Sexual Health Community

I'm a physically healthy and fully functional 21 year old male. I'm a virgin, have never been in a relationship, have gone on 1 date in my entire life, and I have never even kissed a woman.

And that was my introduction. Now for the rest of the story.

Ever since I was young, my parents practically pounded their ideas, morals, and beliefs into my brain in the hopes of making me a better human, and a better man. What they taught me was how to be considerate, thoughtful, how to think, to respect others, to hold myself to higher standards than what is considered the "social norm" and to have a moral compass that actually works. In regards to women, they taught me to be a proper gentleman, and that sex is something that should never be taken for granted nor viewed as a casual activity to engage in just for the heck of it.

Once I was old enough to make decisions of this magnitude, I decided that would wait until I was married to have sex, or engage in any form of sexual activity no matter how badly I wanted to. As the years rolled by I went through puberty to hear my friends discussing sex in a lighthearted manner and joking about the subject. At first I would join in these conversations and try to share my ideas of what sex should be, but I learned not to do this very quickly as I was always laughed out of the conversation by my peers. So I kept my ideas and beliefs to myself unless I was asked bout them from then on.

And that pretty much explains the majority of my teenage and very young adult life, which brings us to the present. I am currently playing a game called Black Prophecy and am part of a clan within said game. I was on the Ventrillo (VOIP client) server, when the subject of lap dances came up. Long story short, I made the mistake of asking what a lap dance is. I genuinely did not know what a lap dance is, and I had to do a search for "lapdance" on YouTube to find out.

When I saw the search results, I felt rather uneasy. When I started watching a demonstration, I felt extremely uncomfortable. I couldn't even make it past 30 seconds into the video. I have a highly analytical mind, and I began analyzing why the video made me feel so uncomfortable, and I shortly realized that it was because I would not feel comfortable with receiving a lap dance, even if I was in a relationship and the dancer was my significant other. Remember those beliefs and morals I discussed earlier? Apparently they have been so deeply engrained in my mind that the mere thought of doing anything even slightly sexual with someone has gone from being labeled as "improper/inappropriate" to "completely and utterly terrifying."

This is a problem for me, because I am a very compassionate, sensitive, and romantic young man with a very big heart, and I am becoming very lonely. I see 90% of my friends in happy and long lasting relationships, some of which have led to marriage right out of High School. I feel left behind, or even left out entirely; and feeling left out is something I've had to experience on a daily basis in regards to my social life. I don't understand why, but I feel this compelling need to be in a relationship. And that's where this whole fear becomes a problem.

Despite the fact that I place a much higher value on the intellectual and emotional aspects of a relationship, I understand that the physical aspect will eventually come into play. But if I can't get over my fear or even be able to understand it, then how am I going to explain to my significant other why I have to deny her whenever she is in the mood for sex?

I know that I'm thinking pretty far ahead, but I can't help but do so. This doesn't make any sense to me, and I don't know how to overcome this fear. I do know that if I don't overcome this at some point, I'm going to be a very lonely person.


So that brings us back to the title of the post: is being terrified of having sex normal, or just downright strange? And what can I do to help get over this fear?