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For one Hollywood actress, the first time was in a garage. Another did it when she was 18. A third researched all the positions before doing it.
And they're not talking about sex. Angie Harmon, Felicity Huffman and Regina King are starring in a political ad, recalling the first time they voted.
The public-service ad is part of an effort to motivate more women, particularly "women on their own" - single, divorced and widowed - to go to the polls on Tuesday.
"They are the fastest-growing demographic group in this country," said Page Gardner, president of Women's Voices Women Vote, the group that produced the ad.
"In 2004 they were 22% of the electorate yet there were still 20-million unmarried women who did not vote," she said.
"If they voted in higher numbers … they could literally help determine the agenda in this country."
Unmarried women tend to lean towards the Democratic Party, according to political experts.
Gardner said her group was nonpartisan and its goal was to convince unmarried women - whom pollsters describe as a group that often feels left behind and uninformed - that they have the power to make an impact in the vote.
Political scientists and pollsters said the unmarried bloc of women voters represents one of the key unknowns in the election. Women represent 52% of all US voters.
Susan Carroll of the Centre for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University said the most interesting questions about women voters on November 7 relate to turnout.
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