It makes alot of sense. It took me 5+ years to get to the point where I was able to make it to intercourse. What did it was that at the time I was seeing a planned parenthood therapist for therapy. I was in a survivors support group and from time to time we would invite area therapists in to the group as guest speakers. It was a way for those in the group to get to know therapists and what to expect from therapy on comfortable no stress ground. Anyway it was decided that my therapist be the guest speaker. I had never talked with her about this issue but that topic came up regularly in that group so someone asked that question. She said that when that issue comes up in therapy it is usually with sexual assault - abuse survivors and what she advises is that the person should start exploring in non sexual ways - taking a calm bath together, back massages, foot massages, brushing each others hair ("above the forhead folks but if you are comfortable going down there by all means" she said when some of us giggled). Slowly work your way around to the front of the body starting with hands and feet (the farthest away from the sexual areas) and work your way to total enjoyment.

I took her up on this two days later. My boyfreind of that time was over and we were watching tv. I decided to start things for once. I stretched and asked him to rub my back. needless to say I enjoyed that backrub to the point where he thought it was time to go before things went beyond the point of no return. For once he was calling stop. I looked at him and told him flat out it probably wont get that much further and it has taken me this long to get to this point I wanted to go with it and see how long it lasts. I was that sure that "total enjoyment" would not happen....For the next month we were discussing pregnancy options just in case I was pregnant. I wasn't but in that month we made the decision to continue exploring without protection because I wanted to have a child before one of my two terminal deseases took me.

We had times where I still had to put the stop sign out but for the most part exploring and baby plans were in the green and right on my childs planned due date he was born.