Why can't my body stay turned on?
June 11, 2017 11:58 PM   Subscribe

My body can't seem to remain turned on, even when my mind can. Feelings of physical arousal or sensitivity are fleeting, hardly lasting for thirty seconds, usually less. What gives, and is this something that can be fixed? Disappointing is an understatement.

Caveats up top so we don't get ahead of ourselves:
I'm a transgender woman, over half a decade on hormones, no surgery. Married to a cis woman.

Sometime in the last few years, my body started reacting more to sex and sexy thoughts, in ways that I hadn't experienced prior to transition. However, it seems that any of these new sensations last for only a few seconds before disappearing, regardless of how much I try to hold on to them.

For example, nipple sensitivity. It's a thing now, and it's an amazing thing. But after a few seconds of stimulation, it all goes south, and all of the sensitivity is just gone. Not less sensitive, but completely insensitive. The same thing happens with just general arousal, essentially what this and this Ask Mefi questions are about. But again, if I manage to encounter some stimulation that gives me that feeling, my body seems to shut it down a few seconds later.

FWIW, having a few drinks seems to help with this, although I'm not sure if that's confirmation bias or not. Also, I generally am "always on" and thinking, but being aware of this hasn't helped me yet so far, even when I've attempted to let go and not thinking during intimate times.

All this aside, I can and do enjoy sex. But this feeling is frustrating, because I now know that I am not enjoying it to the extent that is possible.

My caveats aside*, are there general ideas or suggestions to help with this? Have others experience this and can offer what helped with them? Terms I can Google, or a vote to call either a doctor or a therapist?

I know plenty of trans women who do not have the problems I'm describing, so I would rather focus on general advice over "it's a trans thing". It's hard enough to get standard medical/psychological help without hearing "well, it's just what you have to deal with as a trans, I can't help you", even though it's generally nothing to do with that.
posted by anonymous to Health & Fitness (6 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite

 
Does it help to keep switching things around? Like, when the nipples stop feeling sensitive, switch to some other body part, and when that stops working, back to the nipples, etc? Some people find that a single sensation repeated over and over again gradually builds to something amazing, but I think plenty of other people find the opposite: that their bodies quickly become desensitised to repetitive sensations.
posted by lollusc at 2:07 AM on June 12, 2017 [2 favorites]


In addition to switching up where you're being stimulated, you could try switching up the type of stimulation. Lighter touch, more forceful touch, circular motion, back and forth or side to side motion, fingers, lips, tongue, directly on the area, on the area through clothing, etc.
posted by Waiting for Pierce Inverarity at 3:41 AM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]


I think you have to move. I dunno how or what, but the advice sometimes given to an-orgasmic persons is to act out an orgasm because their body needs to increase tension and motion a little bit more.

Alternatively you could try the tantric method, used for people who are older, or on SSRI's of assuming that this time is not it and as soon as the sensation goes letting it go and switching to a different kind of stimulation, but coming back later, repeatedly. The idea is that instead of it taking twenty minutes it could take all weekend with breaks for making dinner and sleeping and watching your show, but after successive times of hitting that peak and then letting it vanish the fifth or tenth time you get over it and the after shocks are oh so blissful.

Have you ever drawn a map of your erogenous zones, including all the unlikely ones? Can you try including other areas on your body in your stimulation zones?

I understand that the bio-male body tends towards requiring more and stronger stimulation, with the result that "Don't do it too often and don't do it too hard" is advice to a young bio-male learning self stimulation which makes no sense at all at age twelve but may be all too serious a warning at age 38 when a Viagra prescription in a necessity that no longer is sufficient. If you have bio-male equipment, you may want to work with using lots of visual stimulation, but no touching what so over, only moving - no rubbing against anything, just looking at, or watching, or drawing, and pelvic rocks, but no touching except, once you are good and eager, those zones you want to get stimulated, such as your nipples, and then starting extremely lightly, extremely delicately. If you start by pinching, for example and need to escalate you options would be limited to vice grips and... no, that's definitely not the right way to go.
posted by Jane the Brown at 4:02 AM on June 12, 2017 [3 favorites]


To me this sounds like an anxiety response. Your body does a really stimulating thing, your brain goes "!!!!!!" and then "shut it down! warp core breach imminent!" and then you get that bizarre absence of sensitivity and receptiveness.

I'm a cis woman who has lived with anxiety and wildly varying sexual desire for years now and what you describe feels extremely familiar to me. Depending on how I'm doing mentally and energy-wise I can sometimes adjust things to smooth over the anxiety shutdown and build back up to a climax but it takes work and sometimes it's better to just say nope not today and focus on something else joyful. Sometimes if I do that I can come back to it with success a couple hours later, sometimes not.

Unfortunately, the common medicinal treatment for anxiety is an SSRI, which are often accompanied with difficulty to achieve sexual arousal. Oops. But there are tons and tons of other things you can try. And in my experience, taking an SSRI (Zoloft) did dip my sexual response significantly for the first few months but then I taught myself some new techniques and bounced back to somewhere close to normal, with some fun twists, and bonus, my anxiety is under control. I'm sure as a trans woman you have had the talk with doctors about different treatments for mental wellness as you transition etc etc. Maybe it's time to revisit some of these suggestions? As you adjust to all your awesome new sensations and sexy thoughts, you might find this problem going away on its own, but a therapist could definitely help you navigate things with more focus.
posted by Mizu at 4:13 AM on June 12, 2017 [3 favorites]


it seems that any of these new sensations last for only a few seconds before disappearing, regardless of how much I try to hold on to them.

Sounds completely normal to me.

The trick is learning not to try to hold onto them. As soon as your brain is working to hold onto something that happened five seconds ago, it's working every bit as hard as that to avoid noticing what's happening right now.

The astonishing power of sensuality is completely and totally about what's happening right now, so the fact that it all falls apart as soon as you distract yourself from the present moment should come as no surprise.

I generally am "always on" and thinking, but being aware of this hasn't helped me yet so far, even when I've attempted to let go and not thinking during intimate times.

Remaining fully present in the moment is a learned skill, and like most learned skills it takes endless practice to get good at. If the only time you try to let go of thinking and be fully present is during intimate play, then expecting to be able to do that on cue is as unrealistic as expecting to be able to get behind a kit and play like Terry Bozzio without first having put in the thousands of hours it took him to get to his level of proficiency.

Simply knowing and acknowledging that you habitually live inside your head is not enough to compensate for the physically numbing side effects of that. You need to do the work.
posted by flabdablet at 4:51 AM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]


Just reading the part above the cut I was thinking the answer was "hormones". I'm a cis woman, and pos partum I had substantial changes in my own sexual response. (I would get in bed, try to spin up some arousing fantasy in my mind, and it would last for just a second or two before a big metaphorical foot came and stomped it flat.) (Yes, this is a Bambi vs Godzilla metaphor.)
posted by puddledork at 6:37 AM on June 12, 2017 [2 favorites]


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