Living In Sin: From Orgasm to Over It

Dear Jen,
I'm a 20 year-old, bisexual-leaning lesbian who has not done anything sexual with either gender. I get turned on easily and love to masturbate all the time. My problem is something that I can't seem to admit freely and you seem like the person who will (finally) understand.

I can't keep going after I come, even though I'd love to. During the build-up I'm thinking "I could do this for hours" but as soon as I come I can almost feel the whoosh of my hormones receding and I feel exhausted, disgusted and uninterested - almost to the point where if I were to keep going for another one, I'd vomit. I've had this problem since I started masturbating when I was 14 and I just can't seem to force myself to shake it.

I'm afraid this is going to translate into my sex life when I finally have one, and I don't know how to improve the situation! Do you have any tips?
- One Hit Wonder

Dear One,
Every year I go backpacking in the wilderness areas of southeast Utah with two friends of mine. We stumble around an endless landscape of giant blobular crazy swirling taffy-colored rock that I can’t really describe, but suffice it to say that anyone who’s ever smoked crazy glue has been there. There are no other people and there are no trails, so if you’re anything like me, you either go with friends who have super-human navigational skills or you spend the end of your trip being eaten by birds.

One year a very rare thing occurred and we actually saw another human being out there. We were perched on top of this purple cone-shaped rock overlooking a little valley, and off in the distance was this guy skittling around like a little cartoon character. We couldn’t figure out what he was doing, darting around like he had ants in his pants, deedly deedly dee, but it was incredibly entertaining. Until we saw him bend down to fill his water bottle in a tiny, fully-foul desert puddle. We realized he must be delirious and lost and started yelling and waving at him. In mere moments he was at our feet, bug-eyed with terror and nearly weeping with relief. We gave him some water, fed him an apple and pointed to his tent, which was about 500 feet away. That was when he really started crying.

You remind me of this guy because you’re also blindly stumbling around while the answer is just around the corner. If you weren’t so ashamed of your “problem” and felt like you had someone, male or female, that you could talk to about it, you would understand that you are perfectly normal.

I don’t know if you’ve been too busy masturbating to notice or what, but one of the oldest jokes in the book is about the guy who gives you his two minutes of thunder and then rolls over and goes to sleep. Here’s my favorite one of late:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=WGOohBytKTU

Women can usually re-charge faster than men, but the clit has 8,000 nerve endings, all of which get flushed with blood when you come, which means it can actually hurt if you try to play with her right after an orgasm. So even though men are more famous for it, lots of women join the snooze crew once they come, too.

Anyway, the real issue here isn’t your lack of ability to rev up again, but rather the gag reflex you have towards your own sexual pleasure. I’m thrilled to hear that you masturbate like the dickens, but I don’t like the way you feel all pukey afterwards. This may have something to do with why you haven’t slept with anyone else, btw. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a virgin, but I’d hate to think that you’ve remained one because you’re disgusted and nauseated by sex somehow, not because you don’t feel ready. If you get mighty real with yourself and decide that this is indeed what’s going on, it might behoove you to talk to a therapist who can help you navigate your way into someone else’s pants.

Comments

[storm]

Hey Jen! Great advice to One Hit Wonder. I can relate. Sometimes just after I get it on I feel really overly sensitive and not just in my weiner, and not always just immediately following the glorious act. I get it all over my body and even the morning after. I used to think it had something to do with the person I was doin' it with and as I've gotten older and in a very hot and stable relationship, I'm realizing that it's just how my body (physical/mental/energetic) responds to sex sometimes. It's great cause I no longer wake up and think "oh god, I'm not in love after all, I don't want this person near me" or "why can't i stand the thought of this person touching me, last night they were the hottest thing ever!"

I have spent time trying to figure out if it's because of unwanted and inappropriate touch I got as a child, or if it's just being overly stimulated in general. I get a little squigged by the thought of being touched at times, especially just after i come. Soooo... whatever it is, I honor it and give myself the space I need without having to re-consider my entire relationship. OHW has an advantage that she found out this response all on her own and can hopefully find a partner who doesn't take it personally and who is willing to make sex happen in an order that works for both of them.

Everyone is different and sex is never like it is in the movies.

[my butt]

I used to have a similar problem when I was a teenager. I'd masturbate and be all hot and into it. Then this big crescendo (I had never heard of an "orgasm" before so I didn't know what was happening) and then I'd be all freaked out afterwards. Which didn't stop me from doing it like all the time. I thought I was the nastiest person alive, I didn't know all the other girls were doing it too and that masturbating all the time was normal especially at that age. I think the yucky feeling after coming was just that ... the wonderfulness was over leaving me with only my icky feelings about myself - "oh how could I have done that AGAIN". The cure was finding out that I was normal and that it was not icky - it was wonderful. Then the after-orgasm time became beautiful. And I learned to have multiple orgasms and eventually prolonged orgasms for like half an hour even.

[Jen]

Oooh, I hope she's reading your comments. She'll feel so much better - thanks for writing in!