Who wants me?

[anjelica]

At the age of 13, I’ve been physically touched on places where I didn’t want to be touched by a friend of the family. He didn’t technically rape me but the event had a huge impact on me and I started avoiding everything that was somehow connected to sex. No dating, no kissing, no boyfriends. Simply didn’t want that. When I was 22 I went to the gyn for a checkup. I was still a virgin, and I clearly told her that. Despite me asking her to be gentle, I ended up in tears cause she had to push pretty hard on the speculum to get it inside. I ended up with vaginismus and it took me 2 years of dilation therapy before I got over that painful experience.

I’m 35 now and I still haven’t got a BF. I never had sex, I never kissed, I never touched a penis or even saw one in real life. Most guys I meet have WAY more experience and are not interested in dating someone who doesn’t even know what an orgasm feels like. I’m looking for someone with lots and lots of patience, who can guide me, explain things to me and help me to get back on track. But where do I find these guys?

[recessivegenequeen]

Hi Anjelica – I’m so sorry to hear about what you’ve endured, both as a child and an adult. It’s a really difficult situation to find yourself in and you are clearly a strong person for having survived these experiences and gone through dilation.

I want to separate out a couple of points you’ve made as I think it might help to think of them as somewhat separate issues. You mentioned that you’ve never had an orgasm before, but that’s a problem you can begin to address on your own before you begin dating. What is your relationship to masturbation? It sounds like you haven’t had a lot of pleasurable experiences with your own body which is a good place to start when you are looking to feel more control over this process. Even if you’ve never been with a man, you can begin to use your hands or a vibrator to discover what gives you pleasure so that you can later show a partner what you like. Even women with sexual experience even have to show their partners what they like. I think it’s a common romantic misconception that a male partner can “guide us” to an understanding of our own bodies, but even an experienced man with a lot of “tricks” up his sleeve can’t show YOU what feels good because everyone’s body is different and enjoys different sensations. Taking more control over your own pleasure by exploring masturbation can be a way of reclaiming some of the control you feel you lack and can set you up to be in a more sexually fulfilling partnership in the future.

As for the question of how to find a partner, I think you have a couple of options in your approach. One is a “fake-it-till-you-make-it” strategy. A man who doesn’t know you can’t tell by looking at you that you’ve never kissed or had sex with someone. You don’t OWE people an explanation of these facts right at the beginning of a relationship and can navigate them as they come at the beginning. There are also people out there who are looking to move slower and you can use methods like online dating to screen people in advance to get a sense of who might be looking to connect emotionally before they do physically. It will be a challenge but you have power over how you communicate the story of your life and who you trust with your heart, and hopefully that knowledge will give you some autonomy.

I don’t think you mentioned whether you have undergone talk therapy before, but it might be something to consider as well as you navigate the new world of dating. A therapist can help you make sense of these new experiences and offer strategies to cope when things don’t go your way.

Thanks so much for sharing your experience with us – I hope some of this helps!