Scarleteen

Hi! I'm a seventeen year old girl with a vagina, and I've tried masturbating for quite a while. When I was younger and to this day, I've preferred masturbating where I sort of clench and roll my muscles on the inside, free of touch. I know that masturbation is personal to everyone, and this is the method I've used and liked thus far, but the older I get, the more concerned I get about this (I know I shouldn't be concerned, but I don't have another way to phrase it). First of all, I've never reached orgasm using my go-to method, and while I know I shouldn't put pressure on myself to reach it, I'd like to know what orgasm feels liked eventually. Also, I've tried using my fingers. I've done this after using my usual method of masturbation and reading sexual content I enjoy, late and night and pretty relaxed (I think?). I've tried using my fingers to penetrate, found that didn't work, and resorted instead to rubbing my clit (I think it's my clit? It's the spongey ball at the top of the opening). However, even though I was wet and had been aroused by the stuff I'd read, rubbing the clit just felt okay-ish. Does this mean I won't enjoy sex with an actual person? I really want to know what I want before experimenting with someone else. I tried different positions, and at one point I didn't know if I was actually getting somewhere or putting on an act for myself (I read somewhere about the internalized male gaze and thought of that). I've started to wonder if maybe I'm asexual? I think I've felt sexual attraction in the past, and to this day, I still feel a throb when looking at an image of someone attractive and sometimes masturbate to that image (using the clenching I mentioned earlier), but I read that sexual attraction is defined as "seeing a person and feeling an urge to have sex or do sexual things with them", and I don't have thoughts that strictly fit into that definition. More so, I imagine myself kissing, touching, and receiving both, and that helps get me off (but sometimes, actually imagining sex helps me/is pleasurable too!). I'm just worried that when it comes to it, I may not enjoy sex at all. I know some asexual people are living their best life, but I don't even know if I'm actually asexual or just haven't found the right moment or it'll all sort itself out if I find the right person.

Hey there, browngirl.

So, it sounds like you might be coming to this with the idea that what sex is is something much more limited than...well, what sex actually is and can be.

For instance, the way you masturbate? That's sex. If you did that with another person present on purpose, to enjoy them being there, part of what you were doing? That would be sex with another person. Other things you're describing -- kissing, other kinds of touching -- are also other potential kinds of sex, or ways of being sexual, too, if they're sexual for everyone involved. Someone else doesn't have to be actually inside our bodies in some way, or inside our genitals, for it to be sex. If it's helpful, here's how we define sex around here: What's Sex?

That all said, a) that may or may not tell you anything about if you're asexual or not, and b) you probably are not going to be able to know what you want and like with another person without experimenting and exploring with that other person. And when I say with that other person, I mean with that other person very specifically, because we don't always like the same things -- or the same things the same way -- with everyone! It's pretty common for us to like different things with different people, because our relationships and the way we feel with people aren't all the same, how our bodies "work" and feel together aren't the same, and who we are at the time of life we're with someone isn't the same, you know? Plus, experimenting is actually usually one of the parts of sex that *makes* sex interesting and fun and enjoyable. If we all just knew exactly what we liked and exactly what to do it'd feel pretty boring and rote.

While I'm here, sounds like you might also find a couple anatomy guides handy, so here's two of those as well:
• Innies & Outies: The Vagina, Clitoris, Uterus and More
• With Pleasure: A View of Whole Sexual Anatomy for Every Body

Happy to keep talking, but how does any or all of this feel as a start?