I need physical intimacy that isn’t sexual but I don’t feel like many people understand the concept.

I’m a female in my early twenties, so I’m not coming from years of experience but I’ve noticed a pattern of this miscommunication. I’ve been victim of my fair share of sexual trauma and negative experiences. I’m in therapy and it’s been very helpful for unraveling a lot of suppressed issues and undoing mindsets that hurt myself and my relationships.

That being said, I broke up with my last long term partner last year because we had no sex life and it turned into a very volatile thing for both of us. I was the one with the lower libido. When we first got together we had sex all the time, and I liked it for the novelty of it but I couldn’t say it was very intimate or emotionally fulfilling, but if you asked him he’d disagree.

Life got hard for both of us and that made my sex drive deplete, but it became more of a fixation for him. He started watching more porn and sex became even less about a mutual experience but as a vice for him. This ruined my desire to have sex with him. He resented me a lot for it, he’d make backhanded comments about it and I could tell his confidence took a huge hit. I felt bad, but I didn’t have a coherent way to explain the disconnect. I wanted to confide in him and vise versa but it felt like the gap between us was growing.

My “love language” if physical touch. It makes me feel loved, it makes me feel safe and comfortable. I believe the physical exchanges between you & your partner are an intimate and bonding experience that elevates your relationship. So why wasn’t I responding to his touch, why did it make me feel worse about myself and my relationship?

Because for him, touch was about sex. It was a precursor. Laying in bed together at night or in the morning, hands wandering and skin touching, to me it felt like a loving exchange. But it would inevitably lead to him vocalizing his arousal, I could tell when the switch was flipped. Then he’d always try and take it the next step further. I didn’t hate him for being aroused, I felt guilty that I wasn’t happy that I constantly turned my partner on, that should be the best case scenario. But every time we’d touch I felt like he was trying to entice me into sex. He’d give me back rubs and start to move lower, start making little moans and ask if he could pull my pants down. Why didn’t he just want to touch me so we could be close? Why did he only care about touching me so he could shift it to sex?

I started going to therapy at this time because I was worried I was asexual and I felt ashamed of myself and took full responsibility for my relationship failing. My partner and I would talk about the lack of sex, he said he missed being intimate with me. I told him I don’t feel close to him and to me intimacy isn’t mutually exclusive with having sex. For me it’s a byproduct, and I need to feel the intimacy between us before I can feel sexually aroused. He didn’t seem to understand that there was a difference. Since we’re partners and attracted to one another, shouldn’t the expectation be that if we’re touching one another it should lead to sex? Isn’t that the ultimate form of touch? After that talk I learned we weren’t compatible, I ended things shortly after.

I know I played my part in the relationship failing, I’m not absolving myself of blame or trying to make him out to be a bad guy. I wish I had better communicated my needs properly early on, but this was all uncharted territory for me and I didn’t know what I was feeling or how to explain it. I know now that I’m not satisfied with a sexual relationship that is centered around PIV. I’ve been trying to see sex as a different experience than the “script” I’ve been taught from porn. In the future I’m more interested in creating a sexual relationship that’s modeled after tantric sex instead of exchanging oral > PIV > hoping that’s enough for us both to orgasm.

But I’m finding it daunting to find a partner who is open to this. In my experience, most of the guys my age benefit from the type of sex that’s shown in porn and don’t seem receptive to change. Ill admit I definitely project these insecurities from my relationship onto future ones which I’m trying to work on. Even though my ex and I disagreed, he just couldn’t conceptualize how I felt. I feel like I’m broken because for me it’s not as easy as touching each other and getting turned on and then wanting to have sex. I feel wrong because I want touch and physical exchange but without the expectation, and that makes me a tease. I’m not averse to sex and I do crave it a lot, but the love it entails, not the orgasms or the part where the penis goes in.

I guess I’m wondering about others experiences or if this resonates with anyone else. I’m a little hesitant to talk about this stuff now with others and would love to see some discussion about it.

Submitted February 13, 2020 at 12:32AM

I’m a female in my early twenties, so I’m not coming from years of experience but I’ve noticed a pattern of this miscommunication. I’ve been victim of my fair share of sexual trauma and negative experiences. I’m in therapy and it’s been very helpful for unraveling a lot of suppressed issues and undoing mindsets that hurt myself and my relationships.That being said, I broke up with my last long term partner last year because we had no sex life and it turned into a very volatile thing for both of us. I was the one with the lower libido. When we first got together we had sex all the time, and I liked it for the novelty of it but I couldn’t say it was very intimate or emotionally fulfilling, but if you asked him he’d disagree.Life got hard for both of us and that made my sex drive deplete, but it became more of a fixation for him. He started watching more porn and sex became even less about a mutual experience but as a vice for him. This ruined my desire to have sex with him. He resented me a lot for it, he’d make backhanded comments about it and I could tell his confidence took a huge hit. I felt bad, but I didn’t have a coherent way to explain the disconnect. I wanted to confide in him and vise versa but it felt like the gap between us was growing.My “love language” if physical touch. It makes me feel loved, it makes me feel safe and comfortable. I believe the physical exchanges between you & your partner are an intimate and bonding experience that elevates your relationship. So why wasn’t I responding to his touch, why did it make me feel worse about myself and my relationship?Because for him, touch was about sex. It was a precursor. Laying in bed together at night or in the morning, hands wandering and skin touching, to me it felt like a loving exchange. But it would inevitably lead to him vocalizing his arousal, I could tell when the switch was flipped. Then he’d always try and take it the next step further. I didn’t hate him for being aroused, I felt guilty that I wasn’t happy that I constantly turned my partner on, that should be the best case scenario. But every time we’d touch I felt like he was trying to entice me into sex. He’d give me back rubs and start to move lower, start making little moans and ask if he could pull my pants down. Why didn’t he just want to touch me so we could be close? Why did he only care about touching me so he could shift it to sex?I started going to therapy at this time because I was worried I was asexual and I felt ashamed of myself and took full responsibility for my relationship failing. My partner and I would talk about the lack of sex, he said he missed being intimate with me. I told him I don’t feel close to him and to me intimacy isn’t mutually exclusive with having sex. For me it’s a byproduct, and I need to feel the intimacy between us before I can feel sexually aroused. He didn’t seem to understand that there was a difference. Since we’re partners and attracted to one another, shouldn’t the expectation be that if we’re touching one another it should lead to sex? Isn’t that the ultimate form of touch? After that talk I learned we weren’t compatible, I ended things shortly after.I know I played my part in the relationship failing, I’m not absolving myself of blame or trying to make him out to be a bad guy. I wish I had better communicated my needs properly early on, but this was all uncharted territory for me and I didn’t know what I was feeling or how to explain it. I know now that I’m not satisfied with a sexual relationship that is centered around PIV. I’ve been trying to see sex as a different experience than the “script” I’ve been taught from porn. In the future I’m more interested in creating a sexual relationship that’s modeled after tantric sex instead of exchanging oral > PIV > hoping that’s enough for us both to orgasm.But I’m finding it daunting to find a partner who is open to this. In my experience, most of the guys my age benefit from the type of sex that’s shown in porn and don’t seem receptive to change. Ill admit I definitely project these insecurities from my relationship onto future ones which I’m trying to work on. Even though my ex and I disagreed, he just couldn’t conceptualize how I felt. I feel like I’m broken because for me it’s not as easy as touching each other and getting turned on and then wanting to have sex. I feel wrong because I want touch and physical exchange but without the expectation, and that makes me a tease. I’m not averse to sex and I do crave it a lot, but the love it entails, not the orgasms or the part where the penis goes in.I guess I’m wondering about others experiences or if this resonates with anyone else. I’m a little hesitant to talk about this stuff now with others and would love to see some discussion about it.