Sexual dysfunction part 2

[naya92]

Hello you may remember me from my ok account we've discussed sexual dysfunction for quite some time before. So a quick summary I've been having sex since 2011 I was 18 I'm now 22 since 2011 I've had a bf that I lost my virginity to and for 2 years I've never had any type of sexual pleasure with him plus he was a very selfish lover. my goal isn't always an orgasm I figured I would have to experience pleasure tingling the feelings leading up to an orgasm, I've tried oral sex fingering none give me any pleasure I simply couldn't get stimulated I don't feel pan I just feel a penis. so after those two years I was involved with 2 other people and the same thing happened I couldn't get aroused my body wouldn't feel what my mind did because I wanted to have sex I always do but my body just doesn't seem to get the memo. So now I've been with my current bf for almost 2 years and he's great we are so in love he treat me like a princess and his main focus is always pleasing me first and for the first time I feel aroused and those tingles and I'm able to orgasm from oral sex so I feel I've come a long way. But now my last problem is the inability to feel any thing during sex no tingles or what ever that feeling is people have during sex ( I'm not referring to an orgasm that's not my main focus) I just want to know why haven't I ever been able to experience sensation or pleasure during PV sex with any of my partners but especially now that I'm able to experience pleasure with my bf now in other ways I was hoping PV sex would feel great as well. Is it possible to have a dead vagina? ALSo I feel it's important to enclose that I suffer from anxiety I'm constantly stressed and I find it difficult to clear my head and be lost in the moment.
If you can please help thank you

[Heather]

Here's the biggest thing to know: far more people with vaginas or not do NOT find that penis-in-vagina intercourse, all by itself, does a whole lot for them. So, if when you're doing that, that is ALL you are doing -- as in, it's not paired with masturbation, or shared use of a toy, or stimulation of other body parts of yours that have way more sensory nerve endings than the vagina does, like the mouth or fingertips, for example -- you are truly not unusual in this respect.

Too, for those who DO find that PIV feels really great to them, one common factor for those folks is that they feel super-turned on before and during PIV -- and again, often this has a lot to do with other sexual activity happening before, during and after -- and super turned on by the idea of PIV.

So, in a nutshell, if you have a lot of self-pressure and anxiety around this, then that's going to impact you being turned on and having it feel like anything. If it's not something you feel super-excited about, same thing. And if it's also something where intercourse is the only thing happening at the time, then it would actually be really surprising and unusual if it was awesome for you.

The only people with "dead vaginas" are dead people. But the vaginal canal all by itself, as we explain in several pieces on the website, doesn't have a lot of sensory nerve endings. What supplies most of the sensitivity people who do experience big-whoops from vaginal intercourse isn't actually the vagina, but the internal and external clitoris which surrounds the vaginal canal (which is why, again, being very turned on in the first place AND engaging in other activities about other body parts besides the vagina before and during tends to make things so different for some people).

So, looking at all of this, what of it do you think applies to you?

On that note: Is PIV even something you really want to do, not because you think you're supposed to like it, or a partner does, or because you have the idea that if you don't do it or don't like it, something is wrong with you or your body, but because it earnestly feels intellectually, emotionally and physically exciting for you?

If it's not, know that just like it's fine for, say, cisgender men to not want to engage in receptive anal sex because they don't feel excited about it, or for people to just not be into BDSM and thus, choose not to do it because it's just not their bag, the same is true here. There's no kind of sex, intercourse included, that everyone likes or enjoys, that everyone wants to do, and certainly no kind anyone is required to do.

Btw, I'd encourage you to stop using the term "sexual dysfunction." It's an iffy term as it is, given how diverse human sexuality is, but a given person not finding they enjoy a certain sexual activity is NOT sexual dysfunction. It's just sexual diversity, even though in this case, people with vaginas not finding intercourse to be all-that is actually what is MORE common rather than more unusual. If you stop calling things like this "dysfunction," I suspect it might feel a lot easier to just explore and find what you like, and move away from what you don't without feeling like crud about it.

[naya92]

PV sex I something I really want to do and desire constantly but it's the constant let Down of it not bringing pleasure that frustrates and discourages me. And as for incorporating other things during PV sex toys I'm not sure we are ready for them yet I used them privately but never with someone. Also he makes sure to get me stimulated before sex by giving me oral sex for a great length of time but even with that it doesn't enhance PV sex I'll go from being super turned on to the feeling just leaving sometimes I don't understand why my body has to be so complicated I hear stories from friends who have no problem with Pv sex they dnt need anything else they say it feels great so I just feel unlucky. And during sex my bf would take time out to go down on me to keep me aroused but once we have PV sex again the feelings leaves. Sometimes I feel like I'm just not able to let myself go and jut turn my mind of and just be in the moment i dnt know how to do that. Even my bf sayids he can sense me not being fully there. But I want to be I jut don't know how to be sometimes I feel like guys have it so easy it's not a mental emotional thing with them their visual but women it's visual it's emotional and physiological just to get to that mind set I'm struggling to get there.

[Heather]

It might be helpful -- for me, but also for you -- to say more about a feeling of desire for something that you actually have not enjoyed at all. What do you feel like those feelings are based in? For instance, are they based in a fantasy about how you think it does feel to others, or how you think it should feel? If so, what do you think that's based in? Where have those ideas come from?

To put this another way, let's say I tried mushrooms, and I didn't like them at all. I tried them a few more times, and I kept disliking them. If I still felt like I wanted them after all of that, that would obviously be a bit odd, and obviously based on my ideas about mushrooms, or other people's experiences, rather than my own. My own experiences, after all, would make very clear to me I obviously didn't want them, because I clearly don't like them. In other words, probably I wouldn't, in fact, be feeling a desire for mushrooms since I knew I didn't like them. rather, the desire I would be having is for some radically different experience than mine, or based in fantasies or ideas about how I *should* feel about mushrooms.

Bodies ARE complicated. They just are. That's not just yours, I promise you. Bodies, all bodies, are complex. (One other thing I think isn't helping you here is staying so attached to the idea this is only you who feels this way. It's not, not even close.)

And how people talk to peers about sex, all around, is often not very honest. With this, particularly, a lot of women have the idea that if they don't love, or even like it, something is wrong with them, so they will go over the top to friends about how much they like it, even if they actually don't at all. They also may be leaving out details, like that they ARE doing other things during intercourse, like having a partner (or themselves), rubbing their vulva at the same time. Too, people's peer groups where they talk about sex tend to be very small. What a few people say works for them about sex is not a good representation of the sexualities and sexual lives of billions of people.

How about taking intercourse off the table for a while, and focusing only on what you DO enjoy?

This may be something that it turns out you do enjoy to some degree later on, but where for right now, you don't, and continuing to do it when you know you don't like it is only going to assure you are LESS likely to enjoy it now or later, rather than more likely. Doing sexual things that don't feel good to us and feel stressful is a surefire way to really mess up our sexual lives and make it take more time for us to find what we do like, more time to get really comfortable with sex and sexuality.

Extra bonus? Only doing what feels good and you like is a big way we learn to "let go." If we're doing things we don't like and that don't feel good, we will not be able to do that without dissociating, because our minds tell us -- it's smart, really, and protective -- NOT to space out or get vulnerable when we're not feeling good.

Lastly, the ideas some people have that men are "visual" and women are "emotional" when it comes to sex are utterly, completely wrong, and based in stereotype, not study or reality. Seriously, do yourself, and your partners, a solid and start working on dumping those ideas now. They don't serve anyone, and there is truly nothing sound that backs them up, and a LOT of study that makes clear how wrong they are.

In reality, people of all genders are both of these things and more, and to what degree wither -- or other factors -- take big precedence for them isn't about gender, but about life experience, personality, socialization and opportunity. For more on that, you may want to check out: Sexuality: WTF Is It, Anyway?

[naya92]

I understand what your saying and to answer your question I don't have sex based on other peoples experiences or what I think it should feel like. There are two reasons I have sex the first one is because i have moments when I'm just really turned on, actually not to go on a tangent but for me I seem to only enjoy sex or oral sex when it's me that initiates it and I don't initiate se often only when I'm really in the mood and that's when everything is great and feels great sometimes very rarely even PV sex but when it's not me who initiates it and it's my bf I dnt get the same affects it's hard to explain. It's like if he initiates it it either takes much much longer to get in the mood or I jut don't get in the mood at all but I dnt just stop it I continue because I don't want to hurt his feelings and say hey I'm actually not getting turned on can we stop that would crush him and I dnt want him to have insecurities about sex because he's great but he is the type of person that will blame himself and take responsibility. The other problem is yeah when I initiate sex thats when I'm 100% aroused but those moment don't happen to often their rare and if I always waited for me to get that feeling we would barely have sex and he would think I'm pulling away or lost interest. I've kinda led him to believe that sex feels great for me so I can't go in reverse and say hey I was making it up. I opened up to him about my pat experience with sex and my struggles and in the beginning I never faked PV sex feeling good when it didn't do much for me that's why he would always give me oral sex after PV sex but a few months a go we had great PV sex and I felt some sensations and pleasures and in his mind he figured I no longer had that struggle with not feeling anything so I kept the charade going. So me just asking to take sex off the table wouldn't work because I would have to come clean about everything and also there are those moments when I'm really in the mood and want to have sex because I'm always hopeful that I may get lucky and feel pleasure during PV sex.

[Heather]

So, I gotta tell you, naya: I was reading along, and I got to this:

I've kinda led him to believe that sex feels great for me so I can't go in reverse and say hey I was making it up.

...and I scared my dogs with how loudly I said, "Ohhhhhh NONONONONONONOOOOOOOOOO." (They're okay now, and they got some biscuit-bribery, no less.)

So, before anything else, here's the scoop: the hell you can't. Seriously, if you have been dishonest about what you like with a partner you actually want to develop a relationship of any quality with? Not only CAN you tell them you were not honest, you should. Because one of the biggest things that makes people have sucky sexual relationships, and get stuck with partners with things they don't like, is this dishonesty, and the idea that, with someone you know you are safe with and can trust, you can't turn things back around and be honest.

And know what else? This is going to be something that for sure is going to make you feel obligated to have that kind of sex, even when it's not what you like or want, and that is bad juju, my friend.

So, I would strongly encourage you to come clean. You can say something like, "I have to tell you, I gave you the idea I love intercourse, but I really don't. So far, it just really isn't my thing, but I felt really insecure about that, and worried you wouldn't like me or want to stay with me if I didn't like it (or whatever your reasons were, if not those), so I wasn't honest. I'm so sorry about that, but I want us to be able to be real with each other, and have a relationship based on honesty that's really likely to be great for both of us sexually, so I wanted to come clean about that and make an agreement with you now about both of us not hiding things like that from each other."

On top of everything else going on here, it seems clear you and your partner need to be doing more honest communication with each other around this. If someone's feelings are hurt because you don't like or want something they do, that is their issue to take care of, and their place they need to grow, not something for you to protect them from, or keep them from growing with, especially since that whole setup is a lousy one for healthy, happy sexual relationships. Our intimate relationships are supposed to help us grow, not keep us stuck.

If and when you are with someone who truly can't handle a sexual partner not being sexual when they themselves want to be, or not wanting to do something they want? Then that person clearly is just not ready to be sexual with other people, so being sexual with them is a bad idea. But more times than not, when people have the idea a partner couldn't possibly handle the truth, they're wrong, and really underestimating their partner (and let's be real, being pretty patronizing), treating them kind of more like a child than a partner. Since I assume you want a partner, not a kid to parent, I'd encourage you to treat your partners like partners, and let them decide for themselves what they can and can't handle. If it turns out you ever get one who tells you they really can't deal with that, then you both will then simply part ways as sexual partners until or unless they ARE actually ready for sex with someone else, which absolutely includes being able to deal with a partner saying no or "not now" sometimes and not liking the same things you do sexually.

I have to head out, so I'm afraid I can't dig into much else with you right now. I'll be back on Sunday. But I think it also might be good for you to read through all of this again, and a couple links besides that one I already gave you, and just really think and feel all this through. Because really, I'm not seeing anything here -- just like I didn't with your previous posts -- that suggests you or your body are broken. But I *am* seeing some things you're doing, and ways you're thinking about some of this, that not only have likely played a big part in it being such a struggle for you over the years to even just start to enjoy yourself with some sexual activities, but which -- if you stay this way with them -- will all but assure that your sexual life and relationships are never all that great, or very good for long.

The good news with that is that these are things you have the control to change -- things like being honest and real, only doing what you really like and that you AND a partner find feel good for you both, changing up how you think about sex and sexuality so your frameworks are more realistic and sound -- and even first steps with those changes are likely to leave you feeling a whole lot better fast, and get you much further down the road to a sexual life you feel great about than not making those changes will.

I know it's sometimes scary at first to be really honest -- with yourself, with partners -- about sex, what we like, what we don't, what we really want and what we may only want because we think we have to or are supposed to, but I guarantee you that is is worthwhile and earnestly liberating. You say you have a hard time just letting go. By all means, that's a lot harder to do if you're trying to make sure to keep your story straight and give someone the idea that your experiences with sex or them are very different than they really are. Dishonesty is always going to make us feel far less able to let go, because we really can't let go much if we are not willing to be honest and real.

In the event you do not feel safe being honest with this person, and strongly feel they simply will not allow for you to be honest about yourself and your sexual wants and not-wants and your real experiences with this or any other sexual activity with them? Then by all means, maybe you can't be. But if that's how this is, then it isn't safe or sound to keep being sexual with them, period.

Here are those links for you:
• With Pleasure: A View of Whole Sexual Anatomy for Every Body
• Yes, No, Maybe So: A Sexual Inventory Stocklist
• Be a Blabbermouth! The Whats, Whys and Hows of Talking About Sex With a Partner
• http://www.scarleteen.com/article/gende ... fectionism