i dont really understand my body

[rukia]

ok so me and my boyfriend are both 18 . we do sexual things almost every time we meet however we only very recently started doing penetrative stuff. so far we have never managed to get his penis inside of me, so we stick to fingering until im able to loosen up. however, one issue that we have is that when he puts 2 in, he gets worried that he's going to hurt me. he says he feels like theres a "string" there. when i asked him more about it, he said that it feels like whats under our tongues. he said he only feels it with two fingers which i kinda assumed is the hymen but im not sure so im wondering what it is? and also how i can get loose enough for us to actually be able to do more stuff?

[Heather]

Hi there, rukia. Welcome to the boards.

So, the vagina is always going to be closed upon itself when nothing is in it, and it also doesn't have any kind of permanent state of "looseness" or relaxedness. Instead, it's a muscular tube, surrounded by more muscles still, where the tension of it changes much like with any other muscle. How the vagina becomes more flexible -- "loose" is really never a thing -- is mostly about relaxation and arousal, in the moment. No matter what, when nothing is inside the vaginal canal it is a closed tube. Does that make sense for you?

I don't know what your partner is describing here for sure, but if you have hymenal tissue left (and at any stage of life, most folks with vaginas will, it's just not always easy to identify because it tends to blend in with the rest of the vaginal opening most of the time), and it's being stretched, or is septate (is there and has some openings in it) that could be what he's feeling.

Regardless, there is a super easy way for your partner to know if what they are doing feels good or is hurting you, and that's to communicate with you while they're doing things like this, and you communicating back. In other words, the way we tend to best find out during any kind of sex what's good for everyone and what isn't is just by staying in communication during sex. That can be more vague communication, like communicating through sounds and a partner paying attention to how those sound, or -- as is often better when people are new to something together, or new to sex or a given partner, period -- check-ins as we go, like asking a partner, "How does this feel?" and then listening to their answer. When we answer that question, we can say things like, "That feels great, I love the way you're moving your fingers inside right now," or "Can you try slowing down a little and using a little more lube?" or "Actually, that isn't feeling right for me. Can we switch to just using your fingers on my clit for right now?"

So often, places we see sex in media don't show people talking like this, but this kind of constant communication and partner responsiveness to that communication is a hallmark of people who have sexual lives and experiences they really enjoy.

Does that help clear any of this up for you?