The standard strategy seems to be to work up to sex very progressively, going a little further on each encounter, so there’s never any bright line to cross. Why is this failing for you?
Maybe because there is always a clear line? I go from meeting to kissing quite fast, and from kissing to being in my bedroom also quite fast, so there is no small progression, it’s meeting, kissing, then we end up at a sex-appropriate place and I go trough it, but I’m incredibly anxious.
By “quite fast” do we mean a few hours, or a few dates? If the latter: You are in fact allowed not to have sex on the first date, or the first time they’re in your bedroom. You can go as far as you’re comfortable with and no further—and know where you’ll stop in advance, so you’re not anxious beforehand, and then go a little further on subsequent dates.
Is your anxiety tied to specific acts, or to sex itself? Does it help if I point out that the boundaries of what counts as sex are very blurry, and do your anxieties change if you change what you think of as sex?
I understand that, but it somehow makes me feel bad to have them there and ready and that I’m the one that actually also wants to but somehow/for some reason can’t.
Just first-time sex as in intercourse. Well, in my mind sex = intercourse [as in penis in vagina], everything else is “fooling around”. [Not debating definitions, just saying how it feels to me].
I don’t know I need to test it, but that might be useful to try, to try to think of sex as being something else.
This worked out (n = 3). I explicitly say that it is unlikely intercourse will happen (to them and myself), and when it does it just feels natural, no bright line. Thank you, this was a big problem!
The standard strategy seems to be to work up to sex very progressively, going a little further on each encounter, so there’s never any bright line to cross. Why is this failing for you?
Maybe because there is always a clear line? I go from meeting to kissing quite fast, and from kissing to being in my bedroom also quite fast, so there is no small progression, it’s meeting, kissing, then we end up at a sex-appropriate place and I go trough it, but I’m incredibly anxious.
By “quite fast” do we mean a few hours, or a few dates? If the latter: You are in fact allowed not to have sex on the first date, or the first time they’re in your bedroom. You can go as far as you’re comfortable with and no further—and know where you’ll stop in advance, so you’re not anxious beforehand, and then go a little further on subsequent dates.
Is your anxiety tied to specific acts, or to sex itself? Does it help if I point out that the boundaries of what counts as sex are very blurry, and do your anxieties change if you change what you think of as sex?
3 meetings, wouldn’t call them dates.
I understand that, but it somehow makes me feel bad to have them there and ready and that I’m the one that actually also wants to but somehow/for some reason can’t.
Just first-time sex as in intercourse. Well, in my mind sex = intercourse [as in penis in vagina], everything else is “fooling around”. [Not debating definitions, just saying how it feels to me].
I don’t know I need to test it, but that might be useful to try, to try to think of sex as being something else.
Sounds like your problems could cancel out. If you decline intercourse but “fool around” a lot, they’re unlikely to be too unhappy about it.
This worked out (n = 3). I explicitly say that it is unlikely intercourse will happen (to them and myself), and when it does it just feels natural, no bright line. Thank you, this was a big problem!