What’s the healthiest approach to normalizing sex?
Hey there Reddit –
I (21M, almost 22) am a virgin, and that doesn’t really bother me. Heck, I’ve never even had my first kiss.
I know that it’ll happen whenever it does with the right girl, and that doesn’t mean she has to be “the one” or anything like that. I just know and feel that to be safe, it’s gonna be a girl who I have feelings for (which are mutual) and more importantly, who I have built some trust with. It’s a two way thing.
I respect the hookup culture too – some of my closest friends indulge in it, especially girls, and it doesn’t really make a difference (It’s fun to talk about though). I’m comfortable talking about it, relationships, the idea of it – I’m the “therapist friend” that people feel safe talking to, and I make it a point to honor that trust.
But one of the things that I’ve recently thought about is the fact that – there’s a good chance that when I do it for the first time, she’ll have done it a couple of times in the past. That kind of bothers me and reader – please don’t think it means I’m disgusted by it. I’m not.
This is purely about how I feel and the healthiest way to go about it.
Part of me is afraid of catching an STD or getting a girl pregnant despite doing everything right.
But it’s also the thought that – someone else (or plural) has/have been with her, and what if I’m nothing more than another name? What if it’s meaningless?
And it feels like at this age (especially in senior year of college), pretty much everyone’s moved on from the first times and sex is a pretty normal thing in relationships and will be wherever I go.
_And I respect that._
I don’t want to be disrespectful due to how I feel. Even if I were to have an exclusive FWB (which is highly unlikely because of how everything seems to be with dating and relationships these days), there would be a good chance that I’d catch feelings or that I’d be entering it with a girl who’s done it before.
This is probably me overthinking this, but what’s the healthiest way for me to normalize physical intimacy…?
Of course, I’m not looking for anything – I’m still working on building a life for myself and responsibilities that keep me busy. I don’t see myself in a relationship for a long time yet – I can’t help but wonder about these things.
Thanks for reading, and hope this wasn’t offensive towards anyone.
4 comments
STDs and pregnancy are almost completely preventable, just practice safe sex and good communication with people you trust. Accidents do of course happen but that’s life.
As for if it’s meaningless, a one night stand might be. It’s usually pretty easy to figure out if someone doesn’t really care about you – they don’t show any true interest, there’s only small talk or they talk about themselves. Pretty easy to avoid that.
>what’s the healthiest way for me to normalize physical intimacy…?
Probably to just experience it, potentially a few times with different people if circumstances turn out that way. You say you’re not waiting for “the one” but I have a sneaking suspicion that you are. The way you phrase your post makes me think that you have a really rigid script in your head of how things are going to go, that you’re totally closed off to real opportunity. The truth is if you just get out there, socialize a ton and just set fun as your highest goal, you’ll have opportunities to explore all this even if it’s just making out with a cute girl at a party or something.
I think what’s eating you is that when you finally do get your moment you’ll just be another notch in her bedpost and not your happily ever after. You need to let go of that man, or you’re still going to be making posts like this at 34.
Also, being the therapist friend isn’t always a good thing. Be supportive but some people need real therapists. It can also mean that you fixate on people and try to please them, which will actually worsen you sexual or romantic prospects.
Great questions and self-knowledge.
Sex and sexual growth is different for different people of course. But based on your self-description, I would say that the best thing you can do is cultivate a healthy self-esteem.
Sex is not distinct from your self-image. In fact, if you think about it, the vast majority of sexual encounters are an exercise in trading on self-esteem. (I’ll defend that thesis if anybody cares to challenge it, but for now I’ll assume that it’s obviously true.)
When the time comes for you to have sex, what matters most is that you be very secure in yourself and your choices and your life. Every one of your future partners will either be content with who she is and what she’s done, or she won’t be. In neither case does her self-knowledge (or lack of it) affect you in any way. It’s what she brings to bed, and you’ll have to deal with it in that context.
Self-doubt is the real slippery slope, here, not relative experience. The more confident you are in yourself, the more you’ll see your partners’ experience as the same journey you’ve been on to self-discovery. It’s just that they did it through sex and you did it through “chastity” and abstinence. But those two journeys led you to the exact same place.
It’s normal and called retroactive jealousy. Also you don’t have to say you’re fine with something if you’re not.
I don’t exactly like hookup culture and it doesn’t make me or others ‘bad’