Last week, while on holiday in France, I was in a bar with two male acquaintances I had recently met there. One, a good-looking blonde guy, was telling a story about a particularly bad case of ‘blue balls’ (or ‘le blue balls’ perhaps?) he had experienced recently. He’d spent the night with a girl, but they’d been too tired to have sex. In the morning, he had the horns, but she merely gave him a lackadaisical hand-job, and he had to leave before ‘completing’. He had a long drive down the autoroute ahead, and as he drove down the motorway, was suddenly hit by a sharp pain. He’d never experienced blue balls before, but boy, were they bad. He could do no other than he did- pull into the nearest motorway service station, resolve the issue in a cubicle, and drive home. This sounded like a pretty horrible situation to me, and at the time I thought, well, that’s one thing women don’t have to deal with.
But then I realised I was wrong. I have been left with blue balls, albeit metaphorical ones, pretty much every time I have had sex. I have never had an orgasm, and there are various reasons for this. It’s partly because nobody I have been with has spent very much time focusing solely on me. It’s also because, in the case of the few who have been prepared to spend more than two minutes touching me, I have not trusted them enough to let go. I have consciously held something back, and would always wriggle away, saying it was ‘too much’. I was scared of something embarrassing happening, of losing control, and most of these guys weren’t exactly understanding types. This never bothered me too much- I was just a teenager and, mostly, so were they. How could they possibly comprehend a concept as complicated as the clit?
As for why I haven’t been able to achieve orgasm on my own…well. It’s not for lack of trying, but rather for lack of perseverance. At first I was fine- just exploring like any teenage girl. But after I had more and more experiences with guys, I began to think I had a problem, and was too distracted to continue by myself. I’d end up frustrated and unable to think about anything else- blue balls anyone?
This year at university, after several months of largely self-imposed celibacy, I found myself in a real live relationship, for the first time since a short-lived experience at the age of sixteen. I thought that perhaps if I had more liasons with the same person, I’d trust him more, he’d love me and would want to spend time giving me pleasure, etc.
You could say I picked the wrong person. He had had many, many sexual encounters with women, all of whom must have been seduced by his controlling nature and tendency to dominate, just like I was, and who must, too, have suppressed some slightly concerned internal voices. Internal voices asking questions like ‘don’t you think it’s a problem that he sees the clit as a little button, to rub, forcefully, for about 50 seconds, prior to sex?’ or ‘isn’t his excuse that he can’t go down on women, after he tried it once at a festival aged fourteen and felt nauseous because she hadn’t washed for three days (IT WAS A FESTIVAL), a bit..shit?’ I began to close up, mentally and physically, like Helen in Jilly Cooper’s Riders when Rupert Campbell-Black (her husband, by the way) tells her that fucking her is like fucking a frozen chicken- ‘I’m always frightened I’ll discover the giblets’.
Fortunately for me, in the long term anyway, he broke up with me in the middle of exams. I then discovered he’d cheated on me as well. Self confidence at an all-time low, I pledged to do as Betty Dodson of glorious dodsonandross.com had personally advised me to do. I’d emailed her after a particularly disappointing session with my ex, and she had advised me to begin a ‘passionate love affair’ with myself. ‘Up to now,’ she wrote, ‘you have pretty much been a sex toy for men’s pleasures’. True, I suppose, but regarding the solution, there remained the issue of frustration.
So what do I do? Go and start drunkenly kissing Mr Blue Balls in a nightclub toilet at 4am, a few days after our visit to the pub. I really wish drunken toilet kissing were possible without the inevitable pressure of sex- oh to be fourteen again- but apparently it is not, and shortly we are in bed. I rapidly announce that I am too tired to have sex. It’s that and a host of other reasons, like knowing I won’t get any pleasure, and feeling nervous about starting again after Cheating Student, but Blue Balls is persistent. I turn over and try to sleep, with him still stroking my back, and I am suddenly worried. What if I give him blue balls? What if he already has them? Who am I to lead him on and then deny him? So I mumble about a condom and he perks up, and whips one on. I lie there for the first few thrusts before revulsion kicks in. He’s my new friend, and he’s good-looking, but I just don’t want to sleep with him. I am literally doing it as a favour. I am loaning out my vagina, as a favour, and it’s ridiculous. So I make him stop, and apologise repeatedly, gabbling excuses. Five minutes later, I agree to give him a hand job, after guilt regarding the colour of his balls rears its head again. And finally, I sleep.
Finally, a week on, I am cross. My balls are blue and there isn’t a motorway service station in sight.
Never? Are you sure? An orgasm feels similar to the sensation when you desperately need a wee, but slightly more intense. The histrionics and thrashing about in TV and in porn are wildly inaccurate. My advice would be to experiment on your own more so that when you do find someone less selfish you can show them what works for you. Less than 30% of women orgasm through virginal penetration, so you’re not alone with your ‘blue tubes’! Don’t be disheartened, you’ll get there.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ve always noticed whether or not I’ve had an orgasm. So I think she would know if she has, or hasn’t. I don’t think you should second guess someone about something they have shared, and would obviously know.
Second guessing? Isn’t that what you do when you decide to become offended on behalf of someone else? I’m certain that the writer knows an orgasm does not turn you into a quivering jelly, so lost in sensation that you shred the flesh from your partner’s back (despite what literature and screen throws at us). If she finds my post condescending then she’s perfectly capable of telling me so herself.
Idk about you but I prefer to have sex on an empty house because I have a lot of trouble staying quiet when I have an orgasm. And when I have one and we flip around with him on top there are definitely claw marks on his back.
The exact reason that dodsonandross tells us to have a love affair with ourselves is because the way orgasms are portrayed in TV and porn is totally accurate in my experience.
I used to say ‘I don’t ‘think’ I’ve had an orgasm and I was always told that ‘trust me, you’ll know!!’ And then I had one and my first thought was ‘oh! yeah. They were right. There is no way you can miss that’. I’ve never been able to do it on my own either, I get horribly bored within 2 minutes and most of the time I don’t even think to try! But the right guy will know how to get you there and once you know how he does it, you can tell the next one! how I’ve been doing it
fool proof!
Desparately needing to wee? Thrashing about is innaccurate?
Man, I’ve been doing it all wrong apparently because when I come it’s a struggle to stay quiet let along dig my nails in hard. I would say my experiences are actually quite close to a lot of porn…in a good way.
Sheets usually need changed. We’ll put it that way.
I don’t want to contradict you Amanda, but your description of an orgasm sounds like a lot like the way I used to describe it. I used to think that the build-up of sexual tension and pleasure, and then the fading away of it, must have been my orgasm! Then I finally had a real orgasm – you cannot mistake it for anything else!
This is depressing in so many ways.
Too true
Ditto.
Reading this was all too familiar. Can’t help you with the men side of it, but my advice for orgasms is buy a vibrator.
I also suffered from anorgasmia until I was 19, so I definitely feel your pain. I agree with Katya’s advice about buying a toy, but make sure you go for a clitoral vibrator. Apologies if I’m getting too personal, but the one that eventually worked for me was http://www.sh-womenstore.com/Sex+Toys/Vibrators/Clitoral+Vibrators/Esprit_D_Amour_Vibe.html
Ouch… this was a painful read. Honestly, if he had blue balls he can take care of himself can’t he ? It’s not your responsability to ensure anyone who happens to get horny around you to finish them all off is it ? I mean hell, this is the internet – *someone* is bound to get horny just reading the article – are you responsible to finish them off too ?
Might I suggest the following steps ?
1) Don’t buy one vibrator, buy several. They are not all alike, some you may find are not so great, some bloody useless but there will hopefully be at least one that is fantastic. Forget fashionable ones, just because “the rabbit” is probably the most well known doesn’t mean it is good for YOU.
2) When you feel in the mood, like Dods and Ross suggest, invest time into what really gets you going, since if you don’t know – how will your partner ? When you know, insist your partner helps out.
3) If it helps, consider sex in a different way. Sex, when not baby making or perhaps even when it is, is more like a co-operative sport, if you only play until the other person scores a goal – where is the fun for you ? If they can’t be bothered after they finish and you are yet to orgasm, then in my ignorant opinion they are not worth it. Insist they help you finish too, using your vibrator on you if needs be.
I’m just part of the commentariat on the internet, opinions like mine are ten a penny and more than likely you have thought of all this yourself already. It’s just after reading this sad tale, even though it’s none of my business, I wanted to offer some unsolicited advice.
I think you should move to Germany.
Very sad…
I agree with the advice given before about vibrators, because if you can’t feel comfortable with yourself, then it isn’t likely that you’ll feel comfortable (to be able to “let go” as you said yourself) with someone else, however sensitive to your needs they may be. And be sure to let their get balls go blue until you feel ready to be intimate. Intimacy, not mechanical advice, might just be the real missing ingredient, I think. But you have to learn your body and your pleasure first….
….or try girls…. even if they treat you as a sex object, I’m sure they’ll know better than that appalling 50 second thing you described….
I had a friend when I was a virgin. who was a great “conquistador”, but privately told me he never went down on them because he hated the smell.
When I lost my virginity, I realized what he had meant… Unlike him with his serial conquests, I was in love and in a relationship with the same person… within a week my opinion regarding her smell was completely diferent… it turned me on… a lot…
I told my friend that he never liked it because he was never with the same woman more than twice, so that even if there’s something common about the scent of a woman, each has her own distinct perfume… because he never engaged with a single one enough to learnt to love it, all would be repulsive to him…
To sum it up: he doesn’t go south, then nor will you (it’s not like our junk smells of lilacs either). You’re not repulsive and I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with you.
Good luck
Never had one either. I feel your pain.
Perhaps I’m in the same boat. I can’t fully let go or perhaps I just need to be more assertive when it comes to foreplay.
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I was 21 when I first managed to orgasm through masturbating, and I couldn’t do it with a partner (touching myself with him watching, him touching me, oral or intercourse) until I was 26.
I tried to tell one boyfriend about the problem, that I couldn’t orgasm with a man in the room, and he offered to stand outside. He was extremely sarcastic and completely shut the conversation down. After that experience, I stopped masturbating for about a year. I lost all desire to do it, it felt stressful, frustrating and annoying.
My current partner tried to tell me that sex was about intimacy. It is, but there is something very psychologically damaging about always giving without receiving, it makes you feel used, unwanted and unloved, stressed and frustrated. I think this is what you’re describing as ‘blue balls’? To me, it felt more like mild depression – all the bad things you feel about yourself, about sex and men, become tangled up with the frustration. Thinking about sex makes you angry and frustrated, so you’re caught in a cycle where you can’t orgasm, because the stress is stopping you, but not being able to orgasm is the source of your stress. It makes you feel miserable in your relationship, and in my experience, it’s almost impossible to sustain love through a feeling like this.
I would second the suggestion to buy a vibe, but don’t put too much pressure on yourself. Run a hot bath and focus on touching non-sexual places so that you calm down as much as you possibly can before you start to masturbate. Try to fantasize, it clears your head. You might find even that difficult at first if you’re really stressed – even touching yourself feels like a nasty chore and too much effort.
I very much doubt that it will work straight away even with a vibe, for me it took a long time before I got over feeling like I didn’t want to touch myself. I literally had to give myself time to forget; don’t feel like you have to fix things overnight and a period on your own/celibate might help, if you think it would give you space.
When my current boyfriend told me sex was about intimacy, I felt he was being dismissive. I left it a few months, and then raised the problem again. Finally, I dumped him for it and in the ensuing hysterical argument it turned out that because I hadn’t badgered him constantly, he assumed things were getting better. He didn’t bother with all the foreplay stuff because I didn’t seem to like it much, he was very confused, he would do whatever I wanted if I would try again.
The worst part is that it’s very difficult to communicate clearly when you’re in a mental space like this. Even if you can talk to a friend really easily, talking to a partner is much harder; they listen but don’t understand, they don’t seem to have listened because they need telling three times, you feel like they aren’t trying or that they must be inept and you just have the worst lover in the world.
You’re stressed, you’re angry, you feel like you can’t talk about it with him, you feel like you don’t have the right to ask for anything, you send out mixed signals. My friends were convinced I should leave because my mate sounded like a selfish bastard, in practice even though I was doing my best, my communication skills were shit, because I was angry and sad.
Yelling at him and crying at everyone I knew through a nasty break up did get everything out in the open. What worked in the end, was I decided that I wanted a Chinese laundry style sexual relationship: either he gave me an orgasm or I would refuse to give him one, if I really couldn’t orgasm still after a month or so, but he seemed like he was really trying, we could renegotiate.
He isn’t a selfish man, but telling him I wasn’t going to do something made me feel like I was in control of my own body and gave me space to ask for things for myself. Having asserted myself and found nothing bad happened as a result, I trusted him a lot more and could talk more easily.
Find a forgiving way of saying it, but please don’t worry about telling a man ‘no penetrative sex’ or fussing about blue balls, particularly with a boyfriend. Men are human too, they are the sum of more than just their sexual organs and his ego will not be so battered that he never recovers. You need to stop thinking about pleasure as a fixed sum, he doesn’t get less because he did something good for you.
When I could talk about sex more easily, I felt ok to touch myself in front of him, and when I could get myself there ok, he could manage it too. He was never doing anything wrong, he just couldn’t mind read and I was too stressed and strung out to get myself there.
Basically, this is a long way of saying I understand the feeling. That the slightly bat shit insane, stressed, frustrated, angry, unhappy, low self-esteem feeling, is probably the cause of the problem and that you would be better off to give yourself space to help that, than trying to find a guy who will magically fix it by being ‘better’ in bed.
I hope some of that helped, it’s just I recognize so much in this post:(
After I bought my first vibe it took me 3 years to “learn” to orgasm. At first it was too intense a feeling, then I felt too self conscious thinking everyone could hear it….. but boy once I did…..!
It was another 2 years after that that I eventually orgasmed with a partner. Your descriptions above were painfully familiar to me. It took a while but thankfully I met some one that was prepared to take the time, to try different things, and to stop if I made it clear it was becoming a chore rather than a pleasure. I’ve never managed to orgasm through penetrative sex yet but I’m not going to give up trying! I’m sure it will come…..(pun intended!)
I love the Vagenda for the comments as well as the articles.
I have the same problem with the whole ‘letting go’ thing… couldn’t do it myself when I was a teenager, it took someone initially doing it for me for me to be able to do it myself… but it’s not quite as good! Have been with my current partner for almost 4 years now and I have real trouble having an orgasm with him… similar to your experiences he’s not particularly forthcoming with the foreplay, but it’s also down to me as I sometimes discourage him from doing it as it gets a bit awkward and offputting if it’s not really doing the job, and sometimes I find it too intimate.
My advice would definitely be to get a vibrator – but take it really slowly. By all accounts there are guys out there who are good at and like doing foreplay as well but it’s a bit hit and miss, so I would start by trying to get there yourself!
I read this three times and could continue to re read. It’s very similar to what I experienced during my late teens and sadly I doubt we’re particularly unique.
The harrowing reflection ‘I’m loaning out my vagina, as a favour, and it’s ridiculous’ is a concept I found unbelievably overwhelming (and in one case traumatic) on the two occasions when something similar occurred to me. This may have been exasperated by the fact that I was very young and felt unable to voice these feelings to guys who were each older and bigger and more worldly than I was, but whatever, it’s never going to be a nice thought, is it?
Besides unpleasant memories, and technical details of the female orgasm, this article really brought home that I have been far too passive each time male friends have tried to educate me on the lament of ‘starting’ without ‘completing’. I’ve always been sympathetic, why haven’t I been saying, ‘I know, right? It sounds pretty similar the five long years between losing my virginity and having an orgasm with another person present, or the seven long years between said loss and my first penetrative orgasm, although, yeah, that one time she didn’t finish a blowjob when you were drunk must have been simply awful for you!’?
You don’t appear to be suited to the casual sex hook-up culture. Good for you, seriously. Not everyone is and now you know that you are not.
So don’t put yourself in / allow yourself to be put in – the situation that you feel you have to give out obligation-fucks or handjobs.
Wait for Mr. Right, by all means go and find him, but don’t go against your own values. In the meantime, sure, buy a vibrator and learn what turns you on.
In my teens, I worried about frustrating my boyfriend, and thought I was mistreating him if I didn’t put out enough. It took a man, that boyfriend, to tell me “you’re never obliged to have sex. Never. If things are getting sexy but you change your mind, it’s ok. If we’re having sex and you want to stop, it’s ok. Maybe I’ll feel frustrated, but I’d rather feel frustrated than have sex with a woman who doesn’t really want to have sex.”
It still feels crappy to me, to turn my lover down, and I expect many people feel the same way. But as long as we can talk and cuddle and be close, it’s ok. Shit happens.
Different women have different bodies, and it’s possible that the classic fast, gentle clitoral stimulation will never feel good to you. Just because it works for most doesn’t mean it works for all. There are sex partners out there who will take great pleasure in finding out what works for you. And don’t neglect your most powerful erogenous zone – your mind! Indulge in fantasies. Try reading Nancy Friday’s “My Secret Garden,” a collection of female sexual fantasies. Some people like their porn in prose form – I gather something called “Fifty Shades of Grey” is popular! It’s not the only dirty book though, not by a long way.
Are you crazy? He tells you his shit story, and then you go and repeat it to him to the last detail? How cruel are you??? You show people no respect, you show yourself no respect, you realize all of this (hence all of your self-confessed “gabbling excuses”), and to top it all off by being insolent enough to claim that “you’re doing him a favour” (i.e. giving him a “sympathy fuch”), even though a few sentences earlier you admitted that you’re the one that started the kissing… After all of that, where do you get off (no pun intended) presenting yourself as some sort of poor little ditty here? The only thing you’re suffering the negative consequences of is your own hubris. I get that you may have self-confidence issues, but the only way to sort them is by first dealing with your own lack of self-RESPECT. Maybe they never treated you well in bed cause you never INSISTED they did. And I don’t mean that you should start treating em like dirt – you’re doing that already, even though you clearly don’t want to. What’s worse is that you don’t actually realize you are. Yeah, you acknowledge that the guy felt like shit at the end, but you don’t get that it’s your general attitude to relationships that did that, as opposed to some one-off slip-up on your part.
Nothing personal, mind, just using your own, self-written black-and-white text as the documentary evidence backing up every single one of my points, so no need to feel insulted…though you probably will anyway, since you clearly don’t really care about others’ opinions or feelings but only the twisted logic in your own mind. Peace out.
I had female ‘blue balls’ for a while. It came about after 2 failed relationships. In my first, I was young and new to the ways of sex and boys. I thought I was supposed to scream and moan and writhe. So I did. No matter how much I was, or wasn’t, enjoying myself I made sure he thought I was. In the almost 3 years we spent together, I never once came. In his defence, he had premature ejaculation; it was only a year into the relationship I realised sex usually lasted more than 3 minutes after penetration.
After my 2nd relationship I realised my (thankfully now) ex-boyfriend had pretty much used me to get himself off. When I suggested he had a hand and was perfectly capable of jerking himself off, he countered with “Why should I use my hand when I have you in my bed?”. Apparently, “I’m tired” or “I don’t want to right now” were ‘woman-speak’ for “just keep trying to turn me on, I’ll come around eventually”.
The first time we slept together, I told him how I’d never orgasmed before; I could enjoy sex, but I’d never been launched over the proverbial cliff. We got on with it and after a few minutes of repetitive, if enthusiastic, clit rubbing he turned to me and said “oh wow… you are a lot harder to make cum than other girls”. Perfectly charming.
His genius plan to make me orgasm for the first time was to get me drunk. YAY. (that was sarcasm coming from a girl who doesn’t particularly like alcohol and who especially hates to get drunk).
At the end of that fiasco, feeling a little like an overused blow up doll I decided I’d had enough of relationships; at least for the time being. I was happy and confident and care free. A while later I started getting horny. But I’d rather set all my bodily hairs on fire than let anyone touch me sexually. Rather unfortunately, I couldn’t please myself; at all. I somehow turned myself off and watching a snail munch on a leaf was more exciting than what I could do to myself.
As I got hornier and hornier, I considered getting with a man. But I was under no circumstances getting into a relationship and I figured if someone I had strong feelings for couldn’t make me cum, how could a stranger? So my blue balls got heavier and heavier and started turning purple. One day I woke up to find they were gone. They’d just… fallen off. I was no longer horny. I basically forgot I had a vagina and carried on with life without any sexual frustration. It was freaking awesome, although I did start to question if I’d somehow managed to turn myself A-sexual.
After about a year of no-balls, I felt emotionally ready to accept the possibility of a relationship. And as a knock-on effect, my ‘balls’ started growing back. They were small, but they were there. And thus began my sex-life anew. I still couldn’t turn myself on for chocolate sprinkled chocolate dipped in chocolate sauce, but I was fantasising about being with someone again.
Recently I’ve had hands-down the best sex I’ve ever had. This man was/is awesome. I actually felt wanted. He focussed all his attention on me and in turn I was far more dedicated to making sure he enjoyed himself. It was a snowball effect that lead me to the edge of the cliff. And there I stayed. Completely unable to push myself forward or to calm myself down, he had me balanced precariously on the edge of orgasm. I tried to relax, to let my body just take me into the euphoria I’ve heard so much about. Relaxing did nothing. And then I was tense. And then I tried to relax. And then I tried tensing. I couldn’t move from this ledge and I had no idea how to help it and dear god! It was starting to scare me. I needed to pee; badly. And suddenly I didn’t feel too sexy… Peeing on the bed may work for some people, but I was absolutely certain I was going to embarrass the fuck out of the situation (literally). And so I asked for him to stop; things were too intense, I couldn’t understand what my body wanted and I just wanted to stop and calm down and regain control of myself. He asked why and I explained I felt like I needed to pee. He smirked (kinda sexy I might add) and told me not to worry, I wasn’t going to pee and to just let go of myself.
For the next minute or so, I tried. But how can one consciously lose control… and again I told him to stop. He didn’t seem fully convinced, but respected my wishes and stopped his ministrations. I flopped down for all of two seconds before grabbing him around the shoulders, shoving my face into his neck and crying like a baby. Oh, how sexy was I? But he calmed me down, talked about the possibility of me being a squirter and after a while I felt ready to give it another go. This time it was painful. We’d spent so long messing around between the sheets that I was more sensitive than a cat’s whisker.
Thinking about it now, this wasn’t a repeat of blue balls. This was an imaginary female equivalent of a cock ring. One I’ve somehow put on myself and never bothered to learn how to take it off. And at that point I totally forgave myself for crying. I’m sure men much stronger than I would have been begging and pleading for the damned cock-ring to come off long before I caved.
I’m about to start doing what a lot of people have suggested. I’m going to chill out with a book or a movie of a sexually nature. I’m gonna let my mind drift away and hopefully, I’ll learn to arouse myself. I’ll make use of a towel to keep the bed clean and try out a new ‘personal massager’ I picked up. We’re gonna see where that takes me. The thing about doing it yourself, is there’s absolutely no pressure. If you’re not enjoying it at any point, you don’t have to worry about letting someone down or hurting their feelings. You can be completely relaxed and at-ease with yourself and take the time to find out what exactly gets you going.
There is a trick to unlocking your female-cock-ring, and it’s not going to undo itself. It’ll take time, a lot of exploration and the confidence to feel content and safe in your own body and mind. If it’s a physical problem then you should learn the ins and outs of what does make you tick (what toys, what type of physical stimulation, what fantasies or imagery). If it’s mental, self-stimulation should help you feel more comfortable and in control with absolutely no pressure.
I’m going to find a way to take my …uh… vagina band? off, but I’m not going to set a deadline for myself. I just want to learn to enjoy masturbation. And once I get there and fit more practice in, I have confidence I’ll reach my own personal bubble of bliss.
And also, don’t ever feel bad about giving a guy ‘blue balls’. Chances are he’s used his hand to bring himself to orgasm before, I’m sure he’s quite capable of doing it again. Besides, if he doesn’t put in the effort to pay attention to you and at the very least make a half-decent attempt to get you to orgasm, why the hell you should you waste your energy on paying a favour that will remain unpaid?
Some medications such as anti-depressants can cause this. I’m not saying your experience is wrong, or that you should come off any meds. For me the pros of them outweigh the cons. Also, have you tried political lesbianism? If you found a fellow political lesbian who doesn’t follow the BDSM porn trend encouraged in some circles, you at least wouldn’t experience the rape (arguably that’s what all unwanted sex is) you can experience at the hands of men. The focus isn’t on intercourse and foreplay/attention to the clit is sex. Who knows, you might stand more of a chance of orgasm, and definitely be happier.
Did you ever reach a climax? Have you orgasmed? If so what did you have to do because i am always frustrated. I can not seem to orgasm at all and I start to think that maybe its me. That maybe something is wrong with me.