I have to actively keep myself focussed on sex by fantasizing some scene or story to myself. Just actually having sex isn't enough, not because I'm not into it or not enjoying it. It's just that if I don't fill my mind with something sexy it's going to get full with chores, or dinner options, or the way the bed squeaks... And then I'm completely out the moment.
this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2025
89 points (97.8% liked)
ADHD
12256 readers
88 users here now
A casual community for people with ADHD
Values:
Acceptance, Openness, Understanding, Equality, Reciprocity.
Rules:
- No abusive, derogatory, or offensive post/comments.
- No porn, gore, spam, or advertisements allowed.
- Do not request for donations.
- Do not link to other social media or paywalled content.
- Do not gatekeep or diagnose.
- Mark NSFW content accordingly.
- No racism, homophobia, sexism, ableism, or ageism.
- Respectful venting, including dealing with oppressive neurotypical culture, is okay.
- Discussing other neurological problems like autism, anxiety, ptsd, and brain injury are allowed.
- Discussions regarding medication are allowed as long as you are describing your own situation and not telling others what to do (only qualified medical practitioners can prescribe medication).
Encouraged:
- Funny memes.
- Welcoming and accepting attitudes.
- Questions on confusing situations.
- Seeking and sharing support.
- Engagement in our values.
Relevant Lemmy communities:
lemmy.world/c/adhd will happily promote other ND communities as long as said communities demonstrate that they share our values.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
may i introduce you to - BDSM. no need to imagine a scene when it's happening! :)
Good call! It's something I've been thinking about for a while, partly because of comments from other ADHD people. We do some bdsm adjacent (I don't really know where the line is...) stuff cause be partner likes to be treated rough. I guess it helps keep me focussed, cause there's more variety and stuff to do, but it also leads to a lot of meta thinking and second guessing "was that too much? Was that too soft? How long have they been in that position and is that going to actually harm their neck..."
Maybe being in a sub role would be kinda relaxing because of the lack of control / responsibility, but I prefer the Dom/top role, and my partner is 100% the other way. I do think it's easier when there's more novelty in general, just being somewhere different or my partner wearing some new outfit I find hot helps. But making stuff different everyday would soon get exhausting, while changing my imagination is quick and easy.
may i introduce you to - safewords & colour checks! :D
establish safewords with your partner, the deafult ones are:
green - keep going i like this
yellow - approaching my limit let's pause
red - stop immediately and proceed to aftercare
at any point during play you can then ask them "colour?" and in a quick and definitive way you get to know how they feel and if it's too much. (this also goes the other way! don't be afraid to safeword as a dom if things get uncomfy for you). this helps a lot with the variety of things you can try out during a scene because it cuts short the worrying if your partner likes it or not, or if they mean the "stop" when they actually want you to keep going.
bdsm is more than just the hot stuff, it's systems and safeties that allow the hot stuff to flourish safely and hot-ly <3
but i get ya, sometimes you want the same thing but a little to the left, and/or to loop the good moment in your mind. nothing wrong with that
I'm familiar with that in principle, and it's a great system. But my partner is shockingly bad at communicating during sex (they're on the spectrum). I've tried to talk about safe words, or even just any indication that something is not working for them. But they refuse, partly saying "that it's pretty obvious when I am enjoying something or not" (it is not, or at least not to me). But I suspect the real reason is that they have quite poor body awareness in general (often injure themselves with exercise because they weren't aware that something was hurting them) and that trying to monitor their own safety is tiring and unfun. But they're also not super expressive during sex, so I can't reliably pick up on cues.
We've been together a long time, and I think we've found things that work for us, but it's pretty stressful trying to 'play rough' without a real feedback mechanism (and I have gotten it wrong and gone 'too far' and they've been very upset with me). I've tried talking about it, and even had a period of refusing to do anything like that at all hoping it would force them to agree to some sort of save-word system. But it didn't, they just seemed decreasingly satisfied with sex, so I gave in and went back to guessing what's okay...
it takes some time to learn how and when to safeword. from experience i know that the most common thing stopping someone, both doms and subs, from using them is guilt - they don't want to stop the play when they see the other person is having fun, perhaps it's that?
if i were you i'd try to have that conversation again, try to stress the importance of clear and undeniable consent. how if they want to be treated roughly you need to feel safe doing it, and knowing that they will communicate when they get uncomfortable gives you that safety. but of course, i don't know the whole context of your relationship so i don't know if this would work, all i can do is wish you the best with that!
shneancy knows what they are talking about!
I also want to add that you can try out BDSM stuff without sex. (BDSM doens't even need to very sexual) If you two are unsure about how something feels, pain/comfort-levels etc, try it in a more neutral situation and have fun with it.
Example:
Say you two have talked and are curious about face-slapping.
So you or both start with reading about common damages that can happen (hearing-loss eg), what do to if it happens and tips on how to do it in a good way (hand-positioning eg).
Try it on your self first, how does it feel to slap your own face on different places? Maybe compare with slapping other body-parts.
Then you two get together in a relaxed comfy situation. Start SLOW. Like, a light tap on the cheek. Talk about how that felt. Try slightly harder or change position, angle etc. Explore, slow and steady.
Afterwards, depending on how intense it gets, do some aftercare (for many: cuddles, candy, water, maybe a comforting movie and comfort each other) and let some time go to land in the feelings. Sometimes it takes a bit to process it all.
Thanks! That's pretty much what I do. As I said in my reply to shneancy, it's made a lot harder by my neurodivergent partner having serious communication issues around the topic. So it isn't even to get feedback, but they're the one who love aggressive sex.
I have experimented with some stuff on myself to get a gauge of how hard is too hard. But tbh, I don't really enjoy getting slapped in face or choked so, it's hard to guess what's the correct level for someone else!
Edit: I now realized you wrote in an Adhd community.. Sorry for being stupid below. But my point still stands tho
Yes true, it's different for everyone! I've read your reply. Kinda ironic they say it's obvious while being neurodivergent (sounds like autism, I'm also autistic).
You are not a mind-reader. And it is SO easy to miss a cue even if you knew them all because you can't look at their whole body at the same time. Also if it is as obvious as they say, they should be able to teach you all the cues. (I realize that isn't the case tho, but it would be logical)
I would refuse to play with someone who refuses to communicate. The worst case scenario is death and depending on what flavor of BDSM ones like, that can easily happen. Permanent damages even more likely. Being neurodivergent isn't an excuse to skip communication.
But, a real suggestion. Maybe you two can playfully explore their body to help them increase their body awareness?
That‘s crazy. I thought I had strong ADHD, but you‘re on a completely different level
This is actually something I've learned more recently, especially with women, is pretty common. Reaching orgasm during sex often requires a lot of focus on feelings (physical, mental/emotional) and being present - ADHD brains can struggle staying present which then leads to less orgasm frequency during sex. I personally have had issues with this and have had partners with similar experiences - the best way I was able to help them was to be very vocal and engaging to keep them with me in the moment (talking in their ear, asking questions, etc) . One of my friends recently noticed that she's enjoying intimacy far more now that's she's being treated for her ADHD.
So I'm pathetically single but really relieved to know I'm not the only one like this.
I take forever to finish masturbating because I keep having to stop and look stuff up on Wikipedia, add things to to-do list, reply to texts, go pee, get a drink of water, finish doing whatever the fuck distracted me when I went into the bathroom/kitchen...
I have contemplated consuming non-pornographic media at the same time as masturbating because somehow my dumpster fire of a brain is that much of a dopamine black hole that literal orgasms just aren't enough. I haven't actually done it yet because the idea of flickin the bean to, say, cooking shows on YouTube sounds just slightly too weird for me.
But I wouldn't put it past future me. I'll probably end up with a fetish for watching women cook pasta.
I haven’t actually done it yet because the idea of flickin the bean to, say, cooking shows on YouTube sounds just slightly too weird for me.
Why? There's people who actually have a fetish for anthropomorphic planes going down on each other. I'd say cooking shows might be arousing to a higher percentage of people than airplane porn is.
Well, that's a new sentence right there, lol.
lurking for other's responses...
I have heard about people with ADHD getting bored midway through
YES AND I THOUGHT IT WAS JUST ME! Im fact there's a joke about this on my friend circle. One time I was thinking about the word "recapitulate" and if the word "capitulate" has/would have some useful meaning. While I was receiving a blowjob.
A friend still has my name as Capitulate on his phone
Also, I like to talk while having sex, which my gf finds weird :(
Capitulation was originally the negotiation that led to one side surrendering, hence the meaning of capitulation as surrender. But to recapitulate is to have the negotiation again, or kind of re-discuss, which is where we get the word recap.
I just went down a fun little rabbit hole for this only a few weeks ago, glad I got to regurgitate it!
Oh that's so awesome!
I was thinking about the word in portuguese "Recapitular" which sounds kinda like "Rechaptering" but has the meaning of recap.
So I thought about "Capitular" (sounds like "Chaptering"). And, since recap means to "tell again is short form," maybe "Capitular" could mean "To tell for the first time" or even "To write/define chapters". Which is interesting even if not actually used.
Now do "uncouth" 🤓🤌🏼
The only thing that ever interferes with my ability to perform is being nervous. If this is a new partner, or we are in a location that isn't completely secure, that will make it more difficult to stay in the mood.
Definitely never had laundry pop in my head during the deed.
yes it's a problem. smoking weed helps me a lot to stay within my body during sex.
TIL some of my asexuality comes from ADHD lol
I’m asexual and I do that sort of stuff. Not the laundry in particular but my mind does start to wander.
Same. Masturbation takes way longer than needed just because of getting distracted. One reason I look at porn is just to try to keep myself on-task..
Keep in mind that stimulants are going to interact with your libido in perhaps unintuitive ways. Like a lot of my experience as an ADHD'er this means a more exponential curve where a normal person would be linear. Meaning I take a while to warm up to a situation but I end up having more fun by the end compared to a normal person. Stimulants seem to add more bumps and valleys to this curve in my experience. Also a lot of adhd'rs end up on SSRI medication as well which can dull sex drive. I have found that THC works to counteract these effects
I have never been distracted from sexy time, definitely one of the things I can hyperfixate on. Sometimes I try to distract myself to avoid cumming by thinking about something else, and that is difficult to maintain for very long before my mind drifts back. The few times I've gone soft was because the other person lost interest partway through and the mood was lost.
I also have a very high sex drive so can easily imagine getting distracted if that drive wasn't as strong.
I don't have ADHD but I've had sex with a few who do. Unfortunetely it's difficult for me as well because the other person doesn't seem to be into it, or as someone else mentioned, they're fantasizing about something/someone else. I'm not saying this to make ADHDers self consious. It's just other other perspective. It can be a challenge for everyone involved.
I don't have ADHD - but as I've heard commonly expressed by women... Stress about unfulfilled tasks makes getting and staying in a zone where sex feels possible and enjoyable so much harder. I can only assume ADHD makes trying to refocus on the moment extra challenging.
At least you remember to do the sexual things. Sometimes I forget that the concept exists and months go by until suddenly I remember "when last time I masturbated?”.
When I have sex I'm always thinking bout the pavement so i can avoid premature ejaculation. I got up remembering to thank him better things to do so i start drinkiiiinnng.
Haha I remember a buddy telling me his two go-to things to think about to keep him from premature ejaculation: his little brother masturbating, and his dad having a bath.
I like to harmonize melodic minor modes in my head...
I've always had trouble getting to the end. It requires great concentration and a partner who is willing to be still. It took me four years from the first time I had sex until I was able to cum.
Yes. Impotence can be a symptom. But ADHD is a very broad spectrum with no single underlying cause.
Sum ~ yes. Cum as u 3 !
Can you repeat that in plain English please?
Pardon, missticked the R into a 3:
Some people, yes (meaning, since you thought you do, fits the description. Come as you are!