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[sky]

What exactly is comphet?

I do want to work on it, I do I just always go to sex, every time and it overwhelms me so so deeply. We can talk about things but no matter what we talk about I will think about how I have to put my mouth on a vagina and I’m just so afraid to do that. I don’t know how to not go there. It makes me want to scream and rip my hair out I want to be able just to think about things normally and not think about sex and all the germs and the things I have to do in those moments and how do they happen, how do I do them.

I feel I won’t be able to get anywhere with anything until I have sex but I really just am not ready for some random person but I’m not allowing myself to get attached to anyone right now so then I’m just stuck here at spot one unable to move.

Do you get me?

[Heather]

We've talked about this in chat before, so I'll be brief. Compulsory heterosexuality is a term to describe the ideas we all get living in a world that not only only presents sex between cisgender, heterosexual men and women AS sex at all, let alone as the only truly acceptable way to be sexual, it centers it as the normal, or the ideal sex for everyone. It is most likely why, for instance, you believe sex between two people with vaginas cannot possibly be as exciting as when there is a penis involved.

This is a nice, clear breakdown of comphet (and also discusses a specific kind of OCD that can be at play with all this, too): https://www.treatmyocd.com/what-is-ocd/ ... tation-ocd If reel education is a better fit, this educator, Eva Bloom, talks about it a lot and does so very well: https://www.instagram.com/whatsmybodydoing/ I think her content would be great for you, period.

So, sex isn't going to fix your issues. Would that it had that kind of ability. It doesn't. I mean, a sex life you love and enjoy, over time, now THAT can for sure help you out here. But it's not like you can just bonk somebody and shazam: all of these feelings and fears and conflicts and desires you have are going to float away. None of this works like that.

That all said, I don't think you answered my question, and I need you to do that before we move forward here. So. Take some time -- not a few minutes, maybe a few hours, or even a day -- and let us know really clearly what you are asking for help with from us right now, and what kinds of help you would be open to accepting. It's going to be a lot easier for you and us to move forward in a productive way that actually has the capacity to benefit you once we know those two things. Until we do, I think we are just going to keep going in circles. <3

[Heather]

Hey, Sky. I see the posts sitting in the moderation queue, but none of them offer what I have asked you for and told you we need to move forward in a productive way.

In your last one, you start by saying you don’t know where to start. But that’s what I need you to take the time to figure out. I need you to tell me/us what you want to start with, clearly, and what kind of help you are willing to accept from us with whatever that is.

If you need more time to arrive at those answers, which it clearly seems you do, please take that time instead of leaving more posts in the queue that just keep us in the same loops and don’t answer those two questions. If you don’t actually know what you want help with, or what kind of help you are willing to accept, this just isn’t going to be a good use of your time and energy or ours.

[sky]

Okay. Accepting that I like girls, get me out of comphet. Without meeting people right now, I’m not comfortable with it. Going to a bar and just being around them, maybe I can do but not right now. So don’t suggest meeting people until I feel i am ready, please.

That’s where I would like to start, getting out of comphet mindset because doing some research I realize that is a big thing for me that I never noticed was until yesterday.

Also- no one and I mean no one can answer that post in moderation with what I expressed about manual/oral etc with different genitals involved. That stresses me out because it makes me feel like I have a point and I’m right, and if I’m right about that what else am I right about regarding all of this.

[Heather]

I'm just going to be frank and say that what you said in that last post was misinformed and misguided. Over the years, I have shared quite a few pieces on the site with you that explain that the reason we feel sexual sensation in any body parts and in the whole of our bodies is actually about our nervous systems, not our genitals, which are what make it so that we can feel anything, anywhere, not the parts that our nervous systems innervate (that they make have sensation). You don't have a point, and you are profoundly wrong, not right, in the things you said, but I have also tried and tried and tried with you and your beliefs around that, and I don't feel that at this point in time, there's anything I can do to disavail you of what you insist on believing instead of the actual facts. Facts and experience are what we have to offer you with those kinds of questions, and time and time again, you have refused to believe either of those things, so when it comes to all that stuff, I think we simply have to accept that we have done all we can for you around that for you, and I need you to accept that for now, too.

Before we move forward, I want to clarify what you are saying here and get a little more information.

I hear you saying you want to start by talking about two things: how you can accept that you have romantic and sexual interest in women, and how you can change your mind when it comes to beliefs you have based in compulsory heterosexuality.

What I don't see an answer to is what kind of help you are willing to accept, and that's what I need next. I hear you say you are NOT open to is meeting anyone (and I assume by that you mean other queer people). But I don't see anything to tell me what kind of help you ARE open to.

Here are the kinds of help we could offer you with these two things, in case you need to see the options to know what they are. We can:
• Offer you information about both of these things that is here on the site, at other places online, or in other media, like in books or films.
• Have the kinds of conversations here with you about comphet that are also going to be okay for other people reading (to be clear, what we cannot do is have you post a bunch of stuff that's ultimately anti-gay and mythbust it, because this needs to be a place where other queer people can come without having to look at that stuff).
• Suggest ways that you can work on changing your mindset: we can't "get you out of comphet." Only you can do that, but we can -- as I have in the past -- give you things to do so that *you* can work on that.
• Suggest conversations you can have with your therapist to help with both of these things.
• Help you find other therapeutic support and resources to help with these things. For instance, if your current therapist isn't themselves LGBTQ and doesn't center on helping LGBTQ people, then it may be you need some additional therapeutic help.

[Heather]

Again, Sky, I see the long post in the queue, but you're right, I need you to answer what I have asked instead of spinning out on more tangents and provocations, and I also am going to ask you again to please not leave a bunch of posts in the queue that are outside limits we have set. Just because I or others don't approve it doesn't mean it doesn't still ask our time and energy to read and review it.

If and when you want to actually work on this stuff with us, you can circle back and answer the last things I have asked -- and have taken the time to present for you -- and I am others are glad to work on them with you. But we can't work together if you won't actually do your part of that.

[sky]

Heather I sent you an email regarding some LGBTQ therapy I think you’re talking about?

[Heather]

I've responded to you about that particular query there, but now let's keep this here when you are ready to let us know which ways of accepting help you are open to right now.