‘Help! I’ve been dating my bf for seven months now, and I really love him, he is really great in bed – he would do whatever to make me feel the best… But I have a major problem: I can’t reach orgasm no matter what he does. (I can easily be reaching orgasm when I am masturbating myself when he isn’t around, less than 1 min.)
So here’s the thing: I get aroused really easy, and he really turns me on a lot, I wanted to make love to him over and over again because he is just great in bed, but no matter how long we did it, I just wouldn’t reach orgasm. Before I met him, I masturbated all the time with all these fantasies: being raped, having sex with two guys at one time, sex with strangers, being a prostitute, having sex with my best friend’s boy friends, old dudes and much much more – and it made me come in like two seconds once I started thinking about it. But after I met my bf, all my fantasies have become him, and him only.
So I start to masturbate by thinking of how we make love and how he whispers in my ears and I will reach orgasm in two seconds… This should be good news because being able to reach orgasm by thinking about my own bf makes me feel wonderful, but the problem is, I can’t reach orgasm when he is around. I can’t even concentrate masturbating. And he did everything possible trying to give me an orgasm.
I am really frustrated. I know my bf has to be so disappointed that after all this time he never makes me come. I would feel really bad if he were with me for seven months and never came.
So what’s my problem? I know I have no problem reaching orgasm but I just can’t when he is around (It has to do with something mentally because I don’t actually penetrate myself when I am masturbating; I just rub between my crotch with hands)
I really love him. I know it. He is my only fantasy right now. (Sometimes I try to use my old fantasies but nothing works.) What’s the major issue going on here? Can you guys please help me coz I am really desperate.’
The Lovers’ Guide replies
The central issues here are probably to do with your ability to be emotionally open and relaxed and physically responsive in the presence of another person. It sounds as if a real block has been erected between your sexually responsive self, as when you masturbate alone, and your sense of yourself when you are with your partner – really with him and not just in your fantasies. This is assuming that neither you nor your partner can bring you to orgasm in his presence.
This has, obviously, by now become a real issue for you. Your anxiety now about whether you will experience orgasm or not will tend to make it highly unlikely you will experience orgasm – your anxiety will inhibit you. You’ll need to break this cycle of negative thinking – by, in the first instance, abandoning the need to orgasm to increasing sensual and erotic stimulation.
As well as this, it is really worth asking what it is about your partner’s, and previous partners’, presence that has led to your not experiencing orgasm. There may be, for example, issues of self-control: while you can still feel in control on your own, the sense of surrendering control with your partner might feel threatening or otherwise unacceptable.
It may be you worry about how your partner will see you, or hear you, as you experience orgasm, perhaps as unattractive, undignified or even ridiculous. Needless to say, these fears are unfounded – your partner will love to see and hear you lose yourself in orgasm – but you really need to know this.
You will probably find it helps to take the pressure off and not expect, to begin with, to experience orgasm through intercourse or through your partner’s stimulating you. Instead, bridge the gap between your sense of yourself when you masturbate and when you are with your partner by stimulating yourself when you are with him – and by what you’ll be doing, and not doing, as you masturbate.
He can sit behind you, hold and stroke you – and you may find it helps if he speaks or uses noise to reassure and encourage you, or you might prefer him to be silent. His sitting behind you can help you to feel you are not being observed. This may help you relax.
You’ll need to ‘unlearn’ your anxiety, which has probably really built up and become a habit over the course of the last seven months. To help you relax, spend time just breathing deeply while your partner holds and caresses you. Fantasise about your partner – since these are your fantasies when you are alone and when you experience orgasm very readily. Let your sense of your partner’s real touch combine with that of his fantasy touch. Really register how it feels as he touches you – focus on these sensations. You might now caress yourself sensually, and give yourself permission to spend a lot of time gently pleasuring yourself in this way.
Concentrate on all of your physical sensations, both as you touch yourself and as your partner caresses you. Really take the time to root yourself in your feelings and not think at all about how anyone else might see you. You might find it helps deliberately to make a little noise, to get used to the idea of sounding sensual in another person’s presence. There’s no need at all while doing this to think at any point that you should now ‘up the revs’ to have an orgasm. There’s no time limit here. Time is flexible. Indeed, as you do open up more and more when in the presence of your partner, you might find the experience a little unnerving and so you’ll need to spend more time relaxing more, enjoying your feelings, being aware of your feelings and letting them show.
Gradually, through this program – which may last only a hour or so or may take place over a period of days and weeks – you can feel more and more confident with the mental terrain as your arousal heightens through these kinds of stimulation. Finally, you’ll be confident enough to let yourself tip over the edge and experience orgasm. (You might use a vibrator really to up the stimulation here.) And when you have experienced orgasm once with your partner, you’ll probably find it gets easier and easier after that.
In short, take the pressure off. Really bring your partner into your masturbatory life. Make the decision that you’re going to show your partner who you really are when you experience orgasm. Make the decision that you’re going to permit yourself to be that sensual, orgasmic person. And once you have experienced orgasm with him, then you might even invite him to help.