San Francisco Sex Information

Q: Hi I’m 25 and trying to have sex for the first time. My girlfriend told me she was ready to have sex after we had been having foreplay for about an hour. When I put on a condom and tried to penetrate her I wasn’t hard enough. After more foreplay I got less hard instead of more hard and we couldn’t have sex.

I’m worried about what will happen the next time we try to have sex. Could having had foreplay for so long have made me loose my erection? Is there something else that could have made me loose my erection?

A: As you say, it is possible that your body “gave up” on the possibility of having sex, and shut down your erection to save energy, so to speak.

Many men report that a quick blow job from their partner revives their erection nicely, so that they can have intercourse. Other men report that other kinds of licking, touching, caressing, or holding in various areas do the trick: nipples, butt, lower abdomen, inner thighs. You might ask your girlfriend to kiss and touch your body a bit to help you get in the mood.

The most important thing is not to lose your confidence. The brain is often said to be the most important sexual organ! You might play with having your partner tell you in that moment that she really wants to feel you inside of her. That works for a lot of guys. Along these same lines, when it’s time for intercourse, it might help for you to imagine what it will be like to have sex, and realize that you’re about to do exactly that; then you might get really turned on by your fantasy coming true, and have a massive erection.

There are a variety of condoms available in various shapes and sizes. It helps to find ones that work the best for you. If the condom is too snug, it can definitely interfere with an erection. Condom Depot is a great online shop that lets you search by condom style and size. They have diagrams and dimensions listed for each condom, and condom samplers, so that you can find the best fit for your penis. Also check out the ones with flared bases and/or extra head room like Pleasure Plus, Durex Love, or Inspiral - lots of guys use these for the same reasons you’re talking about. Others, like Durex Enhanced Pleasure have extra silky lube and a baseball-bat shape, if that works better for your penis. Some, like Crown Skinless Skin, are so thin you’ll barely notice they’re on at all.

You might want to try masturbating with various condoms first to find the one that feels the best to you, and get used to it, so that when it’s time for intercourse, you’ll be ready for action!

One last idea is to put just a drop or two of water-based lube on the tip of your penis before rolling on any condom. This helps the most sensitive part of your penis around the head get more sensation while the condom is on. Take care not to put on too much lube or the condom may slip off entirely!

Q: I am looking for some information and I cannot seem to find it anywhere. Where can I find out what is specifically legal and not legal in terms of internet sexual activity? There are lots of lines that may be easy to cross and the boundaries and they are not clear and sometimes seem to contradictory.

I understand about soliciting minors (which I would not do) but I am thinking in other terms like chat rooms and what can be said or not.

I am not some weird guy in a raincoat but I just want to be sure that I am not crossing any lines that I am unaware of.

A: SFSI is not a legal aid organization. We can’t fully answer this question but we will try. Communities vary in different parts of the world as to what is prosecuted. But, as far as we can tell there is nothing illegal about sex between consenting adults. If it’s legal for you to have sex as an adult and with adults where you live (i.e. many countries of the world) then it is legal to have sexy chat on the Internet.

The tricky part about cybersex is that you may actually be soliciting someone who is underage, so it’s best to ask the person’s age before virtually getting it on. If you are very worried about this issue you could limit yourself to using sex chat sites that require payment via credit card. That will weed out a lot of curious under-age users.

Another thing is that a chat session between two people is considered protected under privacy laws, however an open chat room is not. So you might want to be more careful about what you say in open chat forums. It’s also a good idea to familiarize yourself with the nettiquette in any particular chat arena. Usually there are FAQs posted somewhere, or you can just ask around.

Q: I have two unrelated questions:

1. I have been told (by a physician’s assistant, when I told her I know I have a clitoris but have never seen it) that I have something called an “embedded clitoris.” What exactly is that?

2. I recently purchased a vibrator/dildo. I picked one of the smaller ones, because I know I’m rather tight, and it’s been quite some time since anything live or inanimate has been in there. Even so - and although I’m relaxed, aroused, and lubed - I can’t get the damn thing in. There appears to be a tight band of tissue just at the entrance (on the hind side rather than the front side) that I believe is what is cut during an episiotomy during childbirth. (I’m not a virgin, so it’s not a hymen, which is further in, anyway.) Do you folks have any advice? I vaguely remember something about pregnant women being advised to massage the - perineum? - before childbirth because it would help it to stretch so that an episiotomy would be unnecessary. I wonder if this would work … and if so, how much of it needs to be done before it starts to stretch a little. Any advice would be appreciated.

A: An “embedded clitoris” is one that is deeper inside the body than the average clitoris. This can mean that your clitoral hood - the little flap of skin that covers up the sensitive head of the clitoris - is a little bigger, and that the tip of your clitoris is not as prominent as in other women. Some women who have this may have a more difficult time reaching orgasm from clitoral stimulation. When searching for this term online, most of the information we were able to find was about female circumcision, which is a pretty drastic measure to expose more of the clitoris itself. We have found one trustworthy resource that discusses one woman’s embedded clitoris at Betty Dodson’s website. She discusses how she has to stimulate herself so that her clitoris is more accessible.

You mentioned perineum massage, which may help you to be able to insert the dildo you bought. Massage would probably be the best first step to help you get the toy inside. If this is unsuccessful, there are some dilators available on the market as well for women who have difficulty inserting objects into their vaginas. See vaginismus.com for more info. These are basically just dildos of varying sizes, so you can achieve the same results by just starting with very small toys and gradually inserting them. If you cannot insert anything - not a finger, a toy, or a tampon - you may also want to talk to your health care provider about the tight band of tissue. There may be surgical or medical treatments that can help this problem.

Q: How do you tell which men are bisexual? Do gay men ever want to have sex with women?

A: There really isn’t a way of knowing by looking if a man is bisexual or not. The only way to know for sure is to ask his sexual preference. Some might say no, others might say they prefer both sexes.

As for gay men having sex with women? It depends on them. Sexual identity is something each person designates for themselves. If a gay man might want to experiment, he might do it with a female friend he knows and trusts. In general, not many gay men have sex with women.