ok, i’m gonna go out on a limb and really expose myself here. what do i have to lose? i’m currently in a relationship with a wonderful woman. we met in college about 6 yrs ago. being that i was a bit socially awkward and shy in jr high and high school I actually never had a real g/f in those times. small flings with a few girls but i wouldn’t call them meaningful, memorable or would even chalk them up to anything more than fumbling adolescent attempts at sexual experiences. I honestly believe that since then I’ve grown emotionally, gained A LOT of confidence, lost many insecurities (not all) and have learned how to cultivate people to the point where people now really seek me out and want my friendship/company/advice/professional side etc.
I lost my virginity to my current g/f and although she was also sexually inexperienced before meeting me, I can’t help but feel emasculated and abnormal for not playing the field more and not having more sexual partners over time. especially considering the fact that she and I spent about a yr separated to “re-access” our long term relationship. during this time i did hang out with a few women and one of them i even hung out with more than a few times but nothing ever led to sex of any kind. part of me wanted the g/f back and part of me just wasn’t attracted to these girls even if they were to me. when I hang out with my boys, it’s usually inevitable that “guy talk” comes up and I always feel embarrassed when i hear juicy stories from them such as the time one of them had sex with a stripper in a club on easter sunday. i’ve become so insecure about feeling so sexually inexperienced that i’d hasten to say that it’s festering into a mental illness. it really consumes a big part of me each and every day. probably because our relationship is quite serious and marriage may soon emerge from around the corner. i don’t want to live the rest of my life feeling this way but i’m not about to be unfaithful to my g/f. this is obviously a tough subject to bring up with her without making her feel like a pile of shit or without making her feel that I AM a pile of shit! what do I do?
Though my name is seekingadvice, I’ll advise you on my belief. You truly seem very serious about her, where you wouldn’t hurt her in any sense. When you were away for 1 year and you mentioned “part of me wanted the g/f back and part of me just wasn’t attracted to these girls even if they were to me” , you clearly seem as if there is no way possible you would cheat or even think of cheating. Ask yourself one question, “do you see yourself with any other girl?”, when I ask that, I mean as wife material. If no, bro you should realize that. I know you do, but since you are curious, I believe you may want to talk to her about this. Tell her, you would never even think about doing anything behind her back and you wouldn’t even see yourself with anyone, but just one thing has been bothering me…and go from there…(it’s all for a better sexual experience?)
I can be wrong, it’s just how I feel from what you said, and do you feel embarrassed because you don’t have enough experience?
Here’s the real question, how much of what you’re feeling is based on your own self perceptions vs how much is based on what you think about other peoples perceptions?
You had plenty of opportunity to pursue other women during your time apart, yet no woman seemed to be of interest to you.
What concerns me is that your feelings of masculinity seem to be based on how others will perceive you. Not to make light of your situation but I am reminded of the scene in the 40 Year Old Virgin, when the titular character becomes nervous and uncomfortable as the guys start talking about sexual escapades during their poker game. I assume your feelings are somewhat similar to this?
Here’s the problem and it’s something you have to work on. REAL MEN DON’T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT OTHER PEOPLES PERCEPTIONS OF THEM!
It’s something I learned when studying PUA theory, one of the core elements of Alpha Dominance is being unaffected by other peoples thoughts of you. How you feel about yourself matters more than their opinion. Now not only does that apply to impressing women, but it applies to your situation about men you deal with and your lack of experience. How those guys feel about how many women you have or haven’t slept with means fuck-all. You shouldn’t give two shakes of a baboons bright red ass how they feel. And by NOT being embarrassed or even concerned about it, they will eventually fall into your frame (perception of reality). IE: the less you care about quantity of sexual partners, the less anyone else will care as well.
Obsessing over quantity was something else I had to work out in my totally fucked perception. Quite a few guys get into pickup, buy pheromones looks around and whistles innocently etc with the idea of racking up numbers…which is fine in and of itself, if the reason is simply because you love women, love having sex with women and appreciate the wide variety of women in the world and enjoy sampling everything and enjoying sex with a woman for what it is. However if you’re wanting to boost your numbers because of the status it gives you among other men, I mean really think about how twisted that is for a minute. If you’re not really attracted to the woman, you probably won’t enjoy the sex very much, at least not as much as you should. So you would do something your not really going to enjoy, with somebody you might not particularly like, to impress some people who’s opinions really don’t mean shit.
If you went to a buffet with a group of friends and some are sampling little tastes of everything they can, some are gorging themselves on as much of everything as they can, and you are totally happy getting the same dish each pass of the table. Would it really matter to you if they gave you shit for not eating food that isn’t particularly appealing to you?
Listen, if you want more sexual experience because you legitimately feel like you would enjoy having sex with more women than you’ve had thus far, fine. Tell her you want to slow down, maybe take another break from each other and go indulge your urges.
But they better be your urges, if your feelings are based on competition and racking up a resume that other men will be impressed by, then trust me bro, you’re just going to feel empty inside as well as using a few women that don’t deserve it along the way.
Very true. All jokes apart, Rad got you covered bro. You really shouldn’t give a dam about how anyone perceives you and especially should not try to fulfill their expectations of you but rather yours.
thanks guys. i think a bit of it has to do with the curiosity of not knowing what else is out there, and having women occasionally hit on me at bars further spurning that “What if” curiosity as well. The much larger part of it is just the insecurity of not fitting into what I perceive to be the norm as it pertains to the sexual habits of a young guy in this day and age. I def appreciate the input and I think if I just sit down and have a little talk with her regarding this insecurity, I’m pretty sure she would be open and understanding. those are some of the personality traits that make her awesome. ; )
Think about this too. Sex with someone you care about is 100x better than sex with someone you don’t care about (making love vs. fucking).
If you were to actually go out and satisfy that “curiosity” or “expectation of you by others”, you will not feel better, or more manly.
You will feel worse than when you started because,
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it will have been an emotionally empty experience (whereas you are so fortunate and blessed to have experienced it only in the very best way, with love),
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you might unintentionally hurt whatever girls you end up going with , because girls typically need to feel some feelings for a guy first, at least most girls I know, unless you go pay for a prostitute, and
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unless you are very careful, you will always wonder whether you might have picked up any type of disease, which of course won’t manifest itself for a few years
SK’s got it goin’ on - aaagain.
The only thing worse than no sex is Bad sex. Empty, embarassing, really Bad sex. Your buddy with the Easter Bunny sex at the club is far too ashamed to tell you about the the dozen or more times he had half hearted, hollow, disgusting, discouraging sex.
Sex can never get really good until you have been with a lover long enough to get honestly intimate. Or is that intimately honest?
You will be much farther ahead telling the woman that you love and trust that you want more, deeper, wider, wilder, more fantastic sexual experiences. For both of you. Together.
There are worlds of sexuality to explore with a willing partner that you have built a foundation of trust and respect with that can only deepen regardless of the outcome of your sexual experiments. If your woman sets her mind to it, there is nothing that any woman in the world can do that she cannot do better. And the same goes for you.
Try to get her to talk about her wildest dreams. Or take the traditional/ancient route, get a copy of the Kama Sutra. Or the multitude of modern sex manuals. (not porno) Or read each other erotic bedtime stories. (Something about voice really does it for women)
Try Literotica, or even Storywrite. Go to Powells.com, look under erotic. I look under mushrooms, but then again I have that little twisted kinky thing about…
+1 - Respect!
Sillykitty is right.
It’s also well worth remembering queixada that “being in a relationship” and “fucking” are not mutually exclusive. Many men seem to get it in their heads that being in a relationship means that “sex” and “fucking” goes out of the window and is replaced by the tamer “making love” - not true.
It sounds to me like you want to discover/rediscover your sexuality. There’s no reason you can’t do this within a relationship if that’s what you want (assuming a willing partner of course!).
I like that ^.
hate to differ with this good advice, IME experience one can have awesome sex with people you barely know…mind blowingly good sex…
however, emotionally laden relationship sex and hookup sex do have different qualities… one is not necessarily better than the other…
IME, most folks just don’t have that much real world experience to know which category to place their experiences in, or the never had the opportunity (or possibly the belief system to allow them to partake of hot off the grid sex for sex sake) to get down in the groove…
The idea that one MUST have a certain number of emotional preconditions before good sex is possible is nothing more than very persuasive cultural propaganda that is carefully instilled into impressionable minds…
I’ve also been with some truly amazing women, world class, knock you dead, own the town goddess grade women, who have told me how many (like the great majority it seems) of guys have pretty significant sexual hang ups that they are not even conscious of having, being that their attitudes are products of fundamentally neurotic, confused unconscious layers of a society that often is terrified, mystified, or a little nuts about sex… nuts not as in have a great liking for but nuts as in having issues around…
One uber-goddess in particular told me about how many guys she was with who had real problems around penis size… either bugged out because they thought they were too small, or filled with egotistic delusions around their mighty meat… she told me about guys who were convinced that their huge dicks made them the worlds greatest lovers or guys who were convinced that their little dicks made them terrible lovers, neither was true. But they bought the bullshit and functioned accordingly.
I also had my share of heavy indoctrination from the church and all that religious mind warping… growing up in the conservative south we got more than our share of wacked out madonna-whore baloney…
There were guys I knew who went wild over the idea of having sex with a black girl (this was supposed to be some great otherworldly mystery) and then were tortured with multitudes of unconscious demons by the same idea…
You weren’t SUPPOSED to enjoy casual sex, it wasn’t “sacred” or “sanctified” or whatever… it was basically a dirty filthy thing you went and did furtively because it confirmed your status as a miserable sinner..
That unconscious programming goes in deep and is hard to overcome.
I distinctly recall the pleasure of overcoming it. Of giving the middle finger to the great apparatus of internalized social control. Of breaking free from the lie. It was one of the most liberating discoveries of my life.
Those in my natural social realm with whom I shared this insight were dumbfounded, awed, and suddenly and without warning decided I was no longer “one of them”… and I understand why. They can’t afford to see it my way. Too much is at stake. They have a game to play, they’ve bought into roles they must fill, and that means they must pretend to believe some things they all know they don’t believe, and they must pretend to feel some things they know they don’t feel… that’s the price you have pay to fit in…
I agree with you there tacitus - “great sex” and “barely know” can go hand in hand. That said, combine the two attitudes and bring them both to the table (or bed …) and that’s mindblowing sex 
I’m not implying that the sex would be “bad” if he goes out sarging and picking up on other women. I’m saying the sex would probably be bad because honestly he doesn’t sound like it’s something he really wants to do. His dilemma isn’t that he see’s all the women and thinks “damn I gotta get me some of that”…that’s something guys like me do 
His issue is that he’s feeling almost inadequate and less masculine because his list of partners isn’t as extensive as some. If he tried to bring his numbers up it wouldn’t be simply because he loves sex and is interested in any particular woman at any given moment. It’d be because he almost feels like he’s not gonna feel like he’s a “real man” until he hits a certain arbitrary number of women. Shit that’s no real motivation for having sex. Unless you FEEL it on a primal animalistic level, it ain’t worth going after.
I agree with your point about a lot of men having hangups and insecurities but that doesn’t seem like his issue. It’s external societal pressure TOO have sex, not to abstain from it. The image of the man conquering women and adding notches to his bedpost and comparing himself unfavorably to that image.
That’s as ludicrous as my number one fans notion that I’m a failure for not being married at 37. A man’s value and true measure isn’t based on women, not a thousand women each deciding to fuck him once, or one woman deciding to fuck him for life. I adore women but I don’t define myself by them. And neither should he.
That’s a phrase that always bugged me “making love” vs sex or fucking. As though there’s a certain actual technique that separates them. I can attract a girl and do all the nice “romantic” type shit you see in bad movies and on hallmark valentines day cards, red wine, candles, roses etc…and not remember her name by the following weekend.
On the flip side I have had sexual encounters that would make Jenna Jameson blush with women I’ve happily introduced to my mother later and spent months to years seeing exclusively.
When a woman tries to put on the brakes and says "I don’t just wanna fuck, I want to make love…tell her you love her (only if you really do) ask if she loves you, if she says yes then say “Then whatever we do IS making love babe…now go fill the bathtub with jello the midget will be here with the donkey in about 10 minutes”
Good insight from psychology: the distinction betweeninternal locus of control (I’ve had these personal, sensory specific encounters with life, explored the world as widely as my circumstances permit, compared reality to theory, and built up my deep level conclusions about what is what) and external locus of control (this is what everybody says I should be feeling, these are the approved life scripts and I plan on sticking to them)…
External locus thinking may be appropriate, perhaps required in the workplace or areas of life with formalized structures… although many senior managers complain that employees who are exclusively external locus are “empty suits, stiffs, clockers”… Internal locus taken to the opposite extreme gives you a sociopath…
All good relationships require one thing, that one drop the mask and get real… if someone has been raised in a family system with strong external locus values, only had friends with external locus types, gone to schools with external locus values, and gone to work in external locus enterprises… such a person may have a very hard time getting in touch with his internal locus nature… it will probably seem diffuse and uncertain…
In such cases, one tends to resort to stereotypes, cultural mythology, collective fantasy processes…
i dunno man, both components seem to be there to some degree. a huge part of it is insecurity, but a pretty large part is loving sex, being more open minded with it than my girl and having a wandering eye occasionally. it was always my personal opinion that if one person doesn’t want to be with their partner and they want to start fooling around behind their back, they should just be man enough to say: “Look, I’m not about to start cheating on you, but i want to start seeing other women.” I’ve only recently come to realize that you can truly love someone and not want to ruin a great thing but at the same time have a real desire to go exploring sexually and know that this desire isn’t hard to obtain. it’s very unnerving actually.
oh and thanks again everyone for the mature, well thought out input.