Scarleteen

sort of what the title says, but essentially:

I'm 18, female and AFAB. I never really tried masturbating much before 18, but now that I'm in college and I no longer live at home, it's something I can do without the same level of fear or discomfort. However, I've never once been able to bring myself to orgasm. For a while I wasn't even sure if I could properly feel sexual pleasure, but recently I've been having a friends-with-benefits sort of relationship with someone and they're...definitely good at what they do! But I've still never orgasmed, and I'm honestly sort of scared that I'm unable to or it's too hard for me to. I'm also on birth control, which could in theory affect it (and it's what I told my FWB when we "hung out" so that he wouldn't feel discouraged or anything if I didn't end up orgasming), but I don't really know, and I haven't been on birth control for very long (I've been on the pill for two months now). Help?

Hi saturdaysun,

It's very common for it to take a while, whether that's through masturbation or partnered sex, to figure out exactly what works in terms of achieving orgasm. I don't at all think that the fact that you haven't had an orgasm yet means you won't be able to in the future! One thing we know for sure about orgasms, though, is that feeling a lot of stress about not achieving one, or putting a lot of pressure on yourself to do so, can actually make it harder to reach that point. One thing that can help is trying to focus on pleasure as a whole over reaching orgasm, when you're having sex or masturbating.
This article about orgasm & sexual response may be a helpful read as well! Sexual Response & Orgasm: A Users Guide

thank you so much! I guess I should chill out about trying to orgasm and try focusing on just pleasure for now; the article helped too thank you!

I'm in a similar boat. I feel a little bit of pleasure from masturbating, more from sex with others but not enough to where it is satisfying

Hey tulipgardener77 -- did you check out the link Mo sent the person who posted the question you related to?