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Fear of Oral Sex - Anxiety/Phobia


johnh

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Good Day, forum members. I'm glad I found this forum to explain my specific question.

I am 20, my girlfriend is 18, we are together for 2,5 years.

My girlfrend is suffering from kind of phobia but it is not actually a specific fear.

Problem - Very bad mood, anxiety and feeling of stress. Many times, duriang the day the image comes up to her mind - process of the violent oral sex. She imagines that she is doing an oral sex to someone, it does not stop and she feels helpless.

It's not a fear of oral sex at overall but when this comes up - she feels a disgusting taste in her mouth and that makes her feel really bad.

She does not remember exactly when it started but what we both remember is - we were joking and I said: "Hah, imagine this guy's penis". At the start she was laughing but then she started to feel a bit bad but after 5 minutes we were speaking and joking as before.

It was '08 Autumn, after a week (not sure exactly) she started to feel like I have described at the start. She tried to forget about this by hanging out with friends more and stuff like this. Sometimes it helped but sometimes the feeling started again.

Then the spring came up (sun, good weather) and she has forgotten about this and we thought that this is over.

But now, the autumn came up - bad weather, raining every day (time of depressions), she recollected that feeling, and it started again.

At the moment she can't forget about this and is suffering a lot. Sometimes she has mentioned suicide.

We do not know where and how to start. We live in the small Eastern European city (approx. 120k) and we can't find any real professional - only some kind of DIY, school psychologists and the ones who claim that they specialize in anything. I doing anything to find some help.

Maybe someone could give us an advice and how we should behave - speak about it or try not mention this? How can I help her?

Unfortunately, I'm on a contract job in the another country now and can't be near her at the moment. (only at vacations, will try to come back at summer '10) I think this makes the situation even worse.

Thanks for understanding,

John.

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Hi John,

Welcome to the family... weekends are fairly slow so you might not get as much attention. I can see how this would affect your relationship. Is it possible for you to get her to join the forum, in this way we can get 1st hand information and be able to better assist her.

From what you describe, it sounds like something was triggered within her and it's manifesting now. But we won't really know unless she can give us more information.

Good luck,

David O

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Hi David,

Thank you very much for answering. I appreciate every minute you take to help us.

I have asked my girlfriend about this, she has agreed to post here through me. So she described the situation by herself.

(p.s. Maybe this post can be moved to the "Anxieties" section now because it's more related there)

Thanks,

John.

"It has begun in the autumn two years ago. Serious relations have developed with my boyfriend, including the first sexual affinity. I was extremely happy, until the autumn rains, cold and darkness have come.

In the period when the autumn depression begins, I began to feel, be afraid of something uncertain. I thought that all is bad, the weather was pressing me, my mood began to become worse. I was afraid that our relations will end, I will stop loving this person and all in any case will be bad. I felt ashamed in front of him and was afraid that this will not pass by. But soon I have understood that he is the most important thing in my life and my sensation of fear became unreasonable. But I still was afraid, I didn’t want to eat, drink, get up and do something. Then terrible thoughts began to appear in my head, disgusting and unpleasant.

I was thinking about how wouldn’t like to have and oral sex with other men. As soon as I have understood how much it is unpleasant to me, I have started to image that more and more. Constantly, only taking a look at any man in life, magazine or on the TV, I have imagined his penis in my mouth. The sensation was very accurate and unpleasant, caused disgust, and fear that it will not end, also shame in front of my relatives. I couldn’t live without stress, this thought constantly was in my head, and this sensation at my mouth. My condition was strengthened by the disgusting winter weather.

Such condition lasted for some months, until our family trip to Egypt. I have plunged at summer, new emotions came to me, I was happy and couldn’t think and concentrate on those terrible emotions. When we have returned to our hometown, spring has came and the sensation of fear began to vanish. My fear was influenced by weather, it wasn’t so terribly constant and so strong. I still have imagined men's penises and on the former it was causing a disgust but not always so brightly and it wasn’t so constant. Sunny weather influenced my condition. Then I have understood that the feeling of disgust comes during a moment when I touch a penis with my tongue or a mouth and I have understood that the main point is not to allow myself to touch the penis. I have understood that my fear is only in my head, in my imaginations. I created this situation by myself in my imaginations so I could control it. I wasn’t allowing myself to touch a penis with my tongue, resisted to my imagination and have soon understood that this method works. I liked it to come back to me less and less. After the summer came, with its bright and sunny weather I simply could not concentrate my imagination on this fear. I wasn’t afraid and have forgotten this feeling.

The fear wasn’t coming back to me for the whole year I have assumed that if it will come again I will manage to cope with it because it happened with me once already. I have found a way how not to imagine this horrible situation. But now, I have recollected that time again and I was afraid that bad times will come back to me. I have decided to try to imagine the penises again to be sure that I can cope with it again because I was able to do it once. It was impossible for a long time, until the autumn has come. Now I have returned to that condition of fear and disgust, again. I imagine the men's penises in my mouth, but these sensations of fear and feebleness are present constantly. When it’s sunny, it becomes easier, but I understand that I wish to cope with this situation again.

I wish to get rid of this moral condition, I wish to know that it won’t be bad. The sensation of disgust comes to me even when I do not imagine a penis in my mouth, sometimes it appears from nowhere, covers me with a wave and I become to feel terrible. I recollect that time when this condition was constant and I would like to die. It seems to me that it will never end and also I won’t be able to live my life easily."

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Good morning johnh,

Thanks for responding- you've provided us with good information.

Many people experience intense anxiety — even panic — when it comes to sexual issues. Others feel fear, terror, or disgust about a specific kind of activity, such as sexual intercourse or contact with genitals or even what you're describing. While it might be easier to hug, kiss, hold hands, and even have intercourse, the specific reaction you're having is almost akin to a phobic response. It seems there has never been a sexual trauma in the past, but somewhere down the line there has been a fearful or aversive reaction that has led to this point.

It's really beyond the scope of this site to diagnosis your situation, especially more so when it's coming to us 2nd hand.

In my experience, sex therapy works with each person in the equation in an individualized manner, takes a sexual history (you've provided good information here already) and then goes about setting goals. But the missing ingredient here is that you guys are apart and apart for months. Typically, I would give home exercises for her and then you (to how to approach and respond to her). You would then move slowly, at your pace, maintaining control of the situation and taking the necessary time to "step out" incrementally.

In this case, for example, if you were together, I would 1st recommend an antidepressant to ease much of the initial anxiety. From here we would begin treating the situation like an "anxiety attack" and begin graded exposure treatments-- meaning she would be slowly exposed, little by little, to her fear/disgust so that these go away or gradually disappear. For example, we would 1st imagine small segments of the scene where she was about to perform oral sex, checking her anxiety level frequently as we progressed visually. We would be using stress reduction strategies along the way. At some point, we would begin looking at the actual facing of your penis and holding it in her hand.... then having her touch it with her face... at some point her top lip.... [all right, I need to stop here otherwise we'll begin sounding like the porn section of the forum:)] and over time, thru various exercises, we would see progress. Throughout most of the process, we would also be exploring and challenging/reframing thoughts that influence her feelings about oral sex.

As you can see, being together is key. However, she can see someone for some of the therapy, mostly the thoughts that precede the disgust/fears.

Hopefully others will follow with more suggestions. I'm sure that someone may also question the logic of a relationship with such distance and time between visits. I'm also thinking that there are many, many couples who simply don't have oral sex... for many women it's extremely uncomfortable/painful so the couple moves on to other "techniques" which are just as pleasurable. I would encourage you to explore this option also.

Good luck and I hope this helps,

David

Edited by David O
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