So I’ve (22f) been with my boyfriend (20m) for a little over a year and a half now.
For the last year, we’ve been sexually active and this is my first serious relationship and he is also my first.
A few days ago, we were on our way to my apartment when we started discussing sex very casually, which I’ll admit was normal, but on that drive, we decided that we’d have sex that night.
Usually, when we do go at it, it’s never really decided at all. The mood just gets built up and we go from there.
Safe to say, it felt unusual, and almost lacking passion. Not very intimate at all. I was still enjoying it, up until the very end where I suddenly felt scared and vulnerable. I didn’t want it anymore and wanted him off of me, but I have no idea why. It was uncomfortable and almost hurt? It felt almost wrong.
By the time I really processed how I was feeling, he had finished, and I really wanted to cry. I almost did.
I told him about it but left out the part where I felt scared and just told him that I got uncomfortable.
He was worried that he hurt me, and that he’d broken my trust somehow.
The thing is, I have no idea why this happened, and why I felt hurt by something he wasn’t aware of, had no time to acknowledge, and was over as soon as it started.
The day after, everything was fine and we don’t usually see each other for days at a time so it’d been a while since I’ve seen him, but it was weighing on my mind for a while and I couldn’t find anything about it online.
Can someone help me understand why this might’ve happened?
TL;DR: I felt scared, vulnerable, and hurt in the middle of sex with my boyfriend and have no idea why it’s happened
4 comments
Could be a past trauma from you forgot about?
You felt scared?
What was scaring you? The sex act, him, your own feelings?
I say this as a woman, if I am upset and I don’t know *why*, it’s usually related to PMS. And I don’t realize that until a week or so later.
And in my experience, the only time I’ve felt upset during sex is from feeling depersonalized, underappreciated, and feeling like I was only being valued for providing sex.
Armchair psychology time, take everything with a pinch of salt (advice for Reddit in general, really)
I think there are a few things at play.
Firstly, the decision to have sex was scheduled and somewhat unromantic. Like you say, this is new territory for you.
Second, for most people sex is an intimate act of (in a healthy dynamic) shared vulnerability.
As most people will tell you, sex begins in the mind, and kinda takes place in the mind, too, even more so for women. Anecdotally, it’s why erotic literature is so much more popular with women, and how the right phrases and circumstances can elevate an orgasm, or trigger one seemingly from nowhere (it isn’t *just* that your g-spot was being stimulated, it’s that you were called a good girl and told to come that brought about an incredible orgasm, for example)
Now despite the fact that you’re comfortable and secure with your partner, having sex without mental foreplay (intentional or otherwise. Simply put: without getting “in the mood”) put you on the back foot, in unfamiliar territory. Perhaps the sex felt matter-of-fact, or even transactional. Add on to that a fear of disappointing your partner or of somehow being a bad partner yourself, and anxiety and discomfort are understandable, if not expected.
Consent can be withdrawn at any time, even an hour or two into sex, but of course it can feel selfish or even hurtful to stop a session before your partner wants to.
Losing the drive or passion mid-sex isn‘t uncommon, and while it can be a hit to your partner’s ego, it’s not something you should feel the need to push through.
It seems to me that your feeling of wrongness came about because you no longer had the desire for sex (which was put into place almost systematically in the first place) and yet found yourself to be experiencing the intimately vulnerable act of sex regardless.
Sex without passion can feel almost like an obligation, which involves other such complicated feelings as your worth/value as a person and a partner, your sexuality as a commodity, your capability/responsibility for romance, and your compatibility with your partner. It‘s deep-rooted, complicated, uniquely personal, and emotionally messy stuff that no Redditor is going to perfectly understand, but I guess what I‘m trying to say is that what you felt is not weird or abnormal, not something to be ashamed of (if you are) but also not something to be ignored.
Remain cognisant of your needs and desires, communicate them with your partner, and have (unscheduled for now) fun!
Good luck!
I think what happened is that you felt obligated to have sex when you weren’t in the mood for it. You’d discussed it ahead of time, so you were afraid if you said “eh, turns out I’m just not feeling it tonight” that he’d be disappointed.
So, you tried to fake it till you made it, but as you put it, it felt passionless and wrong. You weren’t listening to your body.
Now when you aren’t in the mood, your body doesn’t do the things it automatically does when you are in the mood. Your vagina didn’t lubricate, the muscles didn’t relax, the erectile tissue in your vagina and clit didn’t swell with blood. And the longer sex went on the harder it was to ignore the fact that your body wasn’t ready.
Sex is a very intimate activity, so when it doesn’t feel good, and for some reason you can’t stop it, you do feel anxious and vulnerable.
The good news is that your boyfriend does care about you and your pleasure and doesn’t want to hurt you. So I think he will understand if you say, “Hey, I don’t want to disappoint you, but for some reason, it’s not happening with me right now. Can we skip sex tonight.”