Pressure from friends and worries about pain during intercourse

Anonymous
asks:
I am 17 and all my friends have had sex already. I don't have a boyfriend but I really want to have sex. They all talk about it and I am the only one who cant talk about it coz - I have no clue! I want my first time to be really special, and I don't want to have the pain which all my friends have said comes with sex. I will wait for the right guy but I don't want my first time to be painful I want to enjoy it. Sooo could I buy a dildo and get the pain out of the way without the guy so when I come to have sex I wont be in pain? Does that work, or even if I have a dildo, will my first time having sex be painful? Is there any gel or stimulant to make me lubricated, I have mastapated before and no fluid has come so I am really worried that I don't produce that much! Also I can only fit one/ sometimes two fingers up there! Please reply, I really need advice!
Heather Corinna replies:

One of the absolute worst reasons to have sex -- and a great way to assure that the sex you have won't leave you feeling great physically or emotionally -- is because everyone else is doing it, or because you feel left out.

When you have sex with a partner, it should be about you and about that partner, and the point should be for the two of you to feel close, enjoy each other and experience intimacy and pleasure: just for the two of you, not to please anyone else. Unless you're having sex with your friends, sex shouldn't be about your friends.

You know, my closest friends here in my city aren't sex educators, like I am for my living. They all do different things than I do, and most of them have things in common with each other that I don't: like having desk jobs, owning cars or being married, for instance. But we're friends: even if we don't have one given thing in common, we have other things we DO have in common to talk about. And you know, I like not having a car or a desk job: I'm certainly not going to change that because my friends are different than me in that respect. Lots of my friends are married, sure, and plenty talk about it a lot, but I'm opposed to marriage: I'm certainly not going to do something I'm not okay with just to feel closer to my friends. If ALL your friends have to talk about is boyfriends and sex, they sound like a mighty boring bunch of friends! Obviously, it's not abnormal to be pretty focused on some of this stuff in your teens, but it really shouldn't be the only topic of conversation. If it really is, sounds to me like it's time to branch out socially and find some additional friends you have things in common with who have other cool things to talk about. As well, if these are your friends, you should be able to tell them that you're feeling some pressure because they aren't being inclusive: when they're going on and on about sex, it's perfectly fine to sometimes say "Hey: can we talk about something else for a little while, especially since this conversation doesn't leave any room for me?"

Too, one thing we know about young adults and talking about sexual experiences is that more teens and young adults lie than those who tell the truth. Often, for instance, people say something hurts SO much more than it does, or feels SO good, when in fact, it felt pretty mediocre. Too, plenty of teens will say they're sexually active when they aren't, especially if, like you, they're feeling like EVERYONE is having sex and they're left out. For all you know, all of your friends aren't having sex: some of them just may be so worried about being the odd girl out that they're fibbing.

Whether or not partnered sex is painful is about if you and your partner are feeling relaxed together, if you're not worried or stressed out, if you're having sex for your right reasons, if you're aroused, and if both people are really communicating, hearing one another, and responding to what the other wants and needs (including being safe when it comes to birth control and safer sex). Using a lubricant also often helps, and it important to use with condoms anyway, both to keep them from breaking and to keep things feeling good for both partners. If your friends are all going on ad nauseum about how sex hurts terribly, that's either because a) they've figured out that's somehow what they're supposed to say, or b) it really is that painful for all of them because they're not doing all of those things I listed above for you, or because all they're doing is intercourse.

We also can't really say we want to have sex with someone when who that someone is is an unknown to us. In order to know if we want to have partnered sex, we've really got to know with WHOM, what our dynamic is like with that person, how we feel about them, what mood we're in, the whole enchilada. It's often a pretty good tip-off that our expectations of or ideas about partnered sex aren't very realistic if and when we have the idea that sex is any one thing that goes any one way. It's not: what it is and what it's like varies wildly from person to person, couple to couple, and even from day to day!

If you're interested in masturbation, or masturbation with dildos, there isn't a thing wrong with that, nor will it do you harm, but it also likely won't heavily influence what first-time sex or intercourse feels like for you with a partner. As well, understand that intercourse or vaginal entry alone isn't very satisfying for most people with vaginas, so any partnered sex should be about more than just intercourse, and for most people with vaginas, masturbation is more about clitoral and whole-body stimulation than it is about inserting fingers or toys into the vagina. What's most likely to result in everything feeling good instead of being painful is you and your partner really caring for each other, taking the time to get to know your bodies together way before intercourse, having a sex life that is about a bunch of different sexual activities, not just intercourse, and you feeling good about everything if and when you do decide the time is right for intercourse with someone.

Bear in mind that masturbation is supposed to be the sex you have with yourself FOR yourself. It's something you should be doing because it feels good to you, because you're feeling aroused, and because it's satisfying. It's not a thing you should feel you're doing just to get ready for sex with someone else, or doing in a way that "prepares" your body for sex with someone else. if you're doing it for those reasons, or doing things that don't feel that great, it'd be no wonder you're not getting that wet in the pants about it. It's you-time: be sure that's the only person it's about.

I'm loading you up with a handful of articles that I think will give you a lot of the information you're asking for. And from the sounds of things, your friends might benefit from you passing along some of these links to them, too!

More like This