I cannot get aroused no matter what I try

[simply_safelite]

I (26F) have been with my partner (25M) for 2.5 years. This is my first and hopefully last serious relationship and had never kissed anyone before him. He'd never had any kind of sex with anyone before me either, so we were both figuring it out together. We started having sexual experiences together about a year ago.

I was never interested in sex before we got together. I knew it would happen at some point but I never felt interested in masturbating or exploring myself sexually, so I didn't. I felt disgusted with the general idea of partnered sex (sex is gross, there's sweat and bodily fluids and stuff involved) and I don't love some parts of my body that are hyper-sexualized in western culture. I'm also extremely feminist and the patriarchal culture we are all raised in has made me view traditional sexual roles and attitudes as gross and demeaning. For example, the idea that men just HAVE to touch breasts during sex and that all women should find exquisite sexual pleasure from their own breasts. Or that breasts are even inherently sexual! Our relationship is awesome, we have really open and clear communication, we both feel safe and trust one another completely.

Before we started having sex I knew I didn't want to have the traditional experience where the couple tries penetration with no lead up and it's very painful for the woman. So we haven't tried to have penetrative sex. I didn't want to have that kind of sex until I knew how to get really aroused. My partner was totally on board with this plan. We read a bunch of books together before even going a sexual direction: Come As You Are, She Comes First, the entirety of the OMGYes website, and countless articles online about male and female sexual functioning. I'm probably the most sexually literate virgin that has ever walked the earth.

Problem is, I can't get aroused. At all. Even without the expectation of having sex, like when the pressure is completely off, I just fall asleep! People say, "Just explore yourself. Do lots of foreplay and non-sexual touching and kissing." We kiss a lot, he's given me full body massages and gentle touch. But when I'm completely relaxed I just fall asleep, I don't get turned on. And I don't want him touching down there without arousal because it just feels weird, like we're trying to force something. Which then completely halts anywhere we were trying to go anyway because pressure! A few parts of my body are completely off limits because they will bring anything to a screeching halt, like behind my ears, my armpits and my breasts and he's completely respectful of that. I also don't like being looked at, so I prefer to have sex or foreplay with the lights off. I have an issue with feeling objectified even with completely loving and safe looking. Which he is also fine with.

I don't have any prior sexual or religious trauma and I'm taking no medication. I'm not neurodivergent or have any mental health disorders besides well-managed OCD that my therapist doesn't think has anything to do with my sexual issues. I've had my hormone levels and a bunch of other medical things checked and it's definitely not that.

I've tried exploring by myself but clitoral touch without prior arousal just feels clinical or like cleaning myself. I've tried a vibrator, but it was too ticklish and overstimulating. I've tried reading porn but I didn't like it, it was just too cheesy. I tried it because when I was a kid, there were a few times that I remember getting aroused by the porn but as an adult it just doesn't do anything. I feel like I have too much knowledge of the way things work to find any sort of written fantasy sexy. I'm not interested in watching porn (that's a hard line for the feminist in me given how much exploitation there is in the pornography industry) and I've tried mental fantasy but that doesn't do anything either. Either the scenario is too fantastical and I'm like "well that would never work that way in real life" or the scenarios I can come up with aren't sexy. Outside of some sort of mental arousal, sex is inherently unsexy to me because of all the gross parts involved. And all this is by myself by the way, when he's not around so the partner pressure isn't there in these scenarios either.

The one thing we can do is give my partner some with my hand. I love seeing him get turned on and have a good time and I'm extremely comfortable doing that. But even that doesn't arouse me! It's the tiniest bit mentally arousing but it doesn't translate at all and just goes away after a few minutes of being in the experience. It's fun the whole time and I could do that for hours, but when he asks me if I am feeling interested in sexual touch on myself, it's always "nope, I'm too tired for that" or "I'm just not interested in that right now and trying would feel like pressure."

The last thing I tried was a sex therapist but she just kept trying to convince me that I had to like having my breasts touched or I was never going to have any kind of arousal so I stopped going to her. I also saw a different therapist, but she just kept telling me that I was asexual and I just have to accept that I won't ever get turned on. Well clearly not, because when I was a kid/teen I could get aroused. And I want to have a sexual relationship! I'm frustrated that nothing I try is working. I'm extremely attracted to my partner, he is sooo hot but it gets to sexy times and my brain is just like "yawn".

Please help!

[KierC]

Hi simply_safelite, and welcome to the boards! I’m glad you’re here.

I hear you that you really just aren’t experiencing arousal right now. There’s a few themes here that I want to dive into and see if we can help or give you some more clarity, so I’m going to section out some observations and hopefully we can go from there. <3

It sounds like a pretty big theme here is that, as you said, “sex is inherently unsexy” for you. You know, I do want to first say that sex doesn’t have to be sexy for you. We can definitely be curious about why and talk more about this, but I think it’s important to preface that sort of investigation with the idea that if you aren’t bothered by lack of arousal, that’s okay too. We can be curious about it, but I don’t want to immediately problematize what you’re experiencing. It does sound like you want to have a sexual relationship with your partner, though, so let’s certainly talk about it!

You mention that you experienced arousal when you were younger, but not now. Do you have any initial ideas about this? Is there any meaning you’ve made about this that feels true for you?

I think a pretty obvious barrier here is that when we find something inherently gross, we’re probably not going to be aroused doing that thing. The therapist who told you that you “have” to be aroused by having your breasts touched is just totally wrong, but it is true that there are parts of sex that, if you just don’t want it to happen, it won’t be arousing when it does happen. Know what I mean?

It sounds like there’s a number of things about partnered sex that you don’t want. Can I ask, are there parts of sex that you *do* enjoy and want? Are there things you find sexy?

I also want to offer the idea that we can be aesthetically attracted to someone without necessarily feeling sexual attraction toward or chemistry with them. These are two entirely separate things, even though sometimes we them co-exist. Do you feel like you experience other forms of attraction to him apart from aesthetic attraction?

Overall, I’m hearing you say that you want to have a sexual relationship, but at the same time I’m hearing some pretty steadfast ideas that may be making it hard to experience sexual arousal and pleasure. I hear you say that sex is gross, that porn is objectifying, and that being looked at sexually feels bad. It is okay to feel these things, by the way, I just want to offer the observation that this can understandably make it hard to feel aroused. I’m wondering if, before we dive in too much, you have any initial reactions to hearing that?

[simply_safelite]

Thanks for your response! It was helpful to think about the things you asked. I'll go by your sections to respond.

First, I know it will be okay whether or not I'm able to be aroused but I'm not okay with giving up yet. The idea of never having a sexually fulfilling/pleasurable (on my end) relationship with my partner is deeply distressing to me, which is why I've done so much research and we've kept trying so hard. Mind you, that's apart from how my partner feels; I would mourn never meeting or enjoying that part of myself.

That's a good question. I think a lot of the things I thought about when I was younger were less grounded in reality. I had a much worse fundamental understanding about how sexual pleasure worked for men and women, so it was easier to think about things that wouldn't be realistic as sexy (think like a vagina-having person really enjoying a monstrously large penis when in reality, there is absolutely such a thing as too big and it would probably be extremely painful with the amount of preparation the two definitely did not do lol). In addition, I wasn't fully acquainted with the reality of hair and sweat and sticky fluids and chafing and tiring muscles - you don't normally see those things in pornographic literature because they aren't fundamentally sexy. It was easier when I was a kid to think about what I had heard about sex and not about what the reality is. Now that I know what the reality is, it is very difficult to divorce any sexual thought or fantasy from the realities of the accompanying sexual situation. Does that make sense?

As for the inherently gross thing, they have done studies that arousal turns off the "disgust" switch in our brains. So my thinking was that if I can get into a place of arousal before doing things that might put the brakes on, the disgust switch will be less likely to activate because I'm caught up in the overall situation. Based on what I felt as a kid and the few times I've experienced mental arousal with my partner, this seems to be the case. Not everything gets less gross (like chafing still takes me out of it), but things that used to be sexy as a kid are more likely to be sexy again, even though some things are still objectively gross. Problem is that the mental arousal hasn't ever stayed around long enough (more than a minute or two) to actually get anywhere or do anything. And I haven't had the same accompanying flush of physical arousal as I did when I was younger. It's possible that getting mentally aroused and staying mentally aroused for a long time would help but I have no idea how to keep it around or even make it show up with any semblance of regularity.

Are there parts of sex I do want? Yes, sort of? I want the closeness with my partner, the fun of doing something sexual together, the physical pleasure that will undoubtedly happen if I can get physically aroused enough. I want to meet sexual me and feel confident doing things that would make non-aroused me feel very uncomfortable. (Also even though I don't really care about orgasming necessarily, the feminist in me wants to close the orgasm gap, at least in my relationship lol). Thinking about the mechanics of sex when I'm not in a sexual or flirty situation with my partner is always sort of gross though. It's like my mind fixates on all the worst parts of a sexual experience instead of the stuff that maybe could be sexy.

As for my sexual attraction, I'm pretty sure I have it? Because I don't find some things about my partner super objectively aesthetically pleasing necessarily but in combination with his personality, he is SUPER attractive. Even though I almost always find sex gross, he is very sexy. I don't know how to explain it better than that. Since we got together, I have stopped seeing any other people as attractive at all, even people that are objectively aesthetically good looking.

Does that all make sense?

Thank you for your help, these have been very good things to ponder.