My friend is afraid of her own sexual desires

Hello,

I registered on this website just to ask about my friend, who I will call Rachel for the sake of anonymity.

I have known her since we were 13-14 and now we are both adults. When I met her, she had not yet gone through puberty and had, understandably, a very childlike personality.

She reached puberty within that year and her body finally started maturing. She got her period, and her breasts started to develop as well as all of the other classic signs. However, something that I noticed was that she seemed to not want to accept the fact that she was becoming post-pubescent. She would always talk about how the people she found ideal were thin, flat-chested, small and innocent-eyed.
She would describe how her ideal person was almost indiscernibly male or female due to their lack of secondary sex traits.

Whenever we are watching tv shows or movies, she avoids looking or talking about any scenes that might be sexual in nature, and gets really uncomfortable whenever I talk about people I find attractive. She also gets super embarrassed and turns really red if she sees people with very little clothes on.

I think she feels severely discomfortable with her own sexual maturity and refuses to acknowledge that she is no longer a child.
I want to figure out what I can do to help her start to acknowledge the fact that she is a sexual being and that it is okay to feel urges or attraction to people in a way that is less than innocent. It is getting to the point where she cannot relate to other people because she avoids conversation about relationships and interacts between people at all costs.
If someone starts talking about their friendship, family or relationships, she ignores them and tries to steer the conversation back to cartoons, or video games, or television.

I'm just really concerned that she is not able to handle interpersonal relationships, especially sexual in nature (because she cannot even accept her own sexuality) and is completely absorbed with trying to re-insert herself into her pre-pubescent self.

While it's great that you care for your friend like you do, I feel it's important to add that not everybody is required to be comfortable with sexuality. We live in a very sex-positive culture, which is totally cool. But we must remember that if someone finds that sexuality just isn't their thing, that's just as acceptable.

Have an honest talk with your friend, if that kind of talk isn't too awkward or intrusive (you be the judge.) It could very well be that your intuition is correct and she just needs a friendly reminder that this kind of stuff is natural and inevitable. Or she could just not be ready or comfortable with this being a part of who she is just yet, which is entirely her choice to make.

Hi iron2fe, it is really good that you sound like you care about her so much and are trying to be so supportive, but before this: "I want to figure out what I can do to help her start to acknowledge the fact that she is a sexual being and that it is okay to feel urges or attraction to people in a way that is less than innocent" it might help to talk to her and find out if there's a WHY.
Any negative experiences.........(??) , any fears. any anxieties............?
From what you say there's a chance that she's may not just come out and say.........but if you could at least let her know that if there is anything, it's OK to talk to you about it, you'll listen, be there for her and help her if you can......and maybe at some point she'll feel more comfortable in talking.
That I would say was vital.....but......if that is just "part of who she is"........she doesn't want to talk about it.........she feels comfortable with it/with who she is then why not let her be who she is and support her with that. I'm sure there are going to be/can be many other aspects of your friendship (and she can still be a valued friend) without as much talk about relationships. Or maybe find with her certain levels/types of conversation about relationships that she is comfortable with if that topic just arises naturally.

Now this is just a maybe, and maybe well off target bear that in mind!! but........:
As for some parts of what you're saying maybe (if there's nothing she needs help with!!) she's more embarrassed/sensitive/private in having those things come up with yourself or with someone she doesn't have that sort of intimacy with. But given time and the "right" person/relationship she might feel more comfortable/relaxed around those sorts of things. And nothing has to be wrong with that.

But back to......try to talk to her about it........say how much she means to you.....say that you're just concerned about her because........say that you'd like to be able to be there for her if there's anything she can tell you about/or wants to talk about........you get the picture, right??

And again, it is really good that she has a friend who seems to care about her as much as you do.

Alison

Poor thing matured physically faster than she did mentally and I'm really wondering (like Frankbtl) if ... something happened that she's not talking about. It may be nothing, but women who mature quickly often get some negative attention early.

My wife was in a C-cup by age 12? 13? Her grandpa always used to call her Busty and stuff at that young age. She's still very cognizant and embarrassed by her large breasts because of the inappropriate attention she got from her grandfather.

It may be as simple as that.