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Dear Betty,

I'm not sure what exactly the problem is, but each time i come close (or a think i do) to an orgasm i back out. I've been roaming about this site for maybe a year now. I keep coming back to it. The feeling i get is almost like pain in some way ...and it feels great and fine until it gets really heavy and i start to quiver and somehow my brain will say its time to stop and then i think for a slight second let me just stop cause i never make it. I know its not a race..but I really want this. I know how i'm suppose to get to know every detail of my vagina or vulva ...how i need to keep going. I've been masturbating for maybe three years now..really touching..before i used to rub up and down on a pillow.

I've been wanting to write to you for a while...i'm crying as i am writing this (didn't expect this). I feel as if i'm supposed to have orgasms and i feel bad and a little useless that i haven't achieved it yet. This is on some level disturbing to my soul..i am honestly a positive person..i do believe i will make it one day ..i believe i'm just afraid and one day i'll have an epiphany and this will be all a phase. But its not..its gotten worse, knowing i should orgasm and searching for information on how to, bombed by the advice. I've come to overthink everything i do related to sex and then worse thinking about what in my past could have possibly created this blockage in me..it scares me i dont' want to overthink anything anymore.

I have a boyfriend now whom i love..and i am so afraid that our relationship will fail because i cannot orgasm (not for him nor for me). Its gotten to the point were he feels bad and think he;s not good enough for me..he cried when he told me this. I comforted him by telling him he's got nothing to worry about because i love him and we are doing fine, but in the back of my mind knowing that (or thinking) that if I do not get an orgasm he will still feel inferior..because so do I. Seems bad to me to get the courage to AskBetty..know that i fear losing my bf and when i struggle with this by myself but it is what it is.

I don't know exactlly what kinds of question we as readers can ask..i don't even know exactly what i want to ask..maybe i just want to write my story down for myself.

Thank you for the website,

Love,

F

Dear F,

Although I don't know your age I will assume you are in your twenties. It sounds to me like you have had a small orgasm and are unable to recognize it due to your idea of what to expect. That almost pain feeling sounds like a hyper sensitive clitoris that has just had an orgasm. Perhaps not as explosive or profound as you might have expected. Because right after we do orgasm, we must back off a few moments and let all those sensitive nerve endings calm down. Then we can go again.

I've been seeing more of this in my practice lately. Because we read romantic literature and our friends exaggerate their descriptions of sex and the movies and porn give us false images of passion, many women do not recognize they have had a sexual release. This sets off all the frustration you talk about. We believe we are broken, something is seriously wrong with us and we spiral down into a morbid depression that feeds on itself.

Then you get a boyfriend and he compounds the problem by thinking he's responsible for giving you an orgasm. Unfortunately far too many men judge their masculinity by how big they can "make" their girlfriends come. However, he must learn that we are each responsible for our own orgasms. Meanwhile he is only compounding your problem. Please cut yourself some slack and take a vacation from TRYING to achieve an orgasm. Just focus on the pleasurable feelings throughout your entire body. Consider getting a vibrator and take advantage of our sexual skills videos that show how to stimulate a clitoris. Then get back to me with the good news.

Dr. Betty