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Girls’ Lena Dunham Opens Up About Losing Her Virginity

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Actress Lena Dunham arrives at the 36th Annual Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards at InterContinental Hotel on January 15, 2011 in Century City, California.

Lena Dunham's "first time" wasn't exactly the most romantic story ever told.

The 26-year-old creator, writer, director and star of HBO's Girls recently penned an essay about losing her virginity for Rookie Magazine; Liz Phair, Sarah Silverman and Shannon Woodward shared similar stories.

"When I was about 9 I wrote a vow of celibacy on a piece of paper and ate it. I promised myself, in orange magic marker, that I would remain a virgin until I graduated from high school," Dunham writes. "If my relationship to liver pate was any indication, and I had recently eaten so much that I barfed, then my willpower was very bad, and I needed something stronger than resolve to prevent me from having intercourse too early in life."

Related: PHOTOS: When stars lost their virginities

"Turns out, this was an unnecessary precaution," she explains. "The opportunity never arose in high school, nor even during the first year of college, save for a near-miss with a stocky kid I knew who was home visiting New York City from the Air Force Academy."

Dunham transferred to Oberlin, a small liberal arts school in Ohio, during her sophomore year. "I really felt like the oldest virgin in town, save for a busty riot girl from Olympia, Washington, who was equally frustrated; she and I would often meet up in our nightgowns to discuss."

Related: VIDEO: Lena Dunham's character learns her ex-boyfriend is gay on Girls

The TV star — who changed the name of her first sexual partner to Jonah ("to protect the truly innocent") — invited her crush to her 8 x 10 dorm room for a wine and cheese party. After everyone else left, "I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and just went for it. I removed my shirt almost immediately, and he seemed fairly impressed. Wearing just a too-tight slip-skirt from the local Goodwill, I hopped up to get the condom from the  freshman survival pack' we had been given (even though I was a sophomore)."

Shortly after, Dunham's friend Audrey walked in and "found Jonah on top of me doing what grownups do."

"I didn't tell him I was a virgin, just that I hadn't done it 'that much,'" Dunham writes in her Rookie Magazine essay. "It hurt a little more than I’d expected but in a different way, and he was nervous, too. . . Afterwards we lay there and talked, and I could tell he was a really nice person. I commended myself for making a healthy, albeit hasty, partner choice. I really couldn’t wait to tell my mom."

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She added: "Jonah wanted to date, and I figured out pretty quickly that I did not. I went over to his dorm and broke up with him in the laundry room, sitting on top of a running washer. He seemed genuinely hurt and perplexed, and I told him I'd been a virgin because I thought it made me seem like less of a she-devil. . .It's amazing how permanent virginity feels, and then how suddenly inconsequential. I barely remembered the sensation, the embarrassment and the urgency."

Girls airs Sundays at 10:30 p.m. EST on HBO.

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