Scarleteen

Hello,
I'm running into the same situation repeatedly and I don't know yet how to go a different way. I find it difficult to find out what I really want during sex and to say No or to stop a situation I'm not enjoying.

In the past I've often been in situations where somebody either pushed me to go on after I said No or where I just did something (like giving a blow job or having vaginally sex) to satisfy a partner even though I didn't feel good. For a long time I didn't want to have sex at all because it was so loaded with all the expectations and horrible heteronormative scripts.

Right now, I'm in a straight relationship and I often feel desire and that I want to be sexual with my partner, but I often cross my own boundaries. He keeps telling me that he doesn't expect anything from me and that he doesn't want me to do anything I don't want to do, but I still do things that don't feel good and that feel like a service to him. In these moments I ignore the doubt in my head that tells me that I might not actually want to do what I'm doing (like giving a blowjob) but I keep going anyways because I think he enjoys it. Afterwards my feelings catch up with me, I feel sad and far away from the situation and from my partner. I want to feel happy and relaxed and connected, not like I'm about to cry, and my partner has told me he started feeling unsure about whether he can really tell if I'm enjoying a situation or not. I'm carrying the memories of my own bad experiences and I'm thinking about the experiences of many women before me and the weight of the violence and the expectation to serve men sexually that we carry. How can I find my way to enjoyable & hot experiences where we only do what feels really good?

I'm sure you already have some articles and discussion threads about these topics on scarleteen, maybe you can point me to the relevant links?

Thank you so much for the service and support you're providing. I love reading the page.

Love, Samu

Hi Samu! I'm sorry that you're struggling with this — you have a ton of great self reflection and insight here, though! You're absolutely right that we have resources on this topic, and I'm happy to talk through some ideas about how to navigate this in your current relationship with you, too.

The first place I'd like to send you is this article: How to Get Comfortable It has a great step-by-step process for how to figure out what you like through both masturbation and partnered sex. It also talks a bit about setting boundaries, but not too in-depth. We have a more detailed article about setting boundaries here: Be Your Own Superhero: Learning How and When to Stand Up for Ourselves

It sounds to me like it's especially hard for you to advocate for yourself when you're in the middle of a sexual situation — this makes complete sense! It can be easy to get caught up in your emotions and your body during sex and feel overwhelmed and conflicted. It also might be bringing up negative feelings and memories, which makes it even harder to break the habit of going along with what you think your partner wants (which is often something we do when we feel overwhelmed and unsafe.)

I think that it might be helpful to try having a conversation with your partner outside of sex, so that you can try to avoid these situations where you're feeling so overwhelmed. I would suggest preparing for the conversation by thinking about what kinds of situations make it the most difficult for you to advocate for yourself or where you feel most compelled to do something you're not sure you want to do. I love to journal to work on questions like this personally, just sitting down and writing about whatever comes to mind, but you could also try talking it out (either just to yourself or to a friend) or doing a form of creative expression like drawing. You could also do this here with us! Ideally, you would see if you can identify anything that happens that triggers these feelings in you, like maybe doing a certain sex act with your partner, something your partner says, or how you were feeling earlier in the day.

I'd also suggest taking a look at our list of sexual activities, maybe by yourself and maybe with your partner: Yes, No, Maybe So: A Sexual Inventory Stocklist It could be helpful to back off on the kinds of sexual activities that you feel most conflicted about (for example, you mention oral sex and vaginal sex). You could tell your partner that you'd like to take a break on those activities and see if there are any other things on that list that sound enjoyable and not intimidating at all to try instead.

Lastly, I want to pass along this article, which has good ideas for how to talk about sex with your partner in general: Be a Blabbermouth! The Whys, Whats and Hows of Talking About Sex With a Partner

There is way more we could cover here but I don't want to overwhelm you! How about you start by reading these articles and tell me what you think? Then we can figure out where best to go from there.