Scarleteen

So I don't experience sexual attraction particularly often, but there's an adult in my life who I've been experiencing very strong attraction to. I've been attracted to him for a few years, but when I was younger I used to try to completely stop myself from feeling those sexual feelings at all, partially because I just had general shame surrounding sexuality but also because he's an adult & an authority figure who's a lot older than me.

Now, as I'm a bit older, I'm generally better with my sexuality and I understand that it's fine to be experiencing this, but I have no idea of what to do about it. I'm going to be seeing him a lot more in the coming months and I've found my feelings surrounding him to be really overwhelming (and my instinctive reaction is to try and stop them from happening), but I don't want to pretend it isn't happening or repress it. However I absolutely cannot have sex with him and I don't want to tell my friends about it because that would be very uncomfortable and I think they'd potentially make fun of me for it (and also I'm just not quite ready to be that open about my sexual feelings yet).

Masturbation hasn't really helped because often my sexual feelings are just kind of in my head and not in my body, if that makes sense? As in, I have sexual fantasies and feel mentally aroused but it kind of doesn't translate physically.

I kind of feel like I'm going insane. I want to be as sex-positive about this as I can and not repress these feelings, but in practice I don't know how to process it as sexuality can feel so overwhelming for me.

Hi Capo,

It can for sure feel stressful to try and navigate sexual feelings for someone you see but know for sure you can't pursue that way. I wonder, do you think it would help to treat this as being like a crush? Or, at the very least, see if some of the advice for dealing with an intense crush that I talk about here might help you navigate being around this person: Puppy Love: The Do's & Don'ts of Crushes (With Help from a Very Small Dog)

I'm alright with being around him - it's more about how I feel in my life in general? Being around him more just brings my attraction to him to the very forefront of my mind a lot more often but I don't know what to do with it. I know that I don't /have/ to do anything but I've been feeling both overwhelmed and kind of sexually frustrated, if that makes sense? I'm not sure how else to explain it.

That does make sense!

Do you feel like you have outlets, like masturbation, to help you relieve that sexual frustration when it pops up? Or do you feel like it has absolutely nowhere to go?

Too, what if you gave yourself permission to not have to "do" anything with this attraction other than acknowledge that it's there? I ask because sometimes, with intense emotions we don't really have an outlet for, it can help to just accept that this is how we're feeling and then direct the bulk of our energy and attention elsewhere?