Scarleteen

Hi. I'm a 16 year old girl and I feel like I have a really frustrating problem. I'm sexually active with my boyfriend, and I have been with one other guy before him. I'm extremely comfortable with my body and very confident being sexual, but I've never had an orgasm. I've had a few guys go down on me and it honestly doesn't really feel like anything. I kinda just laid there bored and confused why I wasn't enjoying it. I've tried to masturbate before but nothing ever really feels good, so I always end up giving up. I like getting fingered only when he ignores my clitoris, and I know that stimulating the clitoris is the best way to orgasm. I'm very well educated on the subject, but most of the advice columns I've read have suggested trying to reach orgasm by yourself before expecting to with a partner, and that seems so unrealistic with me. I feel like sex and masturbation just doesn't feel that good, and that's annoying.

Hi Pi,

So, there are a couple of things to touch on here. The first is that I agree with the advice that says self-exploration makes it easier to enjoy partnered sex, because you can communicate what feels good. But that exploration is trail and error within itself. Something to try is to find a time when you're both relaxed and aroused, and then experiment with different angles/speeds/motions/ touching different parts of yourself/even toys if you want (plus lots of lube) Don't focus on trying to orgasm, focus instead on figuring out what feels good vs what doesn't. Taking the pressure off yourself to orgasm will actually help

Too, when your with your current partner, what things do feel good and sexy to you? It's a good plan for now to focus on those things, instead of doing stuff that you're meh about.

An aside about the clitoris: while some people really enjoy it and orgasm from being stimulated there, plenty of other folks find they don't like it that much, so you may just fall into that second category

Finally, out of curiosity, what are you expecting an orgasm to feel like?

Welcome to the boards.

So, how a person reaches orgasm is actually really individual. For sure, there are some things that work for more people rather than less, but there are always loads of people who find that a given thing that works for many others just isn't their thing.

The biggest deals, when it comes to orgasm, are these:
1) That someone feels very sexually excited throughout any given sexual activity, be that masturbation or any kind of sex with partners,
2) That someone isn't trying to teach orgasm, but is instead just focused on feeling good and doing what feels good: if someone has orgasm too much in mind, that not only tends to make it unlikely to happen, it also tends to make sex less enjoyable in the first place.
3) That someone really goes with what they like, and communicates with partners so they're never just lying there or doing things partners may want to do, but don't do jack for them, and lastly,
4) That someone is bearing in mind that all of this is a learning process, and one that can take a while, so not just a few incidents of sex with a partner or two or a few tries at masturbation, but for plenty of people, it can take years (which is why people who start their sexual lives with loads of masturbation, often from childhood on, tend to have a leg up with this)

Really, it's not fair to say it's unrealistic to suggest that most people first learn to reach orgasm by themselves -- through masturbation -- because we know that is what is true for most people. Again, "most" never means all, so if you turn out to find, in your life and sexual experience, that it's something you can't learn to get to on your own but can with partners, then that'll be what's true for you. In other words, maybe you will find that what works for most doesn't for you, and thus, isn't realistic for you, but that'll be something you won't really know until after you're there.

That said, masturbation really is the most likely route there, but that is usually only going to be if someone is very excited when they're masturbating (just touching certain parts in certain ways isn't the ticket, a lot of it, like with sex with partners, is about feeling turned on). So, if you've been coming to masturbation without being turned on, and with the aim of orgasm, rather than the aim of just exploring pleasure, that's probably part of why masturbation has felt so very ho-hum for you. What most people who enjoy and get off on masturbation tend to do is engage in some kind of fantasy that turns them on while masturbating, and only masturbate when they feel strong sexual desires, not just because. Make sense?

P.S. Something cool to know is that the clitoris is both internal and external, and most of what a person feels inside the vagina with any entry actually has more to do with the internal clitoris than with the vaginal canal itself, which doesn't have many nerve endings past the first 1/3rd of it or so.

Well...
I expect an orgasm to feel different from anything I've ever felt before--I've had friends describe it as the culmination of things--but so far I've felt like there's nothing to culminate. And for your advice, I just I just worry that after lots more "exploration" I still won't find anything that I really like. There hasn't ever really been "pressure" until now, when I've actually put some thought into. I just worry that nothing will change in the future.

I would say that's not a bad description of orgasms in general, but it helps to remember that even orgasms vary. Some feel like a small release of tension, while others feel way more intense.

It's understandable to feel anxious about never finding anything that feels good (especially since a lot of the time there's an expectation that you'll just somehow know). I want to encourage you to keep exploring, if for no other reason than, eventually, you'll find something. Have you had a chance to read any of the pieces on the main site about masturbation, or about having trouble figuring out what feels good?

I think it's helpful to bear in mind that an orgasm is also literally just a few seconds of something feeling good. Truly, that's all. And for sure, it can feel very nice, but even in the event you never had one, life would go on, and you wouldn't be missing some giant thing, I assure you. That's not likely (that you won't), but it's important to keep in mind and to keep in perspective.

Same goes with recognizing that most of the pleasure people get out of sex alone or with partners isn't actually orgasm: again, that's often the end of it all, and lasts a few seconds. A lot of media does a very bad job when it comes to sex, and that tends to influence how people think about and talk about it, and that certainly includes an over-emphasis on orgasm and an under-emphasis on pleasure and exploration (which should be fun and exciting all by itself).

So, your best bet is just to explore what feels good: that's what's good about sex, and what, usually paired with emotional intimacy, people enjoy and are satisfied with. So, if with partners so far, literally nothing is feeling good, then you'll need to be sure you let them know that and that you experiment together to find what does, whether or not that does or doesn't result in orgasm sooner or later.

Same goes with your own masturbation. The chances that NO ways of touching your body or having it touched will ever feel good are very unlikely, unless you just find you don't ever strongly WANT that touch, or to be touched (or otherwise sexual) with whoever you're doing that with.

Too, though, if sex alone feels meh, and sex with partners feels meh, it might be that you're getting a bit ahead of yourself. Not everyone has the same pace with this stuff. Would you mind filling me in on what your motivation to be sexual with partners has been so far? Are you ever coming into any of that feeling a lot of sexual desire and excitement?

As far as I know, yes, I am going into sexual situations with my boyfriend feeling turned on. The best way I can describe it is feeling let down because nothing really satisfies me. When I'm by myself, I generally can't get very turned on (and I've tried watching porn etc.), but I don't know how to change that.

Okay.

So, with yourself, when I talk about fantasy, that doesn't have to mean porn. For sure, it does for some people, but for others, either what's in a lot of porn just isn't what turns them on, or they have issues with porn that make it yucky for them OR they just don't get turned on by seeing people they don't know having sex. So, maybe for you it's about bringing your own sexual imagination to the table -- like thinking about how you feel when you have been turned on with a partner, or about how you'd like to, or about kinds of sex you maybe haven't even tried yet, but have some interest in, etc. Or about reading books. Or about what you see in other media that does turn you on, but it's porn.

If you have any body image issues, that can also play a part in not enjoying sex by ourselves, and the same goes for if our sense of our own sexuality is really about other people -- like if they find us sexy -- rather than if we have a sense of it as something living just in ourselves. And those things also tend to put a damper on sex with partners, too.

With a partner, if you start feeling turned on, then it stops, are you stopping sexual activity once you're not anymore? Or are you continuing, even though you're no longer feeling it? And if you are finding NOTHING satisfies you with a partner -- not kissing or making out, not cuddling, not rubbing bodies together, nor other kinds of activities people generally consider sexual -- I'd suggest your best bet is probably not to be in a sexual relationship right now so you can get a sense of what you need. Being in something a person feels should be sexual, or must be, or that they've agreed to be, when really, sex isn't working for them, tends to put a lot of extra pressures on everything and is something else that makes actually enjoying yourself a lot less likely.

Have you talked with your boyfriend about the fact that nothing's working for you at all? If so, have you two discussed changing things up for now so that you're not continuing to be sexual, or have any expectation you will be, when that's not been at all satisfying for you?

I do want to add that if you feel like you aren't even totally sure with a partner if you're feeling sexually excited (you said "as far as I know,"), to me, that's a strong cue a sexual relationship is probably just way ahead of where you are with your own sexuality. I'd say at least knowing what that feeling is, clearly, is a prerequisite for it being at all sound, in so many ways, for someone to be in a sexual relationship. It's okay not to know yet, and it's also okay to nix sexual relationships offered to you by others because you don't, even if you're bummed you're not there yet. If all of this stuff isn't really at your own pace, not only is it unlikely to be enjoyable, you're also not very likely to feel very good about any of it.

Well I would say that I feel turned on when I'm with a guy (I get wet, I feel hot, etc) and what I meant by "as far as I know" is that I can't know if what I experience is similar to how others experience desire, to me it doesn't seem to be the problem. In response to some of your other questions, I have talked to my boyfriend about things, and both of us want to try to make this work. It feels like giving up on a sexual relationship of any kind is the opposite of what I want. And when we're in a situation where something stops being pleasurable to me, we usually continue. This is because even if the act stops being physically stimulating, it is still emotionally gratifying for plenty of reasons. I think we have a very healthy relationship and I don't have a problem speaking up; I just don't feel like saying "this doesn't feel good anymore" would really get us anywhere. And like I mentioned in my original post, it feels good when he fingers me, just not as good as I want it to feel.

So, just so you know, continuing to do what doesn't feel good tends to have the opposite effect you might be expecting: what it usually does is just make more and more sure things won't feel good, because continuing sex when it feels lousy or like nothing doesn't tend to be psychologically positive for people.

I'd encourage you to see if you can't start thinking about stepping away if you need to not as giving up, but as quite the opposite: as about committing to do what you need to do to explore and sort out your sexuality for yourself, including only doing what feels good for you physically AND emotionally, not just one of those things.

Too, if we don't tell partners when things stop feeling good, they can't learn with us what does and doesn't, so will often just keep doing what doesn't because they can't know any better, as we've kept them from what's true and real. Not communicating that is actually what's more likely to keep you stuck: communicating it is what's more likely to help you move this forward.