Lots of issues with sexuality/intimacy... can't enjoy either

Hello everybody,

I'm 26, and this is the first time I'm talking openly about my problems concerning sexuality and intimacy. It's a hugely sensitive topic for me, and since all my sexual encounters and most attempts at intimacy have been severely frustrating for me, I'd thought I'd just closed the topic for my entire life anyway (I'd decided I just wouldn't have sex/be intimate with anyone ever again, as in 'don't think about it, then it's not there'), but lately I've kept coming back to it, and it just won't let me go. I can't talk about it in real life because I just... I just can't, I don't know, so I thought I might try it here.

I've got issues all around: I suffer from depression, social anxiety, borderline, etc. (Not on meds, have been in therapy for years, am a lot better now.) So naturally I'm not an easy person, and this won't be an easy thing for me. I just hadn't expected to have so many issues regarding sexuality and intimacy. My biological sex is female, but I'm not cis (I identify as genderfluid) and I'm bi. My sexual encounters so far have been weird, and I never really enjoyed any of them.

I almost slept with a boy when I was 17; it wasn't much fun. Then I had sex with a girl and I liked doing it to her, but it never got around to it being my turn, so I don't know how I would've reacted had she fingered me or performed oral sex on me or anything. After that was another boy, oral and penetrative sex, and it was just... I wouldn't do it again. The oral sex was wet and weird and I didn't feel much, and when he got his penis inside I never felt much at all.

Now I've got a boyfriend since three years, so it's quite serious, and in the beginning we did try the sex thing too. I blew him, used my hand, he always had an orgasm, and well, he would suck on my nipples and stroke me or finger me and stuff, and it never ever brought me to orgasm. It was okay, I suppose, what he did and what I felt, but it's not something I was so keen on I'd have to do it again. We tried intercourse as well, a couple times... the first few times were awkward (I was his first), and I thought it'd get better over time, just keep trying, but in the end it was just so boring and I never felt anything physically enjoyable throughout that I decided to just drop it altogether. It was always just sucking on my nipples, fingering me, then inside. At times he tried performing oral sex on me too, because he knew I wasn't enjoying myself at all and he thought maybe that'd give me pleasure, so he tried it, but it just felt, I don't know, weird. I didn't like it. I didn't want to do it again. I mean it was the first time he did it, or the first times, he tried more than once, but I never got into it and I didn't see the point at all??

All my recounting this must sound quite... detached, I suppose, but I'm very frustrated and angry at myself that I can't seem to function properly in any way: I'm screwed up mentally, now my sodding body doesn't even work, in addition. Anyway, it's just... I haven't slept with my boyfriend in well over two years now. He says he understands, a bit, he thinks it's a pity and he hopes it'll change one day, but he doesn't pressure me into anything, so we're pretty much not... having sex. Or even being intimate. (He had this weird thing about not liking to kiss or snog at all and I enjoy kissing (one of the few things I like) and I had to beg him for it so he'd do it but then I was too proud to do it and there was a time we didn't even kiss at all etc.) Like, I also hate my body (severe body issues, can't stand seeing myself naked, never mind someone else, God) but it's not just down to that. Even when I'm masturbating (which I'm doing frequently) I just don't have much fun, it just never feels like anything HUGE, so sometimes I don't even bother at all because it's frustrating and I never understand why other people, especially women, bother with it at all if it doesn't feel, well, good enough to want to do it again.

Plus, there's my issues with gender roles. I've been treated like trash my entire life because I was a girl (from both sides of the family, they insisted I was just good for procreating and cooking and stuff), so I'm pretty much aggressive whenever a man tries to tell me what to do or so much assumes any superiority, and sometimes the idea of a man putting his penis in me just actually grosses me out because all I see is me being submissive and weak and I hate that so much. This is all very simplified, and I know it's not like that, I'm not stupid, I just can't seem to get it out of my head.

Yeah, god, I could talk about this all night, but the point is I have so many issues I don't know where to start, and I'm honestly just so tired of it all and very frustrated too, that I think I'll go back to my resolve to never having sex again/being intimate again. It's much easier that way...

I've also thought about the possibility that I might just be asexual, but I'm not sure that's it for me? I am physically attracted to other people, I'm aroused when someone kisses me long and nicely enough, I get off by myself watching different porn videos (often gay vids, trans vids, het too but rarely) and I want to touch myself, i.e. masturbate, it just never feels like, dunno, much. Maybe I'm expecting too much, maybe I've got unrealistic expectations, I don't bloody know. God, I hate this. Theoretically, sex is brilliant and there's nothing much I love than when the people participating are all into it and enjoying it. The practical side though? No thanks... not for me.

Is there anything I could possibly do? I'll say no to sex therapy straight off cos I've got so many other, more important things to deal with that I don't need this on top of everything else. I just wondered if maybe someone had an idea, or if even someone just could relate? I feel so weird and abnormal, I mean everyone seems to be enjoying themselves somehow?

Pygm

Welcome to Psych Central Pygm. Sorry to hear you are having relationship problems.

you said:
I am not sure about that. If you took a poll at PC, you might find 90% are not enjoying themselves.

What you describe is sexual encounters. But intimacy has little to do with sex the way I define it anyway. Intimacy is about becoming friends, finding common ground, sharing quiet moments together. Not trying to get something from the other person.

Sex without intimacy as I define it has been very unsatisfying for many people I talk to. My opinion is that sex is not the deepest human drive, but to find love, acceptance and compassion and intimacy and trust.

So I don't know what the path is for you, but friends I know have found that making friends is more satisfying and lasting than just sharing physical contact.

No everyone is not enjoying themselves, but a lot of people here at PC are trying to get comfortable in their own skin. Please feel free to come back again. You don't have to relate so many graphic details. People know what you are talking about when you talk about physical relations. Just a thought which could open up more people to enter the discussion.

Best. Paragraph. Ever.

Since my wife has been emotionally disconnected these past 6 months, any sex we have is ... well it's just downright awful. The key to good sex is the emotional intimacy that CANDC is talking about.

Obviously there's a LOT going on here, but I would wager your sexual issues are only a symptom. I'm betting you've got internal walls put up so high that nobody is getting in and it's that fear of emotional vulnerability (nobody how badly you want to experience it) that's stopping things. (Related to the gender issues you talk about.)

As you spend more time working on you and becoming more comfortable and compassionate with yourself I bet things will open up for you.