Sexual phobias and fear of bodily contact can significantly impact intimate relationships. To address these issues:
1. Seek professional help from a sex therapist or psychologist specializing in sexual disorders.
2. Practice gradual exposure therapy to desensitize yourself to feared situations.
3. Engage in mindfulness and relaxation techniques to reduce anxiety.
4. Communicate openly with your partner about your fears and boundaries.
5. Educate yourself about sexual health and anatomy to dispel misconceptions.
6. Start with non-sexual touch to build comfort with physical contact.
7. Use cognitive behavioral therapy techniques to challenge negative thoughts.
8. Consider medication if anxiety is severe, under professional guidance.
9. Engage in self-exploration to become more comfortable with your body.
10. Practice self-compassion and avoid self-judgment.
11. Join support groups to connect with others experiencing similar issues.
12. Establish a safe word or signal with your partner to maintain control during intimate moments.
Remember, recovery is a gradual process, and patience is key.
A block on the most beautiful, having sex with theanxiety, not being able to experience penetration or orgasm: these are some reactions that can be alarm bells of a problematic sexual and emotional life. The sexual phobias are fears related to sex, as well as those for insects or enclosed environments. And they need to be addressed, to be able to overcome the blockage and fear of contact. Prof. Fabrizio Quattrini, professor at the University of L’Aquila and president of the Italian Institute of Scientific Sexology in Rome, tells us more about what it is and how to intervene.
Sexual phobia: what it is
“A phobia is defined as a fear, in this case associated with the erotic sexual and affective dimension. It means being afraid of something inherent in sexuality, which may be related to the bodies and to physicality or some behaviors and practices that are enacted in intimacy,” Quattrini explains. This is precisely why sexual phobias can be very varied, because they can be about contact with another body or sexual organs or instead attitudes and situations that are physiologically part of the experimentation and sexual play: “there are those who love to do it outdoors and instead those who are literally terrified of it; there are those who love the naked body and those who have anxiety at the mere idea of undressing in daylight.”
Men and women, what changes
One thing is certainly true in the case of sexual phobias, and that is that there is an important gender difference and how men and women experience and perceive these fears. “For men, one of the most recurrent phobias is precisely related to the vagina, in two senses,” explains the sexological psychotherapist. “On the one hand, some men are terrified of not being able to have a penetrative relationship complete, and in this case they often come to therapy for sexual dysfunction due precisely to this difficult relationship with the partner’s body. The dysfunctions may be occasional or situational, related to contact with her, because instead in other contexts or in autoeroticism these men may be able to experience erection and pleasure without problems.” Otherwise, the phobia may be toward the tastes and smells of the vagina, especially at specific times during the ovarian cycle: “men may be intimidated by vaginal odors and fluids, so much so as to avoid contact, oral sex or much of the foreplay.”
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Women and the fear of the penis
What, on the other hand, are the most common sexual phobias among women? “The woman who experiences fear and phobia in the sexual sphere usually has a fear of thepartner’s organ, the penis, regardless of the size“. There is a fear that the organ itself hurts, often avoiding penetration, experienced precisely with terror and as a violence suffered. “For other women it is the sperm To be considered as a liquid dangerous, so during sex they feel they have to disengage at the moment of ejaculation and from direct contact with sperm fluid,” Quattrini concludes.
The main sexual phobias
Here is a list of the 8 major phobias that will help you gain clarity, as reported by the Institute for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, A.T. Beck:
- Coitophobia, the fear of full sexual intercourse. While in men this is due to the fear of not achieving an erection, in women the fear concerns failure to orgasm;
- Phallophobia, the fear of seeing or touching a penis, typical of women;
- Parthenophobia, the fear of making love, or dealing, with virgin women, typical of men. It often causes anxiety and panic attacks;
- Eurotophobia, male revulsion toward female genitalia;
- Medomalacuphobia, the fear of losing an erection;
- Erotophobia, which involves discomfort, fear, particular embarrassment to talk about sex, to the point of avoiding any “risky” situation;
- Gymnophobia, the fear of undressing in front of others, even in the intimacy of the couple, and more generally of nudity;
- Oneirogmophobia, the fear of ejaculating due to erotic dreams;
What are the signs?
Like all phobias and fears, the feeling is one of lack of control and agitation. “Sexual phobia causes a feeling of discomfort, of anxiety and worry: feelings and sensations that anticipate something or an unwelcome moment” and so it becomes distressing from pleasant. If the moment of intimate relationship and contact is preceded or accompanied by discomfort, worry and despondency, if one feels a blockage just when one is close to sexuality, then it is important to ask what causes us to reject the other person and his or her body. This inevitably goes to affect the affective sphere and the relationship as a whole, but also one’s security and self-esteem, so one literally feels lost.
The causes
It is difficult to generalize when it comes to fears and sexuality. “Causes often refer to ignorance, in the sense of lack of a good education in affectivity and sexuality.. There is little awareness, a poor perception of the body and relationships. Sometimes the fear has very deep roots, related to trauma and seemingly silly situations that, however, have marked that person in intimate life as an adult. Without talking about abuse, trauma can be related to youth: coming into contact with aspects of sexuality when one does not have the tools to understand and recognize, can lead to a staggered reprocessing, which frightens and turns in the direction of phobia.”
Coping with fear
The symptomatology of phobias is so obvious and leads to such significant malaise that it is difficult to pretend that nothing is wrong. “As a clinician, I can say that sexual phobias can be addressed and overcome. Apart from the various techniques and exercises suggested to overcome the specific moment, difficulty and fear, becoming aware and awareness of the problem is the first step to avoid getting hooked on the problem. The path of sexual psychotherapy is indispensable for moving step by step and finding peace and trust in the body and sexuality: exploring, approaching with caution, realizing that those behaviors, bodies, and practices are not only not dangerous, but in fact can even be pleasant. The path is to be taken with a professional to avoid mistakes, haste and making things worse,” Quattrini concludes.
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