that million dollar question to women in love

《Tomorrow, I will repost in Relationships and Communication.》

My first H, who is my age peer, once said that a test of true love of a woman is whether she can come with any other man. If she cannot come with anybody other than her beloved, then she is genuinely in love. We were in our early 20's back then and I shrugged my shoulders.

I now meet his definition of a woman in love.

a little background.

Per my recent IQ testing, my visual processing is at median (half the people process visual information better than me, and half the people, worse; in other words, I am your average Jane.

My auditory processing is in the 95th percentile, but the tester said that since English is not my first language, this figure is an underestimate. I am not sure she is right, because I have already spent half of my life stateside. Even if the 95th percentile is correct, still it is fair to say that "I am all ears" .

It was so relieving to finally understand why I am so different. Say, Illegal Toilet posted a thread about turn-ons, and I was the only person who mentioned the qualities of a man's voice. It is not the only thing that matters to me, but it matters a lot. A funny story before I get to the serious part - in grad school, I was once sitting in a room with a few folks and a guest speaker. The guest speaker, a young Brit, was Prince Charming, looks-wise. Imagine the handsomest Brit and there you have it. He was silent. I got curious - what kind of voice would Prince Charming possess? Somehow I expected to be amused, and I was - when the picture of good looks opened his mouth and started talking in a shallow, high-pitched, and flat voice, I had a really hard time pretending to listen attentively, while the rating of the Brit's attractiveness in my eyes, ( no ears!), quickly went from 100 to 0.

You will see how all of that would become relevant.

more background - I only fantasize about real people in my life. The concept of masturbating to a fantasy that involves aliens is, no pun intended, completely alien to me. Also, I used to be able to masturbate without fantasy.

now, sad history. Some 20 years ago I knew a family of friends. His name is Jacob and her name is Leah. They have two sons, one a bit older than me and the other younger by a bit. Both sons, as I realize now, would have been perfect catches for me, especially the younger who was completely adorable. Back then, the older brother's acerbic wit was too much for me, but now... I could handle it.

Quite unfortunately, at the time of my meeting this family, I was married to my first H, who wasn't an abusive monster like my second husband, but was one boring self-absorbed piece of crap, an only child of a mother who considered him the center of the universe, and he learned to think that way, too.

in other words, there was no direct damage from first H, but, in retrospect, there was huge harm in that being married, I didn't even consider Jacob's sons as potential suitors and, eventually, more.

then, after first H and I separated, realizing that the early marriage was a mistake, I found myself falling in love with Jacob. First it was platonic, when I registered, to my utter and complete surprise, that I felt incredibly comfortable in his presence. Not doing anything together - just being in his presence. I was a twenty something and I was stunned, because never before had I felt that at ease, and it was saying a lot, since I had had many first rate friends, but still. I realized that I could spend any amount of time with him, not getting bored, stir-crazy, or annoyed. The realization was astounding, but there was no erotic component at that time whatsoever. Just my being stunned (to add, I had, and, knock on wood, bff girlfriends who spoke my native language, shared my cultural heritage, and were my age peers, and much as I loved them, after spending a lot of time with them non-stop, I would get tired, and here is an American guy older than my parents, and yet...

way past my bedtime. I will have to finish tomorrow. I am sorry it is so long - I am going back in time to early 1990s...

Interesting. I have an ocean alien fantasy for about four decades now. Maybe I'm weird.

I don't agree with this because some women who have been raped have claimed they have had an orgasm during the rape. Now clearly they weren't in love with the perpetrator and hated what was happening.

Lycanthrope - i agree with you. I just dont think humans are wired that way. Not young humans, anyway. Maybe older humans. Speaking as an older human. Maybe thats why they call old age a second childhood - that mushy stuff just seems gross sometimes!! But i can sure relate to this story - i SO know i made the wrong decision as to my choice of boyfriends at my sweet sixteen. Stupid, stupid, stupid! I could have had the life i really wanted, if i had thought about pleasing myself and not my family or what anyone else thought of me.

I'm sorry, but I'm confused. Just what is the "Million Dollar Question"?

Wait, I didn't complete. I don't want to have a discussion based on incomplete data, please.

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This is not a relevant response. The claim is that for at least some women, when they are truly in love with someone, the orgasms happen either in the physical presence of the man they are in love with, or his presence in the fantasy life of the mind. Had you had a sample of such women who at the time of rape were 1. deeply in love with somebody, and, 2. they orgasmed during the rape, and, 3. ***importantly***, they didn't hold onto the image of their loved one in theie mind during rape, then such data would have been relevant, but without each and every of the bullet points present, that some women report orgasms during rape is irrelevant to my question - it neither proves nor disproves the claim my first H made. Note that he made the claim about true, genuine love, which is very rare, and for some people, never even happens in their lifetime, so, statistically, it follows that most raped women are not deeply in love at the time of rape.

Again, please wait because I will narrow down the issue considerably, and then irrelevant responses would not arise because the scope of my inquiry will be far clearer.

[But i can sure relate to this story - i SO know i made the wrong decision as to my choice of boyfriends at my sweet sixteen. Stupid, stupid, stupid! I could have had the life i really wanted, if i had thought about pleasing myself and not my family or what anyone else thought of me.[/QUOTE]

I cannot figure out Hugs on Tapatalk. You have mine


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No, you claimed that your first H insisted that ALL women this was the case, not some women.

In any case, I believe he is talking nonsense.

I'm so confused....

This is Off Topic to the title of the tread, but on topic for you and some other women on here.

In Sept of last year, I had a several day inpatient stay at the county mental hospital. It was my first time at the county hospital. My hospitalizations in 2009 were at Stanford, which is a private teaching hospital, where doctors appear with an entourage of residents and the room, both private and semi-private, are so big that it is completely absurd. The nurse-to-patient ratio is also absurd.

Not so in the county hospital - in psych ER, there is one big room for women and one big room for men. There are no assigned bed - you take whatever bed happens to be free. There are no PhD psychologists trying to get distressed patients complete CBT worksheets (I am not trying to discredit CBT, but just saying that an acute facility is not the right place for it at all). There are no residents, no entourage, no overstaffing. On the unit itself, the rooms are private, but are tiny - just enough for a bed and a small wardrobe.

But they have BRILLIANT clinical staff. Compared to every single psychiatrist I saw during my stay - that is several psychiatrists, one per day on rotation - pompous, condescending, ego-long-blown-out-of-proportions, total-lack-of-people-skills-and-compassion psychiatrists at Stanford need to go back to premed, and I am not exaggerating.

So I went there because I had not been sleeping for days - for the first time in my life. G. (remember him from late 2012? I am still with him and he is truly a blessing in my life and thinks the same of me in his life) was out of the country, so he arranged for his son to take me to the hospital. I was in ER. I asked for Seroquel. 2 hours of sleep - not enough. Asked for Zyprexa and got a decent 6 hour span of sleeping. At that point I no longer had ER-level issues, so I was sent to the unit. There I went through the intake with the head nurse. She was a viciously pretty young woman - dark hair, dark glistening brown eyes, very pleasant dimpled cheeks, a tiny waist and huge hips/thighs - very pleasantly zaftig, especially pleasant looking because of the swift grace with which she carried her body.

So she started the intake, asked me some questions, to which I tried to give more or less coherent answers, which was hard given how much history is involved.

She nodded as I was talking and then summed it up for me: "We smart women are sometimes no so smart."

And that is one of my most fitting diagnoses.

She later apologized for being unable to give me Zyprexa since it was 7 o'clock in the evening already, and they have no night doctor, and told me to avoid other patients since many of them can be crazy. Obviously, that last utterance underscored that in her eyes, my diagnosis was not "crazy", but as above.

And it was very tough not to sleep at all, and kind of ironic, since I came to the hospital in order to sleep, and they could not give me the only medicine I needed (since then I have wisened up and will always keep a stash of Zyprexa for PRN for the rest of my life). But in the end I was OK, and again, it is better to be at an understaffed hospital if whatever staff people are available are brilliant than at an overstaffed place where everybody is just doing their job.

"We smart women are sometimes no so smart" is the very best and the most concise explanation for what has been (and to some extent, still is) happening with me, and, methinks, might be your diagnosis as well. And the head nurse gave it to me after a ten minute intake. All the psychiatrists were equally helpful (in other ways, but similarly effective), also without spending much time. I won't tell you about each of them now (I will post it on the bipolar forum eventually), but just the last one, a short pleasant looking Japanese American man. So I prepared a spiel about my readiness for discharge. I wanted to say that after two nights on Zyprexa, I needed to bolster the sleep/wake cycle by being outside during the day, etc. - I thought that he would want to keep me longer and planned to convince him that due to reason A, reason B, and reason C, I would have been better at home. As soon as I started, he said: "You look good - you can go home." I did not need to present my spiel - he read my face. And I was duly impressed by everybody's clinical acumen.

Again, it is OT to the thread, but since you started talking about being stupid, I thought I'd share what I think is one of my main dx's - a woman who is "not always so smart".

This still makes no sense and honestly, I feel like if it were, it would almost be offensive because I highly doubt that women start having fantasies during rape. Rape is entirely different from sex and an orgasm from rape feels confusing and quite violating but is still an orgasm nonetheless. So only women who aren't genuinely in love can orgasm from rape from someone other than who they are in love with? No. The body responds to stimuli. If someone were to touch me in the right places, I'd have an orgasm regardless of if I'm in love with that person or even attracted to that person or even being touched consensually. Love doesn't have anything to do with it because an orgasm is a physical response to stimuli that is either enhances love or is enhanced by love. Maybe I'd have an orgasm quicker if I were genuinely in love with who I'm having sex with or fantasizing about. Maybe I would cum slower with a man if I were in love with someone else because of guilt. Maybe it wouldn't be as good because all orgasms aren't created equal. But it would definitely be possible.

He was talking about women who truly love somebody in a sexual way. true love is a very rare phenomenon, so it follows that in a sample of raped women, there may be none that meet this criterion, and, therefore, such a sample is very noisy. It is not really helpful to bring in noisy data. I personally went through a mild case of... well, almost an acquaintance rape and successfully fought two attempts of rape with physical force, one acquaintance and one stranger, and I cannot imagine having orgasms.

Physical fighting, kicking, etc., combined with threats to call the police which were empty in the days before cell phones (and even nowadays, a rapist can probably seize the cell phone) but probably contributed to my success - all of that was a very focused effort and out of character for me, as both times I surprised myself with the physical force I had - I do not do martial arts, strength train, or whatever, and am a medium frame average height woman. How one can concentrate so much to kick, bite, threaten, etc. (and in the latter case do all of it quietly not to wake up a toddler upstairs), and have orgasms is completely beyond me because in my experience orgasms require focus, so if all focus is on fighting - you get the point. In the mild case of almost an acquaintance rape I just did whatever got the guy out and expressed my being enraged next time I saw him. I cannot possibly think of orgasming in such a situation, but I am a straightforward person without twists - meaning, it is either good or bad, but not both. I have read that women have rape fantasies and cannot even reconcile myself with the term, because it is an oxymoron - by definition, rape is against one's will, and, equally by definition, a fantasy is something one likes entertaining in his or her mind, making a "rape fantasy" an oxymoron. The only explanation I can personally come up with is that people want to have something they want done to them without asking for it, and that is called a rape fantasy. ??? I do not know and it is the closest I can come up with while staying within the bounds of rational thinking. I can certainly believe that fantasies are irrational, in some people, and then the term "oxymoron" does not apply.

Going back to the topic - the question is whether there is a woman who

- is in love, long-term and not within a burst of a new feeling that may soon dissipate,

- for some reason or another (death of the loved one, or incapacity, or lack of availability - that can be due to a number of reasons, so I will leave it as stated, in broad terms) does not live with the man she loves

- has one or many, or, for the purposes of the discussion, a virtually unlimited supply of men who is/are or wants/want to be her sexual partners, and

- such man/men is/are altogether nice, helpful, appreciative, smart, accomplished, courteous, etc. - continue the list of the positive qualities

- the woman fully realizes that such a man/men is/are wonderful (see the list immediately above) and treats him/them very nicely, but is not in love with him/them

- cannot orgasm without thinking of the man she loves and cannot masturbate without fantasy either, so in the world of her orgasms the man she loves is ever present.

I have been, intermittently, in this position for 3.5 years, most recently for 1 year. I want to know if it is possible to at least go get masturbation without fantasy. I even saw a mention of a "masturbation meditation" on the Internet, and I chuckled, since though I do not meditate, I did duly note, soon after I learned the word "meditation", that "meditation" and "masturbation" rhyme, and I chuckled glad to see somebody actually made the word play! But I soon stopped reading, because they were talking about pleasuring yourself without fantasy - well, if I were able to do that, then that's what I would be doing (and not scouring the Internet looking for a solution).

Another question is whether talking about it with a current or future sexual partner will help. My current bf knows the whole story in terms of facts, etc., about most of my past and current relationships, as I know about his (this is an open relationship with an awesome man), but he does not know about the situation with the orgasms. When I started with him, I could, with difficulty, orgasm with him. Now I cannot. I tell him that Lithium dulls me sexually and that the pdoc plans to lower the dose, which is true, but a half truth. I am not really keen on telling him, not because I fear anything, but simply because it is something so private to me that I cherish the privacy of it.

Historical record shows that there must have been some women in my situation. My dad was raised, in part, by his aunt. His mother and father worked, while the mother's sister kept house. The aunt had a fiance who died in a war, and she never married anybody else. Looking at family albums, she was a woman of average attractiveness. I personally know an Israeli woman who was married young, but her husband, a soldier, died, and she has not remarried. She is a woman of slightly above average attractiveness. There were women depicted in history books who became nuns following the death of their husbands, and some were actually quite beautiful, so in all of those situations, the problem is not in that the woman cannot get a suitable man, but for some reasons cannot move on. So I am thinking that a small percentage of women are like this, so while I disagree with my first husband that it is a test of true sexual love for every woman in love, I know that it can, unfortunately, happen, and am wondering what can be done to solve this problem.

To make it completely clear - I do not even need to picture sexual acts with the man whom I happen to love. If I imagine that he is sitting on the bed, clothed, that is enough. But it has to be him and nobody else.

Yoda - I did not mean to put you on the spot or single you out with the alien fantasy. There was that long and highly illuminating thread about what people think when they are masturbating. The thread was fascinating - a real window into what is going on in people's minds. In that thread, I couldn't comprehend or relate to 99.9% of what people reported, and sex with aliens was just one example that, I thought, was illustrative. I did not mean to say that you are weird, or that other people fantasizing about aliens are weird. In fact, statistically speaking, I am weird since I am with less than 1% of posters, right?

At the end of this novel I am not sure I see a question. Or if I am reading it right I don't understand the importance of the background.

If you are asking if your fantasies are ok... They are always ok. They are in your head. They are yours. They'll probably change at some point but if they don't who cares? If it makes you happy enjoy it. They are what they are.

Growly is right on with the rape thing. But I am clueless as to why you brought it up. Either that or I don't understand the question.

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Frankly, I think it's really invalidating to suggest that "true love is a rare phenomenon." I think that a lot of folks in the world would be surprised to find out that, in fact, they have never truly loved someone. I'm not even going to touch the stuff about rape...

But as for the rest of your post, I doubt that it's some matter of true love or imprinting or whatever. The meds surely complicate matters. And you said yourself that you could orgasm with your current lover at first.

It sounds to me like you had one fantasy (the idea of your first husband) that really got your motor running, and you got used to using it as your go-to. It's quite common for people to get used to orgasming in one way--through one specific type of stimulation, in one specific position, thinking of one particular fantasy, watching one particular type of porn. This becomes self-sustaining, and it becomes hard to orgasm in another way, with other fantasies, etc.

There are ways to get over this. One way is the cold turkey method: stop using that fantasy, period. When you masturbate, fantasize about something else. Sometimes, your body will eventually respond to this. You'd have to be willing to be patient and frustrated in the meantime.

Another method is to use your usual fantasy, bring yourself near orgasm, then switch to another fantasy. This can be tricky for women. You may need to switch just in the last couple of seconds, then the next time try to switch a little earlier, then a little earlier the next time, etc. A variant on this is to masturbate in your usual way / thinking about your usual fantasy, bring yourself very near orgasm, then stop; continue and bring yourself near orgasm again, then stop; repeat however many times, then switch over to a different fantasy / stimulus, and bring yourself to orgasm.

Or spend some time masturbating and daydreaming and see if you can think of another fantasy that gets your motor running even more. Or tweak your fantasy a little bit: for example, you could try imagining that you are with your current lover, but that your first husband is in the room, ideally with your main focus being on your current lover. Or imagine that you and your current lover are roleplaying that he is your first husband. Or talk to a therapist to see if you can suss out any underlying, unresolved issues that cause you to go to this fantasy.

In my experience, re-wiring your body to new types of fantasies and stimulation is a long-term project. But I suspect that it's possible for many, if not most people. If you do a Google search on how to change your fantasies, or something similar, you'll find more suggestions.

Okay, what?

So in order to orgasm with other men, you have to fantasize about the man you love. And that bothers you.

Perhaps I am simple minded....But maybe you need love in order to orgasm....

I am absolutely not wired like that. I have no special places that work regardless of who is touching them. If I have really strong feelings for a man, I would get an orgasm if he barely touches my hand or speaks my name into the phone with a deep feeling on his end.

If I do not have such feelings, no amount of "stimuli" such as clitoral or nipple rubbing would get me off. In fact (and this is part of my current problem and part of the reason why I am looking for solutions), attempts to arouse me are irritating to me. With the current bf, as long as he touches my body for his pleasure, be it intercourse, fondling my breasts or buttocks, etc., I have absolutely no issues. He is a wonderful man and I highly appreciate his presence in my life and am very happy that he finds sex with me so joyous. If he does two intercourses in a row, without a refractory period, I think to myself: "Great. A man is almost 50 but as giddy as a teenage boy - way to go." But as soon as he starts rubbing me in an effort to advance me towards orgasm, that is when it gets really sad. And, I get irritated.

So my body/mind mix very clearly responds to feelings on my end, sometimes feelings on the part of the man, and ideallly a combination of the two, but not to mechanical stimuli - I am not set up like this. I am surprised that some people are set up like that, because then it becomes almost like cranking a mechanical device. But I was, before starting to orgasm with a a man for the first time (the would be first H), masturbating really beautifully without any fantasy (I did not know about fantasy back then, being around 20) twice a day - in the morning in the shower (I would take the shower head off and direct a strong stream of hot water at my vulva - great orgasms) and in the evening in bed, with my finger. No fantasy whatsoever, but great orgasms. I want to go back to that!!

Yes, you got it. So when I was married to my second H, I had great orgasms with him, but still masturbated alone, with fantasies about the man I loved before him (Jacob, in my story). My second H (I lived with him for 12 years) once caught me doing that and was extremely distraught. Extremely. Now that I am finally putting the pieces of the puzzle together, I realize that exH2 was, in fact, like exH1, in that he found that horrifying (he himself had no fantasy life whatsoever, no masturbation, and when I left for a summer job less than 5 months into meeting him - the summer job had been already arranged when I met him - he later was very upset that I left him for the summer, even though I flew in for the 4th of July, because he absolutely needed my naked warm body next to him in bed - he did not have the ability to IMAGINE things). In other words, he expected the woman he was married to to never masturbate thinking of somebody else. I did feel guilty, and tried to conjure up fantasies about H2, and was successful at that. Right now, I do not feel guilty - I have more than exhausted what might be a reasonable lifetime allotment of guilt so I do not plan to ever feel guilty, but it makes me sad to think that I would have to do what you suggest for the rest of my life. It is otherwise a good suggestion, though. If what you were suggesting was that I fantasize during sex with other men. Or did I get you wrong?