Betty Dodson with Carlin Ross

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Hi Doc.!

First, I'd like to say thank you for providing me with such a wonderful and positive website upon which to stumble in the middle of the night. This is so much more than what I was expecting when I first clicked. I finally decided to join and submitted to the Genital Art gallery. So anyway, here's my question. I'm a 35 year old male without much sexual experience. I didn't lose my virginity until I was 27, and it was a terrible experience. Since then I've had one other awful one-night stand and two short term girlfriends with whom I had sex more than once. I'm really shy and have trust, abandonment and abuse issues left over from childhood that I wasn't able to resolve before my Mom died in my mid-20s (she's the responsible party). So now I'm pretty bitter, too. The problem is, my Dad didn't exactly provide me with a positive role model either; he was timid and was unable to show me how to be assertive, have confidence, etc.

I've pretty much forgiven my parents for this (as much as I'm able, with the help of lots of professional counseling), but I'm quite unable to translate what I've learned into anything I can internalize as anything positive about myself sexually...not to mention my paranioa about STDs/STIs. My lack of sexual activity has left me completely clean. I'm not even an HPV carrier! I go years without so much as holding hands with a girl, but I get tested every year whether I need it or not. You never know...

Here's what I want to know...do you have any tips or reading suggestions on how to get back into the dating scene for someone like me? It will be 7 years this August since I've had a date, and the very thought of going out with a girl scares me to death. I work at a bar where the entire crew is really tightly knit and there's this waitress that I've been really smitten with for over a year now. She said, "We should hang out sometime." I'm almost positive that means she likes me. Makes me nervous though, since I'm such a recluse, and she's nearly 10 years my junior and a social butterfly. I'd like someone in my life. I'm really lonely. I know it would just be a date and I'm not planning on marrying the next woman I go out with...I'm just really intimidated by the stories I hear of sexual conquests from both my male AND female coworkers. And by sexual conquests, I mean that they're discussing the fact they're even having sex at all. It seems so effortless for them, and the 3 dozen times I had sex that one year I was active were very uncomfortable. Everytime they bring up sex, they make it sound like such a foreign subject to me in the sense that it's a part of their everyday lives. I hate being a loser.

Suggestions?

Dear Anon,

Here comes some tough love. First thing I would suggest is to change the url on your email. Really!!! Do you need to wallow in self-loathing so outrageously? You are not a special case. Nearly everyone has a terrible first time fuck! We have not been schooled in the sexual arts and most of us fumble through partnersex. The blind leads the blind. You are not as unique as you think you are, so it's time to get over yourself.

You've already had counseling and now it's up to you to move forward. We have all been sexually abused to one degree or other. At least you are enjoying yourself with guilt-free masturbation and you like your penis. Now you need to learn to share it. The young girl that you work with sounds ideal for you to date. She's practically asked you out herself. So go for it. My tip for the day is "Just do it!"

Reading about sex is okay but you need to practice sex with another person. I suggest you get in touch with my apprentice Eric Amaranth and have a few telephone coaching sessions on dating. He is not a parental figure but more like a big brother you can talk to. You can reach him through the website.

Dr. Betty

Hi Dr. Betty,

Thanks for your quick reply! You're right, I do need to get over myself and my past as you said, especially since I had counseling already. I'm doing nothing but wasting additional time being something other than present-moment focused. I really lost sight of that goal as I wrote my initial email to you because I got extremely distraught as I continued to write it, bringing up some things I haven't even thought about in quite a while; just in order to give you background information I thought would be relevant.

At any rate, you're quite right. Thank you for the dose of tough love; it has reset my mind to keep mindfulness as a general goal in order to fend off more of that bullshit wallowing. I guess old habits DO die hard.

Thanks again, Doc.