Cannot pleasure or arouse myself

[Imlost]

Hello im new here so i hope im doing this right, but Im 21 years old (female) and cannot pleasure myself at all, my boyfriend can, and he can even put me in a mood, but anything i do to myself doesnt get anywhere i feel no excitement, etc. it has always been this way and usually can be ignored, but if i am horny it sucks because only my boyfriend can do anything about it which can make me very frustrated sometimes (ex: if im in a mood but he's not or he's too tired)

[Sam W]

Hi Imlost,

You're certainly not the first person to describe something like this; while there's a lot of overlap between partnered sex and masturbation as experiences, there's also the fact that our desire for and interactions with a partner can add a whole layer of arousal in and of themselves.

When you think about you differing experiences between partnered sex and masturbation, are there things you enjoy from partnered sex that you could try introducing to masturbation? That could be kinds of touch, fantasizing about the things you and he do together, etc?

[Imlost]

I've tried to think about it, and the fantasizing thing but nothing every worked, before him i never had any sexual interests really even when i hit puberty ive never even watched porn and tried but dont like it, with my ex my sex drive was very low for reasons within the relationship, and with my boyfriend ive always had a higher drive than i ever had which is fine, i love what me and him have, but it only gets to me when i cant do anything to help myself when hes tired, etc. and in ways it only makes me worry if it isnt "normal" ive only had a friend of mine tell me that they have another friend who is the same way (no porn, can't please themselves all of it) which felt comforting

[HannahP]

Hi Imlost!

I wonder if part of what's going on here is that you usually only turn to masturbation when your boyfriend is unavailable to you (either physically not around or if he's not in the mood for sex). If so, maybe you're often feeling kind of disappointed or lonely when you start trying to masturbate. For a lot of people, feeling blue isn't great for getting aroused and feeling excited. And if your body isn't getting aroused, masturbation usually won't feel very good.

So it makes sense to me that if what you really want is to be having sex, fantasizing about having sex while masturbating might not work very well — you don't want masturbation to feel like sad leftovers when you really wanted to go out for dinner! I wonder if it would help if you could practice trying to think about masturbation in a different way. For example, maybe next time, instead of waiting until you're horny and wanting sex with your boyfriend but can't have it to masturbate, try setting aside some "me time" just to enjoy yourself. You could do some other "self care" activities that you like, like taking a bath, lighting a candle, listening to music, putting on comfy clothes, and then see what happens when you touch your body. The idea is that it would be less "I HAVE to masturbate, because I can't have sex" and more "I GET to masturbate and indulge myself." Masturbation can be a really lovely, enjoyable thing even when you can have all the sex you want — there's something special about being able to focus entirely on yourself and your own desires and pleasure.

How does that sound?