Scarleteen

Me and my boyfriend have been dating for almost a year now and we have had plenty of sex and are still pretty into the idea of it and all that stuff. I love him so much and trust him so much, yet sometimes when i feel down and would really rather him not touch me. Or sometimes when he does I begin to feel really sad and unsure why i feel so uncomfortable. Other times its completely fine though. I don't understand my hesitations I just want to know how I can be more comfortable and get over this. What could be the cause of it? I'm generally a very confident person and I don't think its something about feeling insecure with my body. Please help

I am 18 and he is 16 idk if this is important, i also have more experience sexually. Idk if this helps?

Hi ??,

One thing to keep in mind is that your desire for sex can shift and change from day to day. So having days where you're not comfortable with being sexual may just be part of that. It's normal to not want sex every single time it comes up even if you still, on the whole, are into sex with your partner.

Often, those types of shifts in libido can be linked to factors like external stressors (school, work, etc). Do the days when you feel uncomfortable seem to cluster with stressful situations that are going on in your life? And, just to eliminate this as a factor, have you started or changed any type of medication recently?

Can I also check in with you that you feel desire to BE sexual with this person to begin with?

In other words, not everyone we love and trust is someone we feel sexually attracted to. And when we do feel love, trust AND sexual attraction to someone else, that doesn't automatically make sex something that feels right for us, or make it so that it's the right time for us -- at any given time -- to be sexual with that person or someone else.

Too, when you do not want to be touched, are you saying so, and then not being touched? Or, are you doing things you don't want? because when people do that, especially as a pattern, they will tend to feel more and more negative about sex. We will tend to feel worse and worse about something optional, like sex, if we keep doing things we don't feel good about or totally want to be doing for ourselves.

Just checking in, because either of those conflicts or missing pieces are often at play when people report feeling like you have here.