Based on survey data of 1000 young people aged 18-29 and semi-structured interviews with 51 young people aged 18-34 living in a north-western Italian region, the article explores how they account for their first heterosexual intercourse. Young people describe and make sense of their experiences by referring to sexual scripts; narrative sequences that represent the legitimate rules and moves of the heterosexual game. The article shows the complex intertwining of compliance with, adaptation and negotiation of, and challenge to gendered sexual scripts. On the one hand, at the beginning of their sexual careers young people follow gendered scripts strongly shaped by a double standard: young men more often place their first sexual intercourse within a context of emotional and relational detachment, while young women tend to interpret their sexual debut as a romantic experience. On the other hand, the research findings point to processes of negotiation and re-definition of scripts based on three different cultural logics: the denaturalization of sexual scripts; the reversal or inversion of gendered scripts; and the convergence with or the construction of a common "degendering" script. (Contains 2 figures and 4 notes.)