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Please, keep your answers mature. I know this topic might invite some less than sensitive comments but this is a really sensitive topic for me. It's a secret I keep from EVERYONE, but I really need help.

I am now in my forties and I am still a virgin. Every time I am near a man who is acting physically attracted to me I panic and nearly bolt away. I have a lot of male friends, but the second I sense attraction, I refuse to be close to them again. I am good looking, (I used to be a model) I have a lot of self confidence in other areas, but in this one area I am litterally petrified.

A bit of history:

My father divorced my mother when I was still a baby and never bothered to send a birthday card, much less visit. I was raised by my mother and my Irish, Catholic grandmother. My mother and grandmother were both very prudish and wouldn't talk about sex. My mother never dated and my grandmother hated leaving the house and was a widow. The only male influence in my life was my friends' fathers and my brother who is only two years older than I am.

As a teen, my brother turned into an alcoholic. His behavior was violent and insulting. I lived in constant fear and tension about what he would do next. My mother went into a depression and my grandmother died. In school, I was quiet and withdrawn. Other girls were talking about their sex lives and their boy friends but I wouldn't join the conversation. People made fun of me because I was so quiet, tall, and thin.

In my twenties, I felt inadequate about my sexual skill. I didn't want anyone to realize what a "loser" I was and so shyed away from all intimate relationships. I actually felt afraid when a guy showed interest. I knew I didn't know anything, I felt ashamed, and I didn't know how to draw appropriate limits, so I reacted by fleeing.

In my thirties, it just go worse. I felt something was wrong with me and I was a freak. What man would want a thirty year old virgin.

Now, here I am in my forties. I cringed when the movie "Forty Year Old Virgin" came out. When I date, I push men away if they so much as try to kiss me. I panic and start wondering if they are going to want sex and what they will think of me.

I have considered just going out and get laid, but I'm scared. I have met guys I like, but I don't know how to draw an appropriate boundry and run away.

What should I do? No. I don't have money for therapy and I don't belong to a church. Even if I did, I am too ashamed to ever admit this person to person. cry

I don't understand what it is that you are so scared of. Has anyone ever hurt you sexually or anything like that? Or are you afraid of being rejected, abandoned, or hurt? The way to set boundaries is very simple. Say what you want or don't want. Being a virgin is not something to be ashamed of. But being too afraid to open yourself to loving and being loved will only leave you sad and lonely.

How does seeing sexual interactions in say, a movie, make you feel? That same tenseness?

No. I enjoy them if they are done with taste. While I don't exactly enjoy porn movies, I don't feel tense or upset. I just don't like them the same way I don't like reading spy-thrillers or eating liver, a matter of personal choice. I do read a lot and I enjoy reading sex scenes in books as long as they are well written. (I'm a bit chosy with my entertainment. I can't stand stupid, poorly written trash. I want character development! I want a real storyline!) I even own books like "Joy of Sex" and others (mainly to see if there was anything in them about what's wrong with me) and they are very interesting to read.

I only get tense in the physical presence of someone who is physically attracted to me. It's very specific.

Here's an example. Tonight I am going to meet a male friend for a movie. I know now I will not be tense. I know him, we've gotten drunk together, and he has never made so much as a hint that he is thinking of wanting to have sex with me. He's going through a messy divorce and he just wants friends to spend time with. I'm perfectly comfortable. Yet, if at some point in the evening he does make any oveture to wanting intimacy, I will get tense and panicky, and I will make absolutly sure never to be alone with him again.

FallenSammy.

Thanks! I won't give up. I'm going to try hard to get past this. I just need some outside advice because I fear I am not seeing something clearly and I've been running in circles for so long that I don't know what to do anymore.

Shame is a natural consequence when it comes to how we deal with our feelings.

What you need to do, is whenever these feelings of yours surge up and become prominent. Stop resisting, you don't need to do anything but don't avoid the pain. Instead let yourself feel it, feel your feelings all the way through and think.

What is this pain of mine trying to tell me?

What exactly is happening inside me that makes me feel so ashamed?

How have I felt like this before but haven't realized it?

I know how this sounds, it's normal for humans to be afriad of confronting themselves in the purity of their feelings.

Its a difficult task, but you need to open yourself to you. You are your own problem and problem-solver.


Your situation sounds actually quite similar to yours while oppasite in respects. I can relate to how difficult it is to get over yourself when your trying so hard surpass your feelings rather than get in touch. It becomes paralyzing and you end up doing nothing and feeling even worst about it.

I can't tell you what your problem rooted deep in yourself is, only you can do that. You just have to be willing to pay attention, respect and not be afriad of feeling, feel 'everything'.

It's not a problem that will go away suddenly. But as you try the easier, you will find it, it will be to be yourself with yourself.

I hope that helps. God bless heart

Alexandretta has some good advice I would totally agree wiyth opening up to a male friend bout this, you might be surprised to how sensitive they actually can be with such matters. And true friends will stick it out all the way through with you till the end. PM me if you ever wanna talk or just need someone to listen 3nodding

I've been really thinking over what everyone has said and I've thought of a few things.

First, my mother has always had a funny way with men. While declaring that she is only attracted to me, she hardly ever says anything positive about them. Mind you she makes sly disparaging remarks about women-women relationships too. I have always just considered it a left over from a bitter divorce with perhaps a trace of the forbiden fruit syndrome.

But something happened a few years ago. My uncle that I grew up around came to spend Christmass with me and my mother. It had become a regular holiday event. I hated him being here since he spent the entire time treating me like dirt, doing small hateful things to me, and generally making my life unpleasent. I wanted to spend the holidays with my mother (I was in college at the time so came to stay with her during break) but I really dispised his presence because, not only did he do all those wonderous things, every single time I hugged him he would grab my but. Believe me, I stopped hugging him fast. Since I didn't want to destroy Christmas with my mother, I stayed out of arms reach and plastered a fake smile on my face while I thought "incestuous pig."

Okay, if you thought that was strange wait... so a few more Christmasses of me grimacing and bearing it passed. Yes, I did complain, but my mother begged and I folded. Then he started behaving himself. I was relieved and the next year even invited him to come along on a short trip with me. I had to drop off some paperwork for work at a local university. The campus was beautiful. He agreed and we chatted all the way down. No problems. It was on the way back problems started. He suddenly wanted to talk to me about the men I date. At first it was rather innocent questions that I didn't think much of, then he started getting into what kind of man do you like? What physical attributes? At the same time he started stroking his hand along the inside of my thigh as I drove. I really panicked. I am surprised I didn't wreck the car. I couldn't speak, but I grabbed his hand and held it away from me.

When we got home he trotted inside like he'd had a fine time. I went out back and shook. I poked my head back in, thinking I would like to go to my room and hide until someone else came home (everyone was out), and I noticed he was in the bathroom. I quickly went down the hall to get to my room and he came out of the bathroom. He smiled at me and laughed, telling me some joke I can't remember, then grabbed my crotch. I don't know how I got away and back to my room, but I barracaded myself in and didn't come out until I heard people come home.

I went to my mother and told her what happened. She said "Men are pigs" and mused that she had noticed him gropping me when we hugged, but didn't think much of it... Yes, I felt a bit betrayed because all the time she saw him groping me, and treating me like dirt, she was also the one to beg me to "be nice."

My uncle was often over at our house when I was small. While mostly I remember him as a nice man, I also remember that he would do small hurtful things then look innocent when I cried. "I don't know what she's crying about."- I remember that! He once pinned me to the couch tickling me. I have always hated being tickled (I'm extreemly ticklish to the point tickling sometimes hurts) and cried for him to stop. He didn't and only when I started screaming (probably also alerting the other adults in the house) did he let me go.

I did as a child have some possitive male role models. I practically lived in my friends houses and all their father's were my "uncles", who would play with me, take me places with their families, and even sit and talk to me. Those men would also come visit my family often and sit on our back porch in the evening to watch all us kids play. I was also very flirtatious as a child, adored all male attention, and would activly compete for it. I should have grown up to be the world's biggest flirt, since I litteraly started when I was three.

When I moved to California when I was 11, I was quiet, shy, and withdrawn. I still don't have any memories of anything bad happening, but now I'm starting to wonder. My mother hates men, no matter what she says. My brother is an alcohoic who beat me up and stole my things. My uncle was a pervert.

Looking at this, it is a wonder I even talk to men...

Please don't take this the wrong way, pleasepleaseplease. I'm only asking to see if maybe you haven't considered something yet...

Have you considered you might not be particularly attracted to men, but are just in denial of being gay?

I sabotaged...pretty much every relationship I'd ever been in with a guy. For a while I rationalized that it was because I was just 'messed up', but eventually came to accept that I just wasn't all that into guys in the first place.

And if you know that you're definitely *not* gay, perhaps you're asexual? Just...not very high on your priority list? Relax. Stop psychoanalyzing yourself, and enjoy the things you enjoy. There's nothing wrong with you. mrgreen