. It was a personal massager. [laughs] But when it arrived, I was like, oh, this is amazing.
And then I was off to the races.

August/narration:
In her mid to late 20s, April had PIV sex (penis in vagina sex), for the first time, with someone she’d thought she would marry.
April: I knew very shortly after I started dating this person, like, okay, this is probably gonna be it. I was terrified to reveal it. But it turned out to be, a very positive experience. My partner was very kind, very understanding. I was open about my inexperience, and it was just very positive.
I think in some ways, my personal trade off was, I had to wait a while. But I did have a pretty ideal first time in terms of feeling safe, feeling heard.
August/narration:
Not a lot of pleasure, but not a lot of pain, either. With someone she trusted, just like her gynecologist had suggested.
August: So you thought you were going to marry this person. Did you?
April: I was so smug in the beginning. I was like, “Everyone says relationships are so hard, and this is just the easiest thing that could ever happen. We just love each other, and we’re gonna get married.” And I very deeply wanted to be married then.
But, you know, what works in the first year of a relationship doesn’t necessarily work in the second or third year, or when you’re living together, and it just, it quickly became clear that we were not compatible long term partners.
So that was very sad, and it took me a long time to come to terms with it. Cause then also, my reality was shaken. I was like, Oh, well, I thought this was going to be my person. But there was this other side of it where I was starting to become curious about what sex would be like with other people. And I did want to have other experiences with people other than my partner.
I definitely think people can only sleep with one person and be happy. But I was starting to see that that wasn’t for me personally. And so it really kind of was a completely different way of thinking about my sexuality.
August/narration:
When April wrote to me, they described their experience like this: “I took my own virginity, not with a dildo or vibrator, but by reframing my entire attitude about sex and pleasure.”
There’s no medical definition of virginity; it’s really a construct. And I love that April took this concept, this popular idea, and defined it for herself.
April:
I’ve always been very kind of pedantic about what we call sex and why certain acts are thought of as sex and others aren’t. I remember, even in high school, there was this common refrain of, “a blowjob isn’t sex.” And I’d be like, why? It feels like the most intimate thing that I can imagine, having a dick in my mouth.
And then I started having intercourse. It’s like, no, you don’t come every time, maybe. Is it orgasm that defines it? Is it penetration? Is it intimacy? Is it connection? Not everyone gets all of these things, every time they have sex, depending on their experience.
And so I really started to, narrow down the common denominators. The common denominator is me. And I really think more people would benefit from seeing themselves as their first and most important sexual partner. And I don’t mean that in an entitlement, my pleasure is the only pleasure that matters, or the most important way.
It’s just that you have a responsibility to yourself to understand yourself and your desire so you can communicate that to a partner.
I realized that following my own rules, that journey began for me, with that story I wrote as a kid, or those early masturbatory experiences, or finally experiencing an orgasm as an adult, after trying for so long and understanding like, Oh, this is what an orgasm is?
And I remember feeling very happy that I had my first orgasm by myself because it felt like a powerful way of connecting to myself. And I was glad I got to do that with myself before I did it with a partner.
My first partner was my first sexual partner in terms of intercourse, but I did have a very formative sexual experience about a year before that, where intercourse was not had, but it was very, very sexual, it was very erotic, and also it was, again, with power exchange. It was a person who was playing in the space that I really enjoy in terms of domination and submission.
Leading up to that, I had thought you know, “What do you know, you virgin? You don’t understand what you actually like.” Maybe this is the influence of the patriarchy and you don’t like power exchange at all. And then this experience happened and I was like, oh no, actually, you understand yourself just fine.
And you understand yourself better than all these people who are saying that you should have had sex by now, so maybe you’re doing an okay job guiding yourself.
All these things happened pre intercourse, and are as equally valid and important sexual experiences to me as that first experience of intercourse.
August/narration:
Eventually, April became a phone sex operator.
April: My first job out of college was phone-based customer service. And so I did a lot of talking on the phone. I felt very comfortable on the phone, even though I hate my phone voice.
I think everyone hates the sound of their own voice a little bit because it feels uncanny and weird. I’ve gotten accustomed to it now, but at 23 I really hated it.
But I was very good on the phone, and I enjoyed talking to people, and I especially enjoyed talking to people I couldn’t see. I remember making a joke to myself then that, you know, this job would be a lot more fun if it were phone sex. But I was like, that’s not still a thing.
Time kept going by and I was like, you know, maybe I should check and see if it is a thing…
I saw a movie in like 2012 called For a Good Time Call, which is not a great movie, but I was taking a lot of improv classes at the time, and I was watching it and I was thinking, this is just improv. I can do this. This requires just all the skills we learn in improv. Say “yes and,” listen, respect your partner, don’t try to force anything.
During the movie I thought you know, well, I’m still a virgin, but maybe I could pitch this as a story. I could be a virgin, but a phone sex operator. And then I could pitch that and write it and maybe get somewhere from that. Spoiler alert, that turns out to happen in the movie. So I was like, ah, shit.
But it never entirely left my mind as an option. And I went so far as to look up to see what the process would be, but I just never actually went forward with it.
August/narration:
Years later, that changed.
April: I was with my partner, we were living together, and I was starting to feel a hankering for other sexual experiences.
You know, there’s never enough money. So, I was like, “Hey, maybe to earn some extra money I could do this on the side.” And my partner was always very like, “Yeah. Sure, go ahead. Do it.”
August/narration:
Over the next six months, April kept checking in with her partner.
April: “Are you still okay with it? Are you still okay with it?” And my partner would always be like, “Yes, I’m okay with it. Just do it.” And so, I did it. And I never thought that it was going to turn into a career.
I always thought it was going to be something screwy that I did for a month or three months or something, but then from my very first call, I felt almost like being throttled by destiny. Oh, like this is, this is something I’m good at. And this is something that I really enjoy doing.
August/narration:
April did phone sex operating as a second job, a side hustle, for a while.
April: At the same time I was also starting to do audio work. I was breaking into erotic audio.
Because I actually did the audios first as a way to see…you know, you can’t say cock in your day-to-day life without giggling. How are you going to do it on a phone call? So it was really a way for me to get comfortable with erotic language.
Sound to me has always been incredibly important in erotic media. I always say, if a porno doesn’t have sound in it, I’m probably not gonna be able to get into it from visuals alone.
So this erotic audio sphere was like, oh, it’s just the sound! And again, it was that feeling of being throttled by destiny…like, this is the perfect medium for me to explore my sexuality. From then on, I was just like great, bring it on. I want to do all of it.
August/narration:
April’s first phone sex session started out…not so fun.
April: He was just very degrading off the bat. I’m okay with some of that in a clearly defined, a ‘we are playing now’ scenario. But he just kind of launched into it immediately.
I thought for sure that it was a fake call that the line was using to train me so I just kept kind of going with it and then when it was over he was super polite he was like, “Thank you for that. I appreciate it.”
August/narration:
April no longer felt degraded. In fact,
April: I was just like, oh my God. I’ve heard certain kinds of kink described as finding a new sexual organ. It was like that for me. It was like, oh my gosh, I want this. It was a little bit double sided, too, because it not just personal, it was also professional.
It was like, this isn’t just something I enjoy sexually; this is something that I’m good at. That changed my life, that call.
August/narration:
Phone sex work, and audio erotica, remain big parts of April’s life. But that’s not to say she’s immune to sex-related shame.
April: That’s something that I’ve been reconciling myself lately is like, oh, I’m a sex worker and I still experience sexual shame. So it’s not surprising that a lot of people do.
I always joke that I am not an incredibly sexually confident woman, I just play one on the radio. I’m certainly more confident than I was. It’s just always a process.
That level of shame that I was dealing with is not something that can just be swept up overnight. And I’m in a very introverted branch of sex work. I’m having private conversations. I’m not even with people physically.
August/narration:
April told me that phone sex work has helped them work through shame she’s felt, quote, “both as a virgin and a whore.”
April: I think it is a unique perspective, having been out of the sexual realm, spending so much of my adult life. Cause I mean, when you’re early to mid twenties, it seems like everyone’s fucking. I felt completely left out of that. I felt alienated from my peers.
Time went by, I started doing this work. Now so many of my friends are married with kids, and I feel a little alienated from my peers yet again, because I’m actively in sex work.
Phone sex isn’t criminalized. Most people don’t even think it still exists. It’s not like I’m a full service provider who has to deal with criminality and physical lack of safety. But I still feel like when I tell people what I do, some of them, depending, are a little judgy and weird and like, “Oh really? Wow…” Not everyone, but a fair few.
It’s fascinating to kind of see how much sex is “enough sex.” And what’s the right kind of sex to have, the right amount, the right relationship? It feels like there’s this unreachable ideal that no one can exactly define. When really the truth is, I think it’s different for everyone.
I spent all this time feeling so much shame about not having sex at all. And now I’m immersed in sexuality. I’m made to feel shame about that, too. So it’s like, what is the right thing to do?
The answer is there is no right thing to do. It’s all neutral. And it varies wildly.
[encouraging, acoustic music]
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[encouraging, acoustic music]
August/narration:
One of April’s biggest lessons learned along the way is the importance of treating yourself as a sexual partner. At one point, a client told them:
April: “You need to treat yourself like a sexual partner.” Or like, “You’re your first sexual partner,” or something like that. And I remember finding that incredibly striking and going, “Oh my gosh. Yes, you’re absolutely right!”
August/narration:
April believes that embracing what you want is a big part of that.
April: I feel like people are very quick to dismiss their desires. You see this a lot in people who kind of know that they’re kinky, but reject living any kind of kink-friendly lifestyle, because it’s going to make dating so much harder: Who’s ever going to accept me? This stuff is so weird.
But don’t you owe it to yourself to act on what you really want? Don’t you owe it to yourself to pursue a partner who sees that part of you and loves you not despite it but because of it?
Granted, this is complicated because sometimes, you know, you love who you love, and, and you make choices, and you choose: I’d rather be with this person than, than act on this part of my sexuality. And all those things happen.
August/narration:
There are ways to work around mismatched desires. (Side note, check out Pamela Madsen’s Girl Boner story from a March, 2024, and the episode called Mismatched Desires, Matching Love, for great examples.) But April feels that doing so, whether you stay in a particular relationship or not, too seldom happens.
April: We’re so quick to dismiss stuff as “it’s just sex.” And, I’m like, “Yeah, but, if you’re signing up to only have sex with one person, or in one particular set of circumstances, for the rest of your life, do you not owe it to yourself to figure out the best way to honor what you really want?”
I think a big part of the reason why I have a job is because people want a witness for their truest selves. I don’t know what it is about sex, but sex is a window into something that is true and honest about our fundamental nature. And that also includes asexual people who maybe don’t feel sexual attraction. Don’t dismiss yourself.
It’s not selfish to prioritize your own pleasure. It will make you a better partner in the long run if you Acknowledge the importance of what you want, because then you will be fully honest, fully authentic.
People change over time. So it’s the hardest thing to do. And it’s kind of a “do what I say, not as I do” at this point, because I’ve had trouble talking to partners about what I really am into, and also what I do for a living. It’s hard. But it’s important.
Would you rather be married by a certain age, or would you rather have an authentic, real partnership with someone who truly understands what turns you on?
[soft, lilting music: “Grace of Love”]
August/narration:
April wrote a story that’s featured in the anthology, Best Women’s Erotica, Volume 10, edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel. It’s called “The Alligator Jaw” and features a “porn viewing that draws the narrator to the theater.” Here’s what they wanted you to know about it.
April: I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of adult theaters… It was fascinating to me this idea of, not only just going to a public place that is still private, because I mean a movie theater is kind of in this liminal space between public and private. You’re going to this movie theater to have what is essentially a private experience communally.
I also wanted to explore the idea of what it truly means to have sexual chemistry and what a good sexual experience feels like, what it means, and what it means to have great sex out of nowhere. What makes good sex, what makes connection? It felt right that this should happen in a public/private spot, because sex is an incredibly private thing that you ultimately have to let other people in for.
I always say the reason why I didn’t have sex for so long is because I’m terrified of confrontation, and sex is the ultimate confrontation. I see the story as being about finding a connection in an unexpected place.
August/narration:
Find Best Women’s Erotica, Volume 10 most anywhere books are sold. For more erotica from April, find April Would — W O U L D — on Patreon and Bluesky.
If you enjoyed this Girl Boner Radio episode, I would so appreciate it if you’re post a rating or review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. They really help more folks find the show, including those who could especially benefit. They really keep me going, too. Thank you so much for listening.
[outro music that makes you wanna dance]
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