**Very long post. So, tl;dr:** Struggled with self-worth, sex and relationships for my entire life. After 4 years of weekly therapy and 15 months of dating people with mixed success, I ended up losing my virginity last night to a very old friend \[23F\] who I didn’t realise was interested in me sexually until pretty much the very last moment haha. I was a mess and had bad E.D., but she was so happy to lead things and didn’t seem to mind at all when the sex didn’t go perfectly. Posting this cos this subreddit helped me out so much, and I promise to anyone out there who don’t think it’ll happen – with time and work it can!!!
**Background**: I’ve had an incredibly rough relationship with myself over my life, stemming from childhood traumas and bad messages from my parents, peers and authority figures about my worth – leading to chronic self-loathing and a feeling that I didn’t deserve intimacy, and that if I had it I would just disappoint any woman I was with and push them away sexually. This led to me being completely unable to engage in romance or sex. I felt this way about myself despite having talent and success in my professional life, as well as an incredibly strong network of very close friends.
I went into therapy 4 years ago in Summer 2018 and around Spring 2021 I had done enough work in therapy to have the confidence to try dating for the first time. It was an absolutely brutal process. My own feelings about myself initially led me to choose partners who didn’t make me feel all that good about myself.
This then obviously compounded my fear of touch and intimacy to the point I’d have relationships fall apart due to being completely unable to engage in even stuff as simple as holding hands. I’d then blame myself for not being ‘assertive’ enough and having the strength to do something as seemingly simple and easy as touch, even though retrospectively I recognise it as a two-way street where I was getting very little validation or encouragement from my partner.
Again, a helluva lot of mistakes and work with my amazing therapist led me to slowly start choosing people who were better for me, and to truly be able to feel and take in the kind words both these partners and my friends said about me. I dated for a while with wonderful women who for various reasons it never quite worked out with.
Progressively I met women who made me feel better and better about myself until in January I dated a girl for about a month who literally changed my life. I had never felt so validated and seen by anyone, she was so sensitive and kind and we had so much fun together. It didn’t work out, and we never got to try anything sexual as I still just didn’t feel ready for that stuff. But it was the first time ever that I enjoyed kissing and felt like the woman I was with was enjoying it too. It was affection that felt completely reciprocal. This was completely revelatory for me.
**Anyway, fast forward a few months**: I’d very casually dated since that girl but I was really holding out to meet someone who I liked as much as her. Fast forward to last night, and I was at a friend \[23F\]’s birthday drinks party. This friend was someone I’ve always been friendly with but never super close. We met almost 6 years ago, and we’ve always really got along – but I had assumed it was platonic for all that time.
We were being a little cuddley at her birthday but no more so than I am with a lot of my friends these days. I hadn’t really thought that we were flirting at all until at the end of the night I told her I was headed home and she said to me ‘No you’re not, you’re coming back to my place’.
Immediately I realised what she was implying and, figuring that I have the strength now to both be able to engage with women physically and also to say no if I’m uncomfortable, I went with her. She was also someone I’ve been friends with for so long now that it created an element of safety where my worst fears – that a woman would be disgusted or ashamed or disappointed by me being unable to engage fully in bed – wouldn’t happen because I felt assured she did really like me as a friend, not just as a sexual partner.
We went back to hers and I had a really nice and fun night where I effectively lost my virginity. I was a barrel of nerves of course but she was so happy to lead things and whilst it didn’t go ideally I was prepared for it to not be perfect and she didn’t seem upset or frustrated at any point. I had serious E.D. as a result of feeling anxious and for the first hour or so of us making out and me fingering her I couldn’t get it up whatsoever. I was so worried that I was doing it all wrong.
After another hour of cuddling and spooning things suddenly got insanely passionate and I was able to get it up. She went down on me and then she leapt on top of me and we very briefly tried PIV sex. After about 10 seconds my anxiousness returned and I went soft again. I told her I didn’t think it could happen tonight and she was incredibly understanding and nice about it. Despite everything, I actually felt quite good and satisfied with the experience; this was because in spite of everything I trusted my partner and felt ***SAFE***, which is pretty much everything I had hoped my first time could be.
I felt a little reticent that she’d want to cuddle me after I wasn’t able to do PIV sex for very long but she immediately said ‘come spoon me’ and we had a very cute rest of the evening. She said that I’d been really good when I fingered her (I asked her to guide my hand at points which definitely helped). Also, I’ve never had a partner who complimented my looks so much; she said on a few occasions that I was insanely good looking. In the morning we had breakfast and we were just chatting and laughing so much together. When I left she seemed genuinely bummed I had to go. All this to say I think she’s completely brilliant and I just can’t believe she was right there in front of me all these years.
I’m posting all this because this subreddit and a few others have been such a wonderful resource for me over the many, many years since I first became interested in overcoming my sexual problems. Over that time, I’d occasionally read similar success stories of people getting over similar issues to mine. I think for a good few years I always told myself that ‘Oh, this person probably didn’t have it as bad as I do and that’s why they were able to overcome it’. I cannot emphasise enough how much this happening felt like an impossibility for me for the vast majority of my life.
I hope that if there’s anyone out there who like me reads a success story and feels like it couldn’t happen to them, they can take this away: I *promise* you, if you can get the resources and continue to work at it… it *will* happen for you, and it’ll feel safe and good and enjoyable even if it doesn’t go perfectly. And it probably won’t go perfectly! But I’m so so glad I waited this late in life to lose it because this is probably the first possible time that it could have happened where I was comfortable enough with things not going how I’d want them to. And to my great surprise, the girl I was with seemed to be okay with that too, and continue to really enjoy spending time together despite everything.