PlantPerson: so glad this was helpful to you, and I'm so sorry to hear you have felt that way. If you want to talk some about your own situation, we'd be happy to do that with you! I'd just suggest you make a new thread for it, since obviously your situation is a little different from the OPs as a s...

Oh, Wanjee, this guy! I really cannot even. I'm so sorry he said all of this to you, how mean and gross. Before I say anything else, I am going to implore you to cut all contact with him. My best advice would be to just do it. Delete his number, don't say anything about it, just stop talking to him ...

You know, it's probably going to be up to you if there's a next guy, and it may well be that starting to date again helps you move on. If we are only letting ourselves imagine or visualize one person as a partner, then it's obviously going to be pretty hard for us to let them go. Often, once we star...

I want to add that sperm cells are cells, not germs. We can’t “kill” them, but we also don’t need to because pregnancy doesn’t work like disease does. Rather, it’s just a matter of keeping sperm cells away from someone’s vagina. So if you have semen on your hands, which contains sperm, and wash them...

We really don't want to be getting reproductive health advice from random strangers. It sounds like the person there was absolutely looking to exploit you, so I am very glad that you knew not to do what they were asking. What they said to you was neither factual nor meaningful: it was just someone s...

So, to determine your pregnancy risk with any given sexual activity, you'll want to look at this page: https://www.scarleteen.com/read/can-i-get-pregnant-or-get-or-pass-sti In your case, you'll look at oral sex, since that's the activity you were doing. When we figured the risk levels for these acti...

Hey, Michael, I'm sorry but there isn't anyone who can run another chat today. Would you like to schedule a day and time with us that works for you?

Hey, Kasi, I'm happy to help you out. What's the situation?

No one knows, but in the capacity of what I know as a sex educator of 25+ years, I would posit that it probably is more psychological and behavioral than chemical once off the medication. Why it happens when on it is about the influx of serotonin, but obviously that's stopped once someone stops taki...

Exactly. Someone (and probably far more than just one someone) is out there for you who can actually love you, who you can have healthy love with, and with whom love actually feels like love.

You also will not have to try so hard with that person. It will mostly feel easy.

Wanjiee: I'm going to suggest something to think about and strongly consider. What if what you have been feeling wasn't love, but attachment and a deep, deep want for love you were not getting? I suggest this because this is more often how it goes in relationships like this where one person is doing...

Just to be clear, there are a whole bunch of neurochemicals involved in sexual desire, arousal and enjoyment, and SSRIs are really only about and work with serotonin, just one of them, and impact another, dopamine. What they do with that serotonin is to re-up it, which effectively means your body ki...

I also want to add that it's often not easy to leave even crummy relationships with shitty people. Like Andy said, loss is loss: even though I think it's good for you to lose this relationship, that doesn't mean you won't still have a world of feelings about it ending, and as it did, or that you won...

I also always want to add, with a question like this, that untreated depression and anxiety are much, much more likely to cause issues with sex and desire than medications to treat them are. By all means, if you want to talk to your prescribing psychiatrist about this, I think it's a good idea. Ther...

I'm so sorry to hear what you've been put through by him, Anon. Abuse -- and all of the ways it manifests and is enacted -- is a terrible betrayal, for sure. And the way we feel when we realize we've been manipulated into it can be very hard to manage and process. I am, however, so glad that you are...

Hey there, Claire. The team here has already answered your questions about your (non) risk of pregnancy. We know from many years of this work that telling someone the same thing over and over only helps people STAY in an anxiety loop, not to mention that it's simply not a good use of our time and re...

Hey there, pixie. So, for things to feel good with our body parts, whatever they are, a few things have to be going on: 1) We generally have to already start feeling sexually excited/turned on in our minds, and then we need to sustain those feelings. 2) We need to expect, before and when we do somet...

I'm so glad to hear it.

Hey there, hadleycee. I'm sorry you're having such a hard time getting through this. You know, I think it just takes time and reminding ourselves that in abuse, we are actually programmed to believe that only the person abusing us will meet our needs. The abuse cycle reinforces that again and again,...

I want to poke my nose in here and say that engaging in masturbation now in your life, with or without a toy, is something we know only SUPPORTS you having an excellent sexual life over the years. It by no means undermines it. A person's desire for sex also isn't genital, it's something that happens...

Dating life on the apps really can be so rough, so exhausting, and feel so demoralizing. I wish that willpower and affirmations could change that, but I don't think it can. I think if we want things to change with them, their developers and owners need to do things differently and a lot of people us...

I know, I hate saying things like that because it just sucks. But I also think it is sadly true. Here's the good news: you were NOT with this guy for years and years. You didn't marry him, move in, give him money, etc. In other words, if you get out now, you can get out feeling sad and a little emot...

Hey there, theman123. Just popping in to check in on you, see how Saturday went, and to see how both you and your girlfriend are doing.

Yeah, it didn't take that much deducing. I have been on the planet for a not-incosiderable amount of time, too, including some experience of knowing the personality type of a lot of folks who do this. He kind of reeked of it, not to mention that there's really only one thing people come knocking on ...

One more thing, while I am thinking about it. You say this guy was "the dream" and that you love him. Can I ask what you love about him and why you felt he was a dream partner for you? In this piece here where the relationship was only a couple weeks old it seemed pretty clear that he was ...