and I can't seem to get off when he tries..

December 16, 2008 1:24 PM

Has all my masturbating messed with my sex life? Want too much information?

I'm a female. 20 years old. Never had much of a physical relationship with guys in the past, but I've been masturbating for years.

Now, I'm seeing someone. We haven't had sex, but when he tries to finger or go down on me, there's...nothing. No build up, nothing. I'm pretty sure the problem is that I've been masturbating the same way since I started experimenting and I usually orgasm REALLY quickly (...in, like, a couple of minutes).

I've probably trained my body to get off one way only, right? I've tried telling him what to do, mimicking what I do by myself, but to no avail.

I like him. A lot.
Help!

posted by anonymous to health & fitness (13 comments total)

Dan Savage addresses this quite often in his column and podcast. He usually says to quit masturbating.
posted by desjardins at 1:27 PM on December 16, 2008

Eh, relax. Explain why he's not getting you off to salve his ego and reduce his feelings of frustration or inadequacy. If he's into it, masturbate yourself for him. And get him off, he'll enjoy that.

Eventually, as you get used to him and he to you, you'll come. Until then, just work you getting yourself off into your sexual routine with him.

Really, just relax and don't make this into more than it is.
posted by orthogonality at 1:30 PM on December 16, 2008

Laying side by side, him a little lower and on his side (maybe him laying head further away from you a bit), use his stuff to rub your stuff to get you off.
posted by notsnot at 1:34 PM on December 16, 2008

I've probably trained my body to get off one way only, right? I've tried telling him what to do, mimicking what I do by myself, but to no avail.

I like him. A lot.
Help!

I'd start by examining the unstated premise here that if you don't get off, he won't like you. usually that's at the heart of many sexual performance problems.
posted by Ironmouth at 1:36 PM on December 16, 2008 [2 favorites]

No matter how you feel intellectually or emotionally, physically you're used to quick easy orgasms whenever you want them. And when you can't get them, your dissatisfaction will be expressed intellectually and emotionally. So you have to be careful here to keep from sinking into this negative feedback loop, or you'll never be able to relax enough to find out what you two can actually accomplish together.

I second the advice of ceasing your masturbation, and having non-results-oriented sexual encounters. Part of the fun of letting him learn your body is that at the same time, you'll be re-learning it.
posted by hermitosis at 1:43 PM on December 16, 2008

I've probably trained my body to get off one way only, right? I've tried telling him what to do, mimicking what I do by myself, but to no avail.

Everything I've read says that the idea of you "training" yourself to get off "only one way" is poppycock, and my own experience bears this out. There are ways that work better than other ways, but our pleasure centers are just not binary on-off switches. I'd say it's much more likely that your BRAIN has convinced you that this is the only way you can get off, and because you haven't done so in 6.5 seconds or whatever, it's making you too antsy for anything else to happen.

Let's start there: are you expecting immediate results, the way you get off when you masturbate? That's probably not going to happen -- but that's kind of also not the point. It's kind of a Zen mindset, but I found that by not thinking of orgasm as the point to partner sex, that was almost guaranteed to make it more satisfying in my case because I wasn't trying so damn hard. It was more "let's just play around and experiment and have fun," and when you are playing around and experimenting and having fun, that's how you discover "HELL-lo, that's interesting! Do that again!" and he does, and you try a little more of that because it feels nifty, and then something else happens that feels even niftier, and you're going along with that just because it feels nifty for its own sake and suddenly BOOM, hey, there's an orgasm. ...Or, maybe there's no orgasm still, and you've just had enough -- but say, it was still nifty and you still had fun.

I've found that doing that took a hell of a lot of pressure off. Mind you, this is not to say that you don't have the right to ask for help in getting off if you're really wound up and want to have an orgasm and it just hasn't happened yet; but there's a difference between fretting that "oh no, I've not had an orgasm yet, am I doing something wrong?" and a determined, "alright, DAMMIT, I'm gonna have an orgasm BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY." The former has a touch of performance anxiety to it, and performance anxiety can keep you from getting off more so than you think.

And I'd say that what you're experiencing is more performance anxiety than anything else. Play around, don't get hung up on whether you get off right away -- remind yourself that sex is still pretty damn fun even if NOBODY has an orgasm. (Because it is, when you think about it, isn't it?) My hunch is that if you both relax into the fun and don't try for a specific goal, you'll get there.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:43 PM on December 16, 2008 [9 favorites]

Vary how you masturbate and masturbate while having sex.
posted by jeffburdges at 2:26 PM on December 16, 2008

Um, maybe it's him?

I was exactly the same way. I started masturbating years before I had any sexual activity with a guy, and of course I'd gotten into a routine. I never had orgasms with my first boyfriend (no sex, just fooling around). Turned out, he had no idea where the clitoris was, and even after I showed him, just a general lack of experience (and lack of confidence caused by lack of experience) meant that he just was not good and what he needed to be doing down there. He was only 16, but I've seen a HUGE difference between 20 year olds and 30 year olds, especially in the fingering department -- I think fingering takes the most amount of skill, even more than oral.

I have found over and over (even with myself before I learned better) that girls blame themselves when they can't orgasm or just aren't feeling it instead of thinking that maybe this guy is not experienced enough. A lot of guys really don't know what they're doing!

Second -- if too much masturbation meant that one couldn't achieve orgasm with another person via different methods of stimulation, where would that leave every man ever? They masturbate ALL the time, from the age of like, 9, am I right guys?

My suggestions are to boost his skills, which you seem pretty comfortable doing (hooray!) and to boost his confidence. I'll probably be lambasted for this, but I've found there's a grey area between brutal honesty and faking orgasm, where you kind of instruct by exaggerated response. So like if this spot feels better than that spot, you might give more of a response (a louder moan, bigger sigh, heavier squirm) than might be totally natural. Definitely never fake, because he'll never learn, but you are giving positive reinforcement.

Also as you get more comfortable with another person fiddling around down there, it'll be easier for you. Good luck!
posted by thebazilist at 2:32 PM on December 16, 2008 [2 favorites]

Get each other off in whatever way works, and don't worry about it if it doesn't happen. You're still having fun, right?
posted by dunkadunc at 2:49 PM on December 16, 2008

Yeah, show him what to do with his finger that feels good to you. You already know what feels good with your own finger, from years of finding out. Now share that with him. (How else is he supposed to know?)
posted by exphysicist345 at 2:55 PM on December 16, 2008

Yeah. If you haven't talked to him about it, it'd be worth doing, preferably when you're both naked and cuddling in bed already, so it's a sexy, vulnerable, this-is-how-much-I-trust-you kind of moment. Then fool around, let him play with you and tell him what feels good, but agree beforehand that the goal isn't to get you off. The fastest way to keep yourself from having an orgasm is to think about how you're not going to be able to have an orgasm. Just have fun and if you don't get off the first or second or third time, don't sweat it. You'll get there.
posted by EarBucket at 3:41 PM on December 16, 2008

Uh, when you say 'nothing', like - "there's...nothing. No build up, nothing. "
That... sounds like nothing nothing.
As in, he could be fiddling around with your elbow for the whoop-whoop you're getting?
(I've been there)

If so... look, it could be just a matter of going too fast, or, it could be mutual chemistry fail.

Going to fast for the 'prize' seems to cause loss of all erotic sensation, sometimes. So, backup.

Kiss. Barely on the lips. Gently, round the edges, like a butterfly. Move to the neck, the ear (yeah, I was talking about THOSE lips!), get him to kiss round the body. To really delicately trace around your hand, and between your fingers with a fingertip. Make sure you're really *tingly*. Get closer to the clit etc, but don't go there... breath, trace just above the pubic area, until you really, really, really want him to touch you, then slowly, slowly, slowly go ahead.

If that doesn't work - if you're still not there at all (that 'nothing'), and nothing is building.
Then sorry, but you may like him, but you probably don't like him.

Yeah, it's not entirely a mental thing.
Spend some time in the crook of someone's neck, just smelling their body, and if you've got good chemistry (aka like) you'll figure out that like is only vaguely related to 'like' for many people, and it's a lot more primitive.
posted by Elysum at 3:51 PM on December 16, 2008

I was sexually active for 30 (!) years before I was actually physically turned on by a man's body. This improved sex immensely for me; I don't know why it took so long for me to get there. It seems like previously I tended to concentrate mostly on the pleasure I was getting (or not) and how I was performing. When you do this, it too often leads to unnecessary disappointment with yourself or the other person. Concentrating on yourself only is what masturbation is for. I am on medications that have loss of sex drive as a side effect, but I have found that if I let my body respond to my partner by itself, even if my mind is not there, it will join me eventually. There needs to be a lot of trust in your partner and you both need to feel very relaxed and confident with each other. On the whole I've found that sex improves with age - as long as you avoid bright lighting!
posted by artfann at 4:57 PM on December 16, 2008