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Hi Aunt Vadge,
I’ve been married three times and I’m a mother of three. One marriage ended in divorce; I was widowed in the other two. I’ve just ended a relationship.
My partner was fascinated with female ejaculation and with fingering. He has erectile dysfunction, and the only way he could orgasm was by finger-stimulating a woman. He wanted to give me mind-blowing orgasms to make me happy, which in turn would make him happy – but ironically, his efforts drove us apart.
I’d never heard of g-spot stimulation. He encouraged me to watch porn and to masturbate with my fingers and a vibrator. Initially the thought of fingers in my vagina was a turn-off – it reminded me of vaginal exams, dilation checks during childbirth, and bladder exams. I tried to steer us towards other things, especially oral sex for both of us. That worked to a degree, but he kept pressuring me for the fingering.
So I tried – I masturbated, watched porn, had a pelvic exam, and let him try. I was very tense and it felt like I was being molested. It didn’t feel good; it made me feel like I had to pee. He kept wanting to try more and more ways, and it became a wedge between us. I began to dread the bedroom, and he was losing interest.
He spends a lot of time watching porn, and I felt he wanted to duplicate it with me. We have a strong physical attraction – he loves my body and I’m in good shape, and so is he, though he’s older. None of my three husbands ever tried putting their fingers in my vagina, which my current guy found hard to believe.
My previous partners did vaginal and oral sex, some role-play, and a lot of massaging and pampering. I just had to show up – no pressure to do anything specific. It was all good.
My conclusion was that we were sexually incompatible. I see sex as a wonderful expression of love; he sees it as a wonderful feeling from one particular activity. I feel sad about this and wonder if I’ll face it again. I’d appreciate your comments.
Yours,
Perturbed
United States, Age 61
Dear Perturbed,
Thank you for writing, and I’m sorry it ended on a sad note. First and most important: you never have to do a sexual act you don’t enjoy, for anyone. ‘I don’t like it’ is a complete answer all on its own – you don’t owe a reason beyond that. You tried it generously, more than once, and it didn’t feel good; at times it felt like a violation. Trusting that feeling was exactly the right thing to do.
You’ve named it well – this was a real sexual incompatibility. He could only get there one way, and that one way was the thing you didn’t want. That isn’t anyone’s moral failing, but it is a genuine mismatch, and choosing to step away from it was a sound, healthy call rather than a failure on your part.
It also makes complete sense that fingers inside you felt clinical rather than sexy. When most of your experience of that has been vaginal exams, checks during childbirth and bladder investigations, the body files it under ‘medical’, and that association is very hard to override on demand – especially under pressure. The full-bladder feeling you noticed is also normal with g-spot stimulation, which doesn’t exactly help; another reader had the same.
The pressure is the part that troubles me most. Being nudged again and again towards something you’d said you didn’t like is what turned the bedroom into a place you dreaded. A partner wanting to please you is lovely; a partner who can only be pleased by the one thing you dislike, and keeps pushing for it, is a harder situation, and not one you were obliged to keep tolerating.
You may well be right that he was chasing something he’d seen in porn. For some people, a lot of porn can nudge expectations away from real, mutual intimacy, and it can tangle up with erectile difficulties too. It isn’t the cause of every relationship snag, but when someone seems more focused on recreating a specific act than on the person in front of them, it’s worth noticing.
You’ve already ended things, and from everything you describe – three marriages, partners who loved and pampered you, where you ‘just had to show up’ – you clearly know what good, loving sex feels like for you. You’ll find that again. If you’d ever like to explore any of this more deeply, or a future mismatch feels worth working through, a sex therapist is the right person to help with that, far more than a stranger on the internet.
As for whether you’ll meet this again – most partners don’t need one very specific act to function, so this particular combination is unlikely to be your recurring story. Go in knowing what you love and what you won’t do, say it early, and the right person will be glad to hear it.
You sound thoughtful and clear about what you want, which will serve you well. Write back anytime.
Warmest regards,
Aunt Vadge
This is general information, not a substitute for personalised medical advice.
