Scarleteen

for some context: im a virgin. earlier today, me and my boyfriend tried having sex for the first time . we had been talking about it for months and a few days ago decided we wanted to do it today . we've talked about what makes each other feel good and we're very good with those kind of conversations, especially since he wants to make me cum (which hes never done, but i dont mind because i always feel pleasure anyways). we've done oral sex and manual sex plenty of times and we did those today before we tried having sex. beforehand i told him i was sure that i was ready, but i was still a little nervous. he put on a condom and tried putting it in but it hurt SO MUCH .. i couldnt even tell how far in it was or what was happening because of how painful it was so i obviously told him to stop which we did and i just started sobbing, i couldnt bear to look at him. i felt so humiliated and disappointed in myself and he reassured me and cuddled me and told me he loves me and that its okay which made me feel a lot better, but its still weighing on me. i really do wanna have sex with him but i dont know how to get past this. im like 70% sure the reason he cant make me cum is because of my anxiety, but even when i try to relax it never helps. i tried to calm myself down while he was trying to put it in but i just couldnt. i feel terrible help

Hi there,
I’m sorry you had such a painful and distressing experience.

And I’m sorry it has left you feeling so down about yourself. Sometimes our bodies don’t act or react to things the way we expect or even want them too, and often we don’t have much control over that. I’m glad your partner understands that and that his support helped you ease you worries a bit. After all, you did nothing wrong, actually you did the best thing you could at the moment and that is stopping and taking care of yourself afterwards.

Anxiety and not being relaxed enough can make it both harder to orgasm and make vaginal intercourse more difficult. But it’s not the only thing that can so I’m linking this article that talks about potential reasons and offers ideas what to do about them: From OW! to WOW! Demystifying Painful Intercourse let us now if anything there resonates with you.

When you think about the anxiety you feel during sex, can you think of some specific thoughts or things it’s linked too? These can be anything like body image, being afraid of pain, worrying about not orgasming, not feeling safe at the given place or with the given person, not feeling great about the relationship or ourselves in general, experiencing anxiety in other parts of your life as well atc.

thanks for responding ! yeah, im glad i have a bf thats very patient and understanding and we talked about it afterwards and we decided friction might be the problem and we're gonna fix that next time im ready . and with my anxiety, ive made him aware of it, its mostly how i feel about my body and overall worrying about what could go wrong. ive told him ways he might be able to help, and he does it all, but it still doesnt help. i trust him and he's never made fun of how i look or anything but im afraid ill never be able to truly enjoy sex because of my anxiety which sucks because i really want to and i love being intimate with my boyfriend. will i ever be able to ?

Hi again,
I’m glad you talked about it and found things you can try next time!

This sounds stressful, anxiety can really make navigating sex and intimacy quite difficult, but even though there isn’t one easy fix there are many approaches one can try when dealing with it and as you get to know yourself better and explore strategies that help you, most people find it way easier to deal with over time. As for the approaches, some find some self-help strategies like grounding exercises really helpful, others find professional mental health care the most useful. We can help you find resources for any of these if you would like!

Also, if you want, we can point you to some articles about body image on our site as well.