Sex

What It's Like Being A HIGHLY Sexual Woman Who HATES Having Her Nipples Touched

Photo: Arthur-studio10 / Shutterstock
woman on bed in bra

My nipples hate you.

It’s not personal. They hate everyone.

They know that you want to touch them, to play with them, to lick and suck them, and they know that you’re not going to do it right. And if you do it right one time, in one moment, you’re immediately going to forget and go back to how you touch everyone else’s nipples, and that’s going to feel really BAD, and they’re going to hate you again.

My breasts and I have a long and complicated history.

I developed earlier than many of my friends in elementary school and by the age of 12, in seventh grade, I was teased a lot for having big boobs. That was also the year that bra-snapping became a favorite pastime of my classmates, regardless of gender, so wearing the thing that reined in the source of all the teasing was misery in and of itself.

By ninth grade, almost all of the girls had developed and surpassed me, so then my now-comparatively-small breasts became a source of mockery and stayed that way until I graduated high school.

When I became sexually active at the age of 15, I remember vividly laying on the scratchy navy blue couch downstairs in the family room with my boyfriend’s mouth on my breasts, and exactly how it felt.

How awful it felt.

Not painful. Just. Really. Bad. Like every nerve ending was saying NOPE!

I don’t remember if I said anything, but probably not, because I was nervous and figured it was just a thing I needed to endure. I took my discomfort on as something wrong with me and I didn’t want to admit that flaw to him since my small breasts were already such a source of shame.

I discovered as time went on that if I was extremely turned-on, that feeling would override the "Ugh" feeling that makes me arch my back like a cat away from anyone's touch as I wish my nipples would invert on command (rather than randomly, of course). In exactly the right state, my partners can lick and suck away and it feels really good, and I never understood why it can’t feel that way all the time.

When I first ventured into non-monogamy, the thrill of the newness and the transgressive nature of sleeping with people other than my spouse turned me on enough to have happy nipples during most of my encounters. I could suggest the best ways for people to touch me and I didn’t feel like I had to be on guard against potential bad touch.

I also got to see a lot of other breasts and discovered that my own breasts are incredibly normal — attractive, even — and far from the anomaly I once considered them to be.

As time has gone on and the thrill has worn off — don’t get me wrong, it continues to be a wonderful thing, but it doesn’t have that same, stomach-flip-inducing zing it once did — my breasts have gone back to their old tricks. I have to explain in detail to each partner how to treat my nipples, usually multiple times as their focus lapses. Even feeling a sheet rub against them the wrong way is sheer misery. When I'm having sex in a doggy-style position and they’re bouncing away, I have to make sure I’m either not touching the sheets at all or lying completely flat on it so none of that horrible scraping happens.

My over-sensitivity is so strong that I even have a hard time seeing things other people’s nipples engaged in activities that would be a personal hell for me.

My poor boobs want to draw back into my body when I watch someone who likes having their breasts tortured, and I usually have to go elsewhere if I can. I feel what's happening to them in my own body as though it’s happening to me and I find that incredibly difficult to switch off.

Even watching my friends breastfeed their children has been quite a process, which is one of the reasons I opted out of motherhood. I barely trust responsible adults with my boobs, let alone an infant.

One of my biggest fears about being naked in public at play parties and the like is that someone will touch my nipples without my consent.

Every time I go into a new play space, my fear and anxiety go straight to my breasts.

The first time I went on a swingers' retreat I was concerned about the idea of being in the hot tub in such close proximity to grabby hands, but 99.9% of the people there were incredibly respectful. The one time someone did touch me without asking, I was wearing pasties at the time, so it wasn't as awful as it would have been otherwise — and I promptly yelled at him.

Pasties and thin bras have become my go-to armor when I’m feeling tender enough that any direct contact will be unwelcome. That thin layer of material is enough to filter out my overly sensitive "Ugh" nerve endings so that I can enjoy touch. In fact, I have to remind people that they can touch my nipples when I’m wearing my armor, that it’s one of the few safe times to have at ‘em, but most take it as a no-fly zone when I’m covered up.

When I’m with people who know how to treat my breasts (and remember the rules through the fog of passion or between hookups), it can feel amazing.

I’ve had squirting orgasms from someone sucking on them the right way. And I do I touch my own nipples through a layer of fabric like a thin t-shirt when I masturbate and it feels really good.

It’s definitely a drawback that I don’t have partners other than my husband, Flick, who I see frequently and consistently enough to have my body’s rules scored into their brains. It’s rare that someone I see intermittently is able to remember, and my trust has been scorched enough times that I’ve found myself just leaving my bra on in more and more sexual encounters.

A lot of girls envied Barbie™ her figure, but I always envied her nipple-free boobs.

But since I’m stuck with what I got and wishing that they were different hasn’t worked wonders so far, I’ll just be over here — the one in the super-cute pasties.

‘Cuz no offense, but my nipples hate you.

Listen now: People whose identities don’t conform to the norms within a community often feel isolated. Bisexuals don’t always feel at home in the LGBTQ community and are often deliberately isolated from it. Switches don’t always feel at home in Kink community since many in BDSM think you need to pick a side and stick with it. Multiracial people don’t feel entirely at home in either racial group. Polyamorous people who have casual sex or different relationship structures can be judged and considered not truly polyamorous.

Finding a place where many of the circles of interest intersect allows many of us to feel at home. On this episode of On The Wet Coast, Flick and Kat Stark discuss issues around fitting in.

Kat Stark is a sex-positive, geeky, Canadian, queer, bi/pansexual, deviant, slutty, feminist pervert who came to ethical non-monogamy 21-years into her relationship with her husband. After a quick toe-dip to test the waters (and hours of obsessive reading and podcast consumption), they dove in and she almost can't imagine they ever lived any other way.

 

This article was originally published at Life on the Swingset. Reprinted with permission from the author.