Sex help (oral, clitoral)

[Apple99]

Hi everyone! Some background knowledge before I start my concern. Me and my boyfriend are in a straight relationship, when i say sex i mean vaginal penetrative sex. We have been together for just over 2 years and we took each other’s virginity.

My concern is that in the past 2 years my boyfriend has never gave me oral sex, done any hand stuff like fingering or even played with my clit. We have a healthy sex life in terms of how often we do it but I have never orgasmed which I know is because I’ve never had my clit touched at any point of a sexual session. I’ve masterbated so i know i need some clit action via hand or mouth.

In the 2 years my boyfriend has attempted to touch the clit for maybe 5 minutes or less in total, having said that it has always been the labia he has got. His head has been down there for 30 seconds max (once like a year ago and once a couple days ago) but he immediately stopped saying “i have no idea what im doing” which is understandable but i responded “its okay you can learn” hoping he’d continue but he didn’t.

Whenever we have sex its like some nipple sucking, a little grinding then straight to sex which is nice but i feel it just isn’t “doing it” for me, i need some foreplay and stuff to really get in the mood. I have mentioned before we should do some stuff beforehand mentioning hand stuff, mouth stuff etc but it just never happened. Early on in our relationship I remember showing him you had to put your fingers between the labia to get to the clit but he has just never attempted it.

I’ve said in passing as a joke that he is scared of vaginas to which he replied “yeah fucking terrified” which fair enough if im the first person he’s ever had sex with then should I be more helpful? My issue is that i have anxiety so bringing stuff up like that is scary to me for many reasons. The main one for going down on me is your classic what if it tastes bad or smells or whatever but I still happily suck his dick//take his cum in my mouth but i get nothing in return.

I love him a lot but I am just not sure what to do? I can’t tell if he is genuinely grossed out by touching the vagina or if he is just uneducated. I have wanted to address it for a long time but my anxious brain is telling me we’d break up if I brought it up (even though he is not the type of person to get offended by stuff like that, he is very laid back)

Any help is welcome!!!

[Heather]

Hey there, Apple99. Welcome to the boards.

The very best advice I have for both of you to start out with is to start rethinking what you mean when you mean "sex." Just meaning vaginal intercourse has been a framework for sex that has never worked well for the vast majority of the population when it comes to real mutual pleasure and intimacy, especially for the majority of people with a vulvovaginal system. Instead, I'd strongly suggest you both try and start rethinking this whole thing and think about sex more like we talk about and define it here, like:

When we say "sex," what we mean is any number of different things people freely choose to do to tangibly and actively express or enact their sexuality; what things people have identified and do identify as a kind of sexual experience.

If "sex" was the answer, the questions would be things like "What am I doing to try and feel good sexually or to express feeling good sexually? What am I doing that feels sexual to me (or to me and a partner)? What am I doing that feels like a way to express my sexuality, or my sexual desires and/or feelings about myself or others?"

(For more, check out that link I gave before the quote.)

As you're experiencing, "sex" that is mostly just intercourse isn't usually very satisfying. It often won't result in orgasm for one or even both parties, and even if and when one person does reach orgasm, that orgasm might not be as satisfying as it could be had what come before it been a richer experience of whole-body mutual pleasure.

I also would suggest not thinking about other ways of being sexual as "foreplay." Oral sex is a kind of sex. Making out or erotic massage are ways of being sexual. Now, maybe going out to dinner and flirting is foreplay. Get where I'm going? It can help to think of preludes to sex as the stuff that really isn't about being physically sexual at all.

It sounds like it might help if you two can perhaps stop having intercourse and doing the things you have been about his penis and maybe go back to the beginning.

What happens if you start at the start, including with talking about what you each want, what turns you on, what scares you, what you need to know, etc? What happens if you spend some time -- and by this I don't mean minutes or hours, I mean days or maybe even weeks -- with clothes ON, making out, touching each other over clothes, and maybe just under, with each of you gradually learning each other for real this time, learning to build trust and communication as you go? What about building up to genital sex in a more mutual way, where any time spent on one person's genitals is pretty equally spent on the other's?

This kind of reset can be both really helpful for couples who have the kind of stuck sort of dynamic you're describing and who both are expressing a lot of fears and places where you're kind of still in a beginner's space, but got shuttled to an advanced spot, you know?

How does this sound?