this is going to be kinda long so bear with me, TLDR at the end though!
i (23F) can’t orgasm during partnered sex, even though i can do it on my own. i started masturbating when i was about 11 and first had sex when i was 17. i could only finish using porn when masturbating, but i have stopped using it entirely as of june, and have noticed it now takes me about 30 min – 1 hr compared to 5 – 10 min. i find it very hard to “stay focused” or not get bored masturbating without the visuals from porn.
i have never orgasmed with anyone i’ve been with (only men, previously) and none of them have ever really cared to try and make me. i can’t say i particularly enjoyed sex with men. it felt like more of a part i had to play. i frequently couldn’t get wet and had to stop sex due to discomfort. i was on different kinds of birth controls at the time, and as of about 2 months ago i am birth control free.
i am currently with my partner (22F) and i love her very much, i have no issues getting turned on or getting wet, and i enjoy sex much much more with her compared to men. the sex feels amazing, don’t get me wrong!! but i feel awkward, not hot enough, or like i’m boring her. i never cared about not being able to orgasm until she started to care about making me. she said it’s never happened to her before and started feeling bad about it, which made me start to care and now i compare myself to all of her past partners and feel like there’s something wrong with me for needing time to orgasm/not being able to with a partner.
the sex feels really good and it feels like i’m getting there, but i never end up reaching the orgasm, no matter how turned on/wet/how good it feels. idk why i can’t or what else i’m doing wrong. that’s how it was even before i started stressing out about it the past 2 months. sometimes it feels like way too much to the point that it’s uncomfortable. not a good “too much” but a genuine overstimulation uncomfortable “too much” feeling. she’s only made me orgasm once during sex, and that was after about 2 hours total and after i gave her detailed instructions on what i like. after about 40 min i finally did.
i don’t even know what i like. i don’t have any specific kinks, all i know is that i like when it’s spontaneous and i like being pinned down. i know i have a lot of self discovery to do, but i HATE when sex feels “planned.” and if i go into it with an agenda of discovery or something, or almost like it’s an assignment for both of us, i get turned off.
essentially i don’t know what to do. i don’t know how to get out of my own head and stop worrying if i’m boring her/she’s upset she can’t make me come/i’m taking too long/i’m the worst sex partner she’s had. i don’t know where to start with finding out what i like, or finding out if i even enjoy sex as much as the average person does. lately it has been such a source of stress for me, i don’t even want to have it. and i feel atypical and mad that i’m not able to orgasm as easily as a lot of other women during sex, especially in a wlw relationship where sex is typically raved about.
i know orgasm isn’t the end goal. i’ve seen so many comments on here saying to not make it a priority. but even when it wasn’t even on my mind, and the sex felt amazing, i still couldn’t. and i don’t just want to accept that it’ll never happen regularly for me, because i really do want to experience it during sex and not just by myself. i feel like i’m missing out and it’s upsetting me a lot. i know it could be worse but i don’t want to hear it, i’m frustrated and want help.
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TLDR: i can’t orgasm during partnered sex, even though it feels really good and i feel like i’m relaxed/turned on/wet. i’m able to with masturbation, but even then it takes me 30 min – 1 hour. i think my issue is self-esteem and trying to be in the right mindset for masturbation/sex, but i don’t know how to fix it. i used to not care about it, but over the past few months it started to frustrate me a lot and i need advice.
2 comments
So this sounds psychological, I had the exact same experience when I went from dating men who did not care to dating a woman whose ego was heavily invested in me getting off. And wow she needs to relax and not get upset at you and put even more pressure on you to orgasm, that’s the worst thing she could’ve done. The only thing that helps in this situation is taking the pressure off you entirely and you feeling comfortable enough to experiment. That’s supposed to be the fun part!
(Also for overstimulation like you described, it’s better to start with very light stimulation and escalate from there.) It really sounds like she’s having the exact same anxieties as you but expressed in the opposite way—like you’re both trying to “perform” instead of relaxing and enjoying each other. She needs to let go of that so you can too
Hey! Great post OP, sorry for all the stress you’re going through right now over this. It’s really common for women, especially young women, to struggle with orgasm (sometimes men too). Sex with a partner is always different than masturbation, it throws a huge new dynamics into things. Sometimes we get really nervous or embarrassed, worried that we aren’t good enough for our partner. Funnily enough we have post after post on this sub about how men prioritize their own orgasm too much, and now you come along worrying that you have been letting your partner down by not cumming enough! Sometimes just the idea of having a partner makes us hold things back and stop doing what we like because we are so afraid they won’t like it or won’t accept us, which is also us not accepting our self.
It sounds like, from your post, maybe you don’t want too much advice, maybe you’ve even gotten some poor advice in the past that has led to this situation, you don’t like homework or planning a sexual encounter. But it sounds like you don’t know where to turn to figure out what kind of sex you really really want, and what kind would make you so excited that you burst from the build up. If your sexuality was like a tapestry, something woven together from many strands of thread, threads you could choose, what kinds of things would you weave together? What if no one was looking and you could be totally free to have anything you wanted? What if there was no one there to tell you that the things you like are bad and that your partner was 100% into whatever you wanted?
I had a girlfriend once that struggled with orgasm with a partner, though she had no trouble alone. I think she watched certain porn types that she was embarrassed about. She hid her trouble with me for a long time before telling me. So when she finally mentioned it we came up with a plan: I would just do everything she wanted to make it happen. She had me under her desk wearing a blindfold eating her out while she watched porn, she had me lay on her bed while she sat on my face and rode me. I can’t remember what else it was so long ago, but the point was she really let her self want what she wanted. It worked! She wasn’t so concerned about me or my pleasure or putting on a show. And you know what? It was a lot of fun for me to experience her that uninhibited, it can be a huge turn on to see a partner shining sexually.