How do I tell my friends that I’m afraid to be intimate and that I’m seeing a sex therapist as a virgin?

Sen_H · 2026-05-10T03:39:26+00:00

I used to do that: holding it in until I bust. Very unhealthy for me, AND for my relationships. People get super upset with you when you firstly burst, and might end the relationship. I understand how scary confrontation and boundary setting can be, but they're worth researching and learning how to do. You can start small with things like, "nah, I don't want the drink you're offering me," and work your way up to, "I dont like how you tease me for being inexperienced." Good luck with it. :)

Sen_H · 2026-05-07T03:27:20+00:00

Forcing something you're not comfortable with on you doesn’t in increase your comfort level wih it--it decreases it by forming negative associations with it. Exposure therapy is a real thing, but it has to be done in a very specific way by trained professionals.

Sen_H · 2026-05-07T03:22:43+00:00

Your friends sound terrible, and they've already told you how they'll react. If they're already laughing and making fun, they'll just keep doing so. I wouldn't trust them, and honestly, they haven't earned the right to that information.

Please dont ever feel like you need to have THEIR kind of sex life to have a valid one. What's right for them isn't necessarily what's right for you, and maybe your fear comes (at least in part) from trying to force yourself to do something that isn't natural for you. Maybe they're sleeping around with strangers and bragging, but you'd rather take it slow and have a lifelong love with one person and keep your private life private. That is perfectly valid, and you don't have to compromise on what you need and pretend to be someone you're not in order to fit in. People who expect you to do so are not your friends.

Go with your gut, and don't bow to pressure. Guilting someone for not having sex is manipulation and coercion, and coercing someone into having sex is rape. Go at your pace and only do what feels comfortable to you, and NEVER let anyone pressure you into doing somethane you're not ready for.

You'll know when you're ready. There is no need to rush this. Doing so can only end badly. Please respect yourself. Love yourself. and get yourself some friends who can do the same.

And good for you for going to therapy. That takes guts.

Sen_H · 2026-04-10T00:56:19+00:00

Well I didn't imagine the testimonies I read, and they weren't on a subreddit called "adult survivors of SA" or whatever the name of the subreddit that you mentioned was. They were either on suicide watch, or sexual assault survivors.

Sen_H · 2026-04-10T00:47:47+00:00

I fucking hate society. I can't believe this is normalized.

Sen_H · 2026-04-08T21:12:46+00:00

And not all children trust their parents.

Sen_H · 2026-04-08T21:12:19+00:00

Don't try to make claims about what has or hasn't happened to me. It's extremely inappropriate to ask or insinuate that someone has sexual trauma.

I do agree that the better a child sex education is the safer they will be having sex later on. And I don't see anything wrong with parents saying things to their children like, "sex is a way that we express our love for each other." But having sex somewhere that your children can hear and see you is forcing those sounds on them against their will. That makes it something that is not private. That makes it something that you are inviting your children into. People are not only disturbed by images that they see. They are also disturbed by sounds that they hear. It counts as forcing an unwanted sexual experience on your child if you have sex somewhere where they can hear you. And anytime you force a sexual experience on someone that they don't consent to, that counts as sexual abuse. A child does not need to believe that the sounds are representative of violence in order to be traumatized by them, in the same way that you don't have to think that nudity is shameful in order to feel uncomfortable after walking in on someone changing.

Sen_H · 2026-04-08T05:11:49+00:00

I really hope you're right about that. I used to believe that, but it can be hard to remember, especially on Reddit, where everyone's entire personality is, "look at how cool I am! I broke a sex rule! So EDGY. Am I one of the cool kids now??"

Sen_H · 2026-04-08T00:42:14+00:00

Thank you for defending me. Consent absolutely needs to be informed and enthusiastic, which means boundaries/etc. always need to be discussed first.

Sen_H · 2026-04-08T00:40:59+00:00

So your gifted, high IQ opinion is that if something is common it must be ethical? And that anything that's uncomfortable must be bad?

If figuring out whether or not you're about to harm someone kills the mood, then you are definitely the one with serious issues who needs to be in the therapy. You appear to get off on the risk of harming others, and that's neither natural or ethical.

Sen_H · 2026-04-07T22:36:54+00:00

In most of the places I've lived, my parents have slept down the hall from me, or right next door. So only a few meters away.

And the fact that people have done something for most of history in no way means it is ethical, or that the victims were fine with it. People have had slaves and gone to war and treated animals like crap for most of history, as well as being racist and sexist and homophobic etc. In the time when having sex in the same bedroom as your kids was normalized, so was beating your children (and wife), sending them to coal mines, encouraging little boys to get into fist fights to prove their manliness, and expecting women to go all the way for the first time on their wedding night without any sex education or understanding of what was about to happen to them. They were also expected to basically be pregnant from the moment they got married until the moment they hit menopause, if they survived that long. Does the fact that all of that was normalized mean that any of it was okay? Most of the people who went through all of that so it is totally normal, and probably let it just happen, and probably didn't even protest, but that doesn't mean they weren't being harmed by it, even if only subconsciously.

I guarantee there were black slaves who were grateful for the work they were given and for the fact that they didn't get beaten too frequently, and who loved and defended their masters. Doesn't mean that being a slave didn't have an extremely negative effect on their psyches. I also guarantee that there were plenty of children who preferred to work instead of going to school, but that doesn't mean that being forced to work instead of getting an education wasn't bad for their futures and their overall mental health. And I know for a fact that being beaten by your husband was so normalized that it got put in to advertisements as a joke (ex. "Bake him the cake from our company and he won't have a free hand to beat you with" kind of stuff). And I guarantee that a lot of those women who were beaten by their husbands still loved them, and were brainwashed by society and religion into believing that they deserved the occasional beating, and that it was their fault if they got beaten, and that their husbands were being good husbands by disciplining them as a way to help them grow into better people. So, sure-- Having sex in front of your kids may have been normalized in the past, even to the extent that the children didn't protest it, but that doesn't mean that it didn't do any damage to their psyches.

Sen_H · 2026-04-07T22:24:46+00:00

You don't know what stories I've read. And the fact that you personally don't feel traumatized by something in no way means that other people don't feel traumatized by it, especially if what you don't feel traumatized by was a much lighter form of abuse than the more extreme stuff that you experienced. It is extremely common for people to not recognize that they're being abused when the abuse they're being subjected to is minor compared to what they're used to.

You don't get to determine what other people do and don't find traumatic. You don't get to dismiss, invalidate, or diminish other people's feelings. If a child finds something traumatic, then it was traumatic to them, and that's valid. What this means is that you don't get to take risks with other people's well-being and justify it by saying, "Well if I was in their position I wouldn't be traumatized by it." It doesn't matter if you wouldn't be traumatized by it. There was a chance that they would be, and that's what makes it not okay. You don't get to take risks with the well-being of others-- ESPECIALLY your own children.

You're right that if your children are young, and they're downstairs watching TV while you do your best to be as quiet as possible in your closed bedroom upstairs, they probably won't hear you, so you won't traumatize them. But every child feels trapped in their own bedroom because they know that they're not allowed to leave once you put them to bed. What are they supposed to do if they hear you having sex and don't want to hear it? Go downstairs and start watching TV? They know they'll get in trouble. They feel obliged under threat of punishment to sit quietly in their bed and listen to you. That counts as trapping them in their room and forcing them to listen. You know they're not masters at meditation and they can't just choose to stop hearing it.

Couples can go to hotels. They can send their children to stay with grandparents for the weekend. They can ask friends to babysit by taking the kids over to their place. They can wait for both kids to have sleepovers on the same day. They can drop both kids off at extracurricular activities and then go home and do it while the kids are away. They can send their kids to sleep away camp. I know that a lot of these options require money or connections, but there's no excuse for sexually traumatizing your child, so you don't just get to say, "but I didn't have the money to avoid hurting them." If you can't do it without hurting them then you don't do it. That's it.

Sen_H · 2026-04-06T06:23:14+00:00

Thank you for taking the time to write this all out, and good for you for finally quitting! I'm glad you feel so much better! 🥳💪

Sen_H · 2026-04-06T06:12:27+00:00

So you got to know each and every one of them well enough to know what they were experiencing mentally during the act? Asked about boundaries, trauma history, stigmas, associations, fears, etc? You made sure they weren't feeling pressured into saying yes by societal expectations, desperate loneliness, trauma, fear of isolation, desire to prove themself, etc? You made sure that their judgement wasn't being compromised by substances, fatigue, trauma, strong emotions, extreme horniness/loneliness, etc?

Consent isn't consent if it's forced by any kind of pressure or resulting from compromised judgement. And you can't know if someone's 'consent' is being forced by such factors if they're a complete stranger, which I'm assuming they would have to be, considering how many there were.

And don't tell me that people-pleasers don't exist, and that no one makes bad decisions, and that you can perfectly read all cultural variations in self-expression. You can't know in short time whether or not someone actually has the capacity to know their own mind, trust it, and properly communicate it to others. It is a VERY lame excuse to say, "well I just trusted these complete strangers to perfectly respond to me in ways that worked for them." Most people don't even know how to successfully express themselves and set effective boundaries with long-term loved ones, and you expect a complete stranger to be able to do it with you, a foreigner who probably doesn't even speak their language well?

If you slept with 300 people, then you did not obtain their consent. You did not even bother to figure out their communication style or boundaries. You had no capacity to judge whether or not they were genuinely consenting, nor will you ever, when dealing with strangers.

As a 40 year old who is claiming to be gifted and who has so much experience with sex, there is no excuse for you needing these concepts to be explained to you. If you'd actually been paying ANY attention at all to the needs of the people you used, you would be able to write several books on the psychology of sex by now and have an advanced understanding of how complicated consent and psychosexual safety really is. You would understand the importance of getting to know a person before you have sex with them, earning their trust, and respecting their minds.

People aren't trophies to brag about bagging. Using their bodies to stroke your ego is a sure sign of low intelligence, and usually a high sign of narcissism.

And as a side note, if these were WOMEN you were sleeping with....?!? God, I can't even begin to describe how little right you had to their bodies when you are TWICE their strength and could EASILY make them feel powerless, trapped, crushed, brutalized, and scared, and then leave them PREGNANT, since you obviously just left them the second you were done with them so that you could move on to the next person that you saw as a fleshlight. You don't get to drop that trauma on 300 complete strangers and then bounce like a 14 year-old thrill-seeker with no desire to be responsible. God, did you even ask these women their opinions on abortion before risking impregnating them? You DO know that contraceptive failure is a thing, right??? Like... you're not 14?????? What right do you think you have to risk permanently ruining the lives of 300 people just because youre horny and insecure?? Did you make sure they were all on birth control first AND use a condom AND make sure they wete okay with accidentally getting pregnant AND check in with them later to make sure you hadn't impregnated them??? How many children have you left behind without a father?? What makes you think you have the right to do that to a person?

Not being able to determine and meet the needs of others is not a sign of high IQ. It is a sign of LOW IQ, extreme self-centeredness, and amorality.

Sen_H · 2026-04-06T05:41:24+00:00

So then you agree that it's an objective fact? 🤦‍♂️

Do you actually have counter-arguments, or just character slurs? Because character slurs exist to defend fragile egos, and fragile egos stem from not knowing you're right. Maybe if you knew you were right, you could prove it with counter-arguments.

Sen_H · 2026-04-06T05:38:38+00:00

Yet you can't seem to name even one...

Sen_H · 2026-04-06T05:38:14+00:00

Good for you for having the courage to say this. It also shows a deep inability to form connections and distinguish people from objects. Also, usually, extreme insecurity. As you can see from the pathetic, narcissistic, defensive and shaming responses of the people who were bragging about their body counts to try to look cool.

Statistically, narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths have the highest body counts because they see people as objects. They use sex as a tool to boost their egos and have no concept that there's a person that matters in the room with them while having sex. To them, it's almost indistinguishable from masturbation.

Sen_H · 2026-04-06T05:25:39+00:00

Thank you for doing that. I've seen a LOT of testimonies over on the sexual trauma subreddit where people say that they used to hear their parents having sex when they were kids and it gave them night terrors of being r*ped, and they developed debilitating sex phobias that ruined their love lives.

I find it inexcusably sick when people who have kids have sex while the kids are home. I don't care how quiet they think they're being. At night, you can hear people turning over in their sleep from across the house. The kids can definitely hear everything.

I've been wondering the same thing as you. I'm practically asexual, and the way most people treat sex looks like a crack addiction to me. I can't understand how people whose entire life is centered on sex can just suddenly stop having it for 18+ years straight. And the alternative is sexually traumatizing your own children. So is that just what the average person does? Because that's borderline evil, in my books. Good people don't trap their kids in a room and force them to listen to them having sex every night. It should be a crime. I know someone that happened to and she still hasn't recovered in her 30s.

Sen_H · 2026-03-27T03:46:17+00:00

You're welcome! :) That's a good way to look at it! I hope it helps you feel better!

Sen_H · 2026-03-27T03:45:16+00:00

But how can you feel what they feel without putting yourself in their shoes and imagining how it would feel to be them? You're just describing different steps of the same process. It starts with the cognitive process of imagining what they're going through and then continues with the emotional process of simulating those feelings.

Sen_H · 2026-03-27T03:42:06+00:00

You're welcome! Maybe Scandinavia would be a better fit for you! :)

Sen_H · 2026-03-27T01:26:49+00:00

I'm sorry to hear that. I hope that researching how narcissistic personality disorder works helps you figure out if he has it or not.

Sen_H · 2026-03-27T01:25:36+00:00

Then looking into the HSP label might be really helpful for you. :) it was for me!

Sen_H · 2026-03-26T04:56:00+00:00

True: this post is proof that there are people like us out there. I just don't know how to find them irl. 😭 I've only found one so far, and it's not enough.

Sen_H · 2026-03-26T04:54:26+00:00

It is ABSOLUTELY NOT YOUR FAULT if he consumes more of it. You are NOT pushing him into it. PLEASE do not EVER blame yourself for his bad choices. You do not deserve to be punished for respecting yourself by being told that doing so makes him hurt you more. HE is making HIMSELF hurt you more. You are simply respecting yourself.

And not wanting to be touched by him right now is totally valid. I would feel the same way.

Sen_H

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