Looking for some sex/dating advice 🙃

[u/Icy_Acanthisitta3914]

Hi guys, honestly feel so awkward asking this but hopefully my fellow lesbians have some advice 🫶 Basically, I've started trying to date again for the first time in a while as I've been healing from a DV experience. But people seem to know what they want/enjoy when it comes to sex and I... don't. Like, I don't have a clue which is down to my ex having a love for non consensual sex, so I wasn't able to express my preferences or when I did they were actively and intentionally over ridden. I've slept with two people since then, which has highlighted some issues so I took a break to work on healing more. I tend to default to being submissive but I don't know how much of that is what I'm actually into vs a trauma response of going along with what the other person wants. I also don't know if I'm into kink or it's what I became used to as I didn't have much choice in the matter. I feel like I'm good at performing what the other person wants but not understanding or asserting what it is that I want and what makes me feel good too. Which comes from genuinely having no clue.

I feel like I need the space/trust to explore these things, but because everyone my age (26) seems to know what they want (which I'm sure isn't entirely true, that's just how it seems on the apps, and I know the apps are flawed too). By the same token I feel like as a butch, I'm almost expected to be dominant, which I'm not. I worry about wasting someone's time though, or defaulting to doing what they want/expect without feeling like I can express myself (which is a very unfair position to put someone else in). I just feel a bit unsure as to how to go from here, because I want to start dating etc but I don't know how to navigate sex.

[u/Prestigious-Point280]

I am 36 and still learning about the things I like and dislike, and I don't even have a sex related trauma.

The only advise I can give you is to be open in your communication. You don't have to share the "why", but being straightfoward and saying "I do notnyet know what I like and what I dislike, but I would like to explore this together with you" has worked very well for me. It alao takes away some of the performance pressure.

It is also abaolutely fine and possible to start with extended foreplay and let yourself feel save and comfortable before you start exploring more explicit things.

[u/Wise_Bass3901]

Do you think it might help, if you're thinking through an imaginary encounter, to imagine the other person asking for your consent, and then taking it well if you say no, and vice versa? I think it would be particularly difficult to try to figure anything out if you're not confident you can say no and have that no be respected, or if you think of yourself as someone who just goes along with anything. If you have more encounters right now with that mindset, it might just be getting reinforced.

I think the place to start would be working on becoming someone who can be confident in saying no - if you don't want to at all, if you're unsure, if you're you think you might at some point but just don't want to right now, even if you've got a tummy ache and don't think it's on the table just then, you should be able to say no, imagine that the other person accepts this and suggests doing something else, imagine yourself as someone leaving the encounter immediately if they don't accept it. If you don't think of yourself as someone who can say no, it would be difficult to imagine yourself as someone who can say yes, wouldn't it?

However you need to work on that, practicing saying no to people for other things, imagining yourself as someone who can say no confidently, therapy, even self-defense, I think it might help you figure out what you would want to say "yes" to, what you wouldn't just be going along with but would actually want. That, in and of itself, could take a lot of thinking and working through, but I think it has to start with you feeling like you can say no.