My boyfriend and I have been going out for over five months now. In an emotional sense, we're a perfect couple. We love and respect each other, and get along incredibly. However, I am his first real girlfriend. I'm only the third girl he's ever kissed and done other things with. We "fool around" such as we make out, he feels me up and fingers me, and I go down on him, etc. However, I have essentially taught him everything he knows. He is a virgin. I am not. He tells me he is ready for sex, but despite the fact that I love and think the world of him, I know that he is not. Biologically he is raring to go, but emotionally he is not. I don't really know how to tell him this. I know it won't compromise the relationship, but I just don't want him to feel like I think of him any less. I just want his first time to be special and wonderful. And the only way I can let that happen is if he is totally emotionally ready. Deep down, he agrees with me, but his hormones are getting the better of him. I don't want to deny him, but at the same time I don't want to hurt him either. What do you suggest?

Although I feel a little ridiculous asking this considering I should be more openminded towards sexuality and experimentation, I haven't been able to get it out of my mind. I started dating a man 10 months ago. I'm 18, he turned 26 around three weeks ago. He was married before, and she left because of her claiming to have been bored in bed and in general. Since the beginning of our relationship, I stated that I am bisexual and have been as long as I could remember. I asked him about his orientation and he told me that he was straight. No rushed answer, no hysteria. So, I believed him.

Months later--two months ago almost--I mentioned that I had heard that one of his friends had had a gay encounter. He shrugged and told me that he himself had experimented when he was 16, and had sex with another guy from school. He had anal sex, oral sex, and watched straight and transgender porn with the other boy (claiming the transgender porn belonged to the friend). He told me he couldn't kiss the other guy, because he felt repulsed, yet was able to perform oral sex on him.

I've been with my girlfriend for nearly six months now. I've always had a bit of a problem having sex with people (keeping it up) but this problem has never occurred between me and her. However, lately I've begun to feel very guilty about the physical action of having sex. The act of penetration is a great experience physically, but when I think about what I'm doing I feel like I'm stabbing her, or performing some kind of violent act on her. We haven't had sex yet since I started REALLY feeling like this (which was a little more than three weeks ago) but if we are making out and begin to have dry sex I often start to cry from the idea of what I am doing to her. She's very compassionate and understanding, and I have told her all of this, but I want it to stop. I need to know how to make myself stop feeling like I am abusing her when we have sex because considering the times we've had sex before I had this mindset, it's been an incredible experience of expressing our love to each other, and I'd really like to have that back.

This is more of a psychological issue, I think, than a physical one, and possibly unsolvable, but I'll ask your opinion anyway because this site seems pretty clued up and sensibly feminist and lovely.

I have recently become disgusted with the idea of male pleasure. It's like I'm... too feminist to function. I have had sexual partners in the past, but recently, the more I learn about male character (although that is a gross generalization, I know - there is no innate male or female "character"), the less reconciled I am to pleasing men. My rational mind knows that there are plenty of men who are not misogynist pigs, who don't objectify women, who aren't secretly rapists... yet when I fantasize about sex, and men getting pleasure from sex, I feel physically repulsed. Like, how dare they use my body, they're just like trying to get pleasure from me. I know that is MASSIVELY unjust because surely women are using men too, but I literally can't help it.

I know guys should ask for consent, but can you say some stuff about handling rejection? What about the times when she says no? This would be really helpful - because it's really hard not to take it personally - and that's probably the biggest reason guys don't ask, because they fear rejection.

My girlfriend doesn't understand why we can't have sex because I'm not ready. I keep asking her to wait a little longer, but then she gets confused and she thinks I'm not interested. I just don't want to mess up or get an STD. I don't know what to do.

I've done a bad, bad thing. I lost my virginity about a year ago in my sophomore year in high school to my ex. Since then I've slept with a couple more guys including my best friend, J (I guess that's better than using his real name). J was a virgin until we were "together," but I found out afterward that he's has feelings for me for a while now. To tell the truth, I thought we were just screwing around and getting drunk together, and then it lead to sex. Now he's all clingy, romantic and, "we should be together for the rest of our lives" kind of crap. I hate romantic. I want to be friends again but he sees us either as a couple or nothing. I'm so screwed. What should I do to make him my best friend again?

I am a girl that has a past, I am still a virgin, but I know some things, but my current boyfriend is a complete virgin. I was even his first kiss. I am seventeen and can feel all these urges, and I want him to do something, make a move, or something....anything, but he never does. I talk to him about it, and all it seems to do is upset him.....what can I do?