Help.. I can’t feel anything.

[Mosept]

I’m 14, 5 months from 15. I’m biologically female. Let’s start from the beginning: I’ve had sexual desires since I was 8. It’s when puberty started for me. I’ve read probably about 100 articles so far about female pleasure. I’ve masterbated hundreds of times, trying everything. Exploring my body, light touches, rough, watching pornography, hentai, I’ve used toys, my fingers, my imagination… you name it. But, I feel nothing. In my vaginal area, at least. My clit, I can feel very minimal pleasure. I’m a very sexual person, I love the pleasure it can- and should- give you. People have told me I’m as bad as a teen boy. Yet, boys feel so much more. I’m embarrassed to admit I’m not a virgin. Young and dumb, my mother likes to call me. Sex doesn’t please me either. I’ve read women won’t experience nearly as much pleasure as a man ever would, since we have limited nerve endings due to pregnancy. I’ve grown to HATE having the body of a girl because of it. Nothing works. I feel no pleasure ever, from someone else or from myself. And I want to. I have pent up urges and it’s frustrating me so much. All the 18+ stuff I see I always imagine how fake the girl is being. There’s no way a girl can experience so much pleasure, right? And it’s not as if I don’t feel anything, I feel horrible pain. Toys, small or big, or EVNE my fingers, just hurt. I feel as though I’m being painfully stabbed. Am I different, or are women just so unlucky to have no good feelings? I hear women say how it’s their entire body, but I don’t feel it. I never once heard a woman tell me they enjoy the sex men do. I hear how it hurts so bad, and how they can’t get turned on.. I hate it. Like I said, I’ve grown mad at my own body. Why was I made this way?? Why were boys blessed with the ability to experience pleasure without any of the pain to go along? Am I just different? I’m so jealous, and mad. Please help…

[Siân]

Hi Mosept,

I wonder what kinds of places you've been reading these articles about pleasure? Because you've talked a lot about different physical things, but actually a lot of what is going on when people experience sexual pleasure (regardless of their gender or anatomy) is their brain. This is a good place to start if you want to understand what I mean: With Pleasure: A View of Whole Sexual Anatomy for Every Body.

You're mentioned hating your body and experiencing pain a lot - neither of these are going to make for a great headspace for experiencing pleasure. Can you expand on what you mean by being mad at your own body?

It sounds like anything entering your vagina is quite an ordeal for you, what if you put that on hold for now? We can talk more about why that might be if you like, but I don't want to throw too much at you at once just now! You're definitely not alone in finding vaginal stuff not-pleasurable, so you're not weird or different.

There are a couple of fact-checks I do want to do though.
1. Women and people with vulvas can and do experience sexual pleasure, and I have no reason to believe that whether you have a vulva or a penis affects how much pleasure you can experience. Usually the problem is that we're looking for it in the wrong places.
2. I'm not sure where the pregnancy thing came from but we actually have MORE nerve endings in our clit than there are in the head of a penis. It's inside the vagina itself that a lot of people find less exciting.
3. You're also right that in most of the 18+ content you're watching, most of the pleasure is probably fake - from everyone involved. The people you're watching are actors doing a job, and it's not hugely representative of real life.
Does any of that surprise you, or make you think?

[Mosept]

I’ve tried on my mental space, making it all positive and hoping for the best, but it doesn’t seem to help at all. My clit just hurts when I mess with it. Hating my body isn’t my physical appearance, it’s the fact I don’t have the parts a man does. The head of a penis isn’t the entire penis, or the testicles, or anus, or any of that which he feels more pleasure from. I feel like I’ve genuinely tried everything. Im so jealous of a man. I feel as if a man DOES feel better, because he has more nerve endings, more areas of pleasure, and are more likely to orgasm overall…

[Sam W]

Hi Mosept,

So, I think it might help to reframe how you're thinking about bodies: having a penis, anus, and testicles doesn't make someone more likely or more able to feel pleasure than a person with a clitoris, vagina, and labia (and an anus, since we all have those). All those places can experience some degree of pleasure, and for some people they can be painful or uninteresting to touch. Too, if you have a clit, you actually have the only spot on human anatomy that exists solely for the purpose of pleasure.

Our experiences of pleasure and our likelihood of orgasming ultimately have very little to do with which sets of genitals we have and a LOT to do with things like communication with our partners, coming to understand the quirks of our own bodies, our mental state, our physical health, whether we have sexual media or fantasies that we can get lost in, and a lot more things besides. And at a certain point, we don't help ourselves by trying to compare our experiences of pleasure, masturbation, or sex with some hypothetical other persons; instead, we can focus on getting to know our own bodies and minds, and learning what brings us pleasure. Does that make sense?

Speaking of bodies, have you ever spoken to a healthcare provider about the pain you feel trying to insert anything into the vaginal canal? Sometimes, when insertion is painful, it helps to eliminate possible physical causes.

Can I ask if there are other parts of being a girl you hate? Or is it solely your sexual anatomy?

[Mosept]

Sexual anatomy mainly. I also dislike periods, mood swings, heats, cramps, menopause (which I will experience later), the chance of pregnancy, the horrible side affects, among everything else. I’ve grown up with 6 boys and not a single other girl, by the way. If that has any cause of this. Nothing feels good and guys always make fun of being one, while almost every girl at my school (that are there) complain about how it genuinely is a horrible thing. And I get the feeling. Being a woman is a curse, to me.

[Sam W]

It's not wrong to say that women deal with oppression and certain kinds of day to day crap in ways that men don't. And it's not wrong to say that having a uterus presents a unique set of challenges. But I think, in the long run, thinking of it as a curse is mostly just going to make you feel crummy about your body and gender (I'm assuming here that you're not experiencing feelings that suggest you might be trans, but if I'm wrong there please correct me).

Speaking of which, it can help to remember that this isn't as cut and dry as being about universal experiences of being a man or being a woman. After all, there are men who deal with periods and have to worry about pregnancy, and women who don't deal with those things .

There are a couple of things we could talk about. One is how to make some of those crummy things, like periods, a little less crummy. Another would be to find some ways to start exploring more positive or nuanced view of what being a woman means, or even talking about how to find some women that you look up to as examples of how to navigate the world as woman. Do either of those options sound like something you'd like to try?