I see myself as a very sex positive, open minded, and encouraging person. I hope that translates into my relationships as a partner. I’m a female and I struggle to finish sometimes, my physiology isn’t as straight forward as my partners.
**I’m in a newer relationship, just trying to communicate my expectations – we don’t both always need to finish when fooling around – BUT we should both mutually enjoy and explore in the process?**
I feel like whenever I bring up sex, I’ve approached it like.. I want to improve it and it doesn’t seem negative or critical BUT if it feels like that, I want my partner to tell me how they feel about it being brought up or even when they prefer to address it. In the moment if I say, “Hey that feels good. X would feel even better” it can be met with defensiveness or he disengages and it feels like I killed the mood. If I let him finish and sit with it after (i.e. I did not finish or fully enjoy myself and don’t want this to become something I become bitter about over time because it’s happened a few times in the last few months) and I bring it up, it’s met with, “Maybe we shouldn’t do it at all” or I guess… some sort of, “I’m not good enough” defence mechanism. And I am confused.
If we can’t initially talk about how to enhance our sex life – can’t we talk about what about that conversation upsets him? Did he have bad experiences in previous relationships or partners who were too critical of him? It seems too intense to pry, but I feel deflated every time I get shut down.
**Is there a better way to bring this up?** I’ve explained penetrative O doesn’t work for me… solo, with a partner, etc. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to get to know my body and it has NOTHING to do with a partner. I’ve said overall, if I feel my partner is eager to please me and I can see that and we want to make each other feel good, it feels better than feeling like my body is too complicated or too much work.
I also mentioned maybe if a few sexual encounters are very involved, such as he asks me what feels good, or going into it what I want… or is open to feedback *during* (i.e. less pressure, moving direction) and after a few communicated experiences, maybe he gets to know my body better and what I enjoy. So in future, it can be more in the moment and less tense?
I don’t fully understand why he is so upset.. Or what I am doing wrong. I feel self conscious, since it’s my body and my pleasure too.. I’m just trying to talk about it and don’t want it to be perceived as something critical or negative.
2 comments
I don’t get it either. M65, retired engineer. I’m always looking to improve things. Always looking to experiment. Always looking to make peoples lives better. It’s just hardwired into me. It seems astonishing that there would be people out there who actively want to not do those things. There must be other guys out there like me.
At the beginning of my current relationship I (M) had similar problems. After having a girlfriend in my previous and first relationship who made me feel very self-conscious and insecure about my sexuality, it took me a long time to get away from that. In addition, my current girlfriend started very early to bring sex toys into our love life (I had rather bad experience with it before). Every time we tried to talk about it in the beginning, I put up my walls and became rather dismissive and destructive. We didn’t stop talking about it because it put a lot of stress on both of us and we were helpless at times. I realized that there was a lot of insecurity involved and we basically started all over again. I do not know how to describe it better. We talked outside of a romantic or sexual situation about what one and the other liked and didn’t like, where we were insecure and what we didn’t want at first or never wanted. For me it was a lot about feeling like I could satisfy my girlfriend, and if I couldn’t do that without the help of sex toys, I felt like a failure. That only got better after I managed to make her come. Since then, we have gradually expanded our sex life again and are now even very relaxed and can communicate everything openly. The whole thing took about a year, from the first date to the healthy and open sex life. I guess my recommendation would be: take explicit time for it, maybe even plan the conversation (just don’t make too big a problem out of it, so that there is not too much tension from the beginning), talk loosely about his ideas and about yours, and where they differ and where they agree. I think it is important that both of you take a step towards the other, so both of you feel respected.