Dear Dana: I’m 24, A Virgin, And Unsure Of My Sexuality. Will I Ever Find Love?

Dear Dana is a bi-weekly advice column for humans who engage in romantic relationships. Please send your dilemmas, issues, conundrums, assumptions, conflicts, anxieties, worriments, obstacles, complications, predicaments, queries, questions, and any other synonyms for “problems” to deardana@rolereboot.org.

Dear Dana,

I am a 24-year-old virgin who has been single for about 99% of my life. While I used to daydream about the perfect boyfriend in high school, I had no real desire to date. I didn’t have my first kiss until I was 20, and I ended that relationship because as nice as the guy was, I felt nothing when we kissed. Maybe it was because of my Catholic upbringing, but I didn’t feel comfortable about sex before marriage until my senior year in college. This has led to many almost-relationships, where I felt emotionally attracted to someone, told them I wasn’t ready when they tried to move forward physically, they acted like that’s totally fine, and then a week later never spoke to me again. This has caused me to keep any potential relationships at arm’s length, both physically and emotionally.

Along with that, I’m not sure if I am straight. I know I have emotional issues when it comes to men, but I don’t know if they’re bleeding into my sexual attraction or if that’s a separate issue. I might think a boy is cute from far away, but the moment they show interest or kiss me, my brain starts screaming “RUN!!” I started to casually date a boy recently, and while we connect on lots of levels, the first and only time he sent me a shirtless picture, I wanted to turn off my phone and run away, not look at it or send something back. Is that normal? I thought I might be gay, so I kissed a girl at a Mardi Gras parade recently, but I felt nothing again, and when she started dancing with me on the dance floor my brain started screaming “RUNRUNRUN” again. I ended up having a panic attack in the bathroom.

I really crave the intimacy of a relationship. I daydream about holding someone’s hand and lying next to them in bed. I know I have some sort of sex drive, but with all the problems with relationships in my past, I’m too scared to let anyone in to try. My therapist asked me what I would like in a boyfriend, and I just started sobbing out of nowhere. My family and friends aren’t helpful when it comes to gauging my sexuality, so I feel stuck in this lonely cycle of frustration. How do I let someone in both physically and emotionally, and how can I figure out my sexuality? I know there are a lot of issues here, but any help would be great.

Thank you,

Kiss & Run

 

Dear Kiss & Run,

Oh yeah, I relate to this problem very very much. I didn’t date in high school, I barely dated in college, and as the years passed I felt like my virginity had become a scarlet “V” on my chest. It was a novelty, a problem to solve, something that burdened whoever I was interested in.

The words we use around losing one’s virginity make sex sound like commerce – you give away your virginity, or you lose it, and either way someone takes it. Based solely on the numbers of teen movies where the plot revolves around someone trying to lose their virginity, our culture is obsessed with virginity.

I find this obsession odd because virginity isn’t real. Everyone thinks they know what virginity is, but when you try to define it the word starts to get slippery. Is virginity defined as never having penis-in-vagina sex? So then life-long gay men and women who have never had penis-in-vagina type sex are still virgins? Or is virginity defined as never having any kind of sex? And then how do we define sex? Penetration of some sort? Does oral sex count? Do we count it if someone orgasmed, even if you both still had your pants on?

The concept of virginity is problematic and, ultimately, irrelevant. Not having had sex feels like the biggest thing in the world until you finally have sex, something you count as sex, and then you discover it’s just like anything else – fun, or uncomfortable, or nice, or just OK.

I spent most of my middle school/high school/college years yearning for a boyfriend while subconsciously cock blocking myself at every turn. I wanted a boy to like me sooo much but when one did I avoided him because my anxiety would overwhelm me at the thought of letting a teenage boy anywhere near my heart. I wanted to hold hands and be in a relationship but anytime I accidentally made eye contact with a boy I would run away, lest he actually try to talk to me or something equally horrid. I got over this slowly and it wasn’t until I was single and in my 30s that I finally felt confident enough to actively engage with the opposite sex.

You feel that you’re caught in a cycle – you’re interested in someone, you get to know them, you tell them that you’re not ready to have sex yet, and then they bounce and you’re left, alone, blaming your lack of sexual comfort for ruining another potential relationship.

But, you see, the cycle you describe is the same dating cycle that occurs for most people your age most of the time. When you’re young and searching for love and find someone you like, most of the time you two aren’t going to get together. Maybe they’re not ready for a relationship, maybe they’re more interested in someone else, maybe they have to leave town, maybe they’re gassy, maybe Mercury is in retrograde – the point is, most of these things don’t work out and it really, really isn’t your fault.

You’re seeing your life as a string of failed relationships, but you must understand all 24-year-olds’ lives are a string of failed relationships. You expect that your discomfort with sexuality will cause any new relationship to dissolve and, when the new relationship then does dissolve, you blame yourself and your discomfort with sexuality. I really need you to know that fucking someone doesn’t make them stay around. I need you to know that if you would have had sex with those guys, you two would have broken up anyway. Having sex with a person in no way obligates them to stay with you or be nice to you or even like you. You assume that having sex with these people would make them more interested in you, but people who are interested in you will be interested in you regardless.

You’re confused about your sexuality. Your friends and family aren’t able to help you answer this question because they have no business helping you answer this question. Only you know what, or who, you like. Some people’s sexuality isn’t even attached to gender – they’re attracted to individuals. Kissing a girl and liking it doesn’t mean that you’re wholly gay, just as kissing a boy and not liking it doesn’t mean that you’ll never have feelings for a man. Sexuality exists on a spectrum and you don’t have to know right now exactly where you fall on the Kinsey Scale. Meanwhile, wanting to throw your phone in the lake after you receive an unsolicited shirtless pic of a dude is a completely normal reaction. Did I ask to see your thorax? Keep it to yourself.

Here’s a blunt question that you can answer in the comfort of your own home: Do you masturbate? Because, if not, I really want you to start. Do it frequently, in different ways with different tools/stimuli. If you aren’t sure how to start, visit your local feminist-owned sex shop and start asking questions. The people who work in those places live to help people become more comfortable with their sexuality.

I suspect you freak out when you’re kissing people not because you hate kissing, but because your brain is barreling forward into the future and is scared shitless about what is going to happen next. Maybe it’ll be full-on sex, which you don’t yet want, or you do want but you aren’t sure what it will be like and it will probably be bad and WHY ARE YOU STILL KISSING RUN RUN RUN. You need to know, all the way in your bones, that you can kiss someone and have nothing come next. You decide what, if anything, is next and it’s perfectly fine to decide that nothing is next. Starting to be sexual with someone else in no way obligates you to do anything more with them. You can always stop. You can kiss someone and just kiss them and nothing else. You can just hold their hand. You can just take off your shirt but nothing else. One act does not automatically lead you to any other act. You have full autonomy over your body at all times, and sharing a small part of it with someone else doesn’t mean that part doesn’t still belong to you. You are the queen of yourself, always.

Here’s what having sex with someone else gets you: pounding heart, sweaty hands, adrenaline, endorphins, physical intimacy, a chance be really aware of your body in the most delicious way, a chance to explore another human’s body and delight in what you find there, and (hopefully) an orgasm or two. Here’s what having sex with someone else does not get you: a relationship, love, or anything past the promise of that single moment. Good sex is transcendent, while bad sex is like having someone else brush your teeth, but at the end of both, you’re still you with the same problems and the same worries and the same uncertainty that’s inherent in all new relationships.

Stop worrying about what you should be doing, stop worrying about what’s normal, stop worrying about what the other person expects, and start taking care of yourself. You mention emotional issues with men, such a brief mention, the tip of an iceberg, and I’m glad to hear that you’re seeing a therapist. You get to decide what you like, and you get to take your time. You are allowed to have a romantic relationship where no one ever takes off their pants. You are allowed to fall in love with someone and do nothing but kiss and hold hands. You’re worried that no one would ever enter into such a relationship, but I assure you they would. Pause – relax. Get to know yourself, get to know what you want, on your own, and then focus on meeting someone who you want to share that part of yourself with.

You want out of the cycle. You made the cycle, so the good news is you’re the only one who can break it. You need to be comfortable with yourself before you can be comfortable with someone else. Take care of yourself and then, when you’re ready, take on someone else.

Dana Norris once went on 71 internet dates, many of which you may read about here. She is the founder of Story Club and editor-in-chief of Story Club Magazine. She has been featured in McSweeney’s, Role Reboot, The Rumpus, and Tampa Review and she teaches at StoryStudio Chicago. You may find her on Twitter at @dananorris.

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