As a teenager, I’d never heard of vaginismus. And though my expectations of sex were pretty grounded, what actually happened was a complete surprise.
After an impossible first time (brick wall), I put it down to virginity and wasn’t worried. But a month into the relationship, I was frustrated things still weren’t going well. A chat with friends wasn’t helpful: ‘Just relax, you’re probably getting stressed and tightening up’, ‘Just shove it in, it’ll get easier’. And neither was the sexual health clinic. After being cranked open for a check-up, I was told there was nothing wrong with me.
A nurse did tentatively suggest a psychologist. But as an insecure teenager, the lack of context seemed like she was calling me insane. Involuntary reflexes weren’t mentioned, pelvic floors weren’t mentioned – and these guys saw a thousand vaginas a day. If they didn’t know what the problem was, there obviously wasn’t one.
I went home with a tube of ointment that looked like a super-medicinal lube – but was essentially some kind of local anaesthetic. There were strict instructions: thirty minutes before me and my boyfriend knew we were going to have sex, I needed to grab the nearest piece of cotton wool, apply the gel, and insert it into my vagina. After being numbed for half an hour, it was fine to remove – and have someone penetrate me without me feeling it. This was only seven years ago.
Time went by; with a long-term relationship, other guys, and occasional ok intercourse – but pain still ruined it 99% of the time. I was lucky to have empathetic partners, but I wanted sex to be better than bearable.
Google eventually brought me to nasty-named ‘Vaginismus’, which completely explained my symptoms: involuntary muscle contractions which tighten during intercourse, causing discomfort and pain. I was relieved to finally have science on my side, instead of feeling like a failure who couldn’t get a handle on her own body.
Happy that I’d cracked what was wrong, I wanted to know more. But this was where the resources dropped off. Even just a few years ago – as I’m sure you’ve experienced – there wasn’t much content about vaginismus online. After getting through Wikipedia and the NHS guidelines, you were at the mercy of the internet. Murky forums – where sad little men behind screens told you it was God’s work – and testimonials that seemed to be exclusively married American women talking consummation. (The variety of stories and experiences here on the network is a huge step.)
I read a thread explaining how we see ourselves as ‘precious’; and are inhibited, naive, and inexperienced with our own bodies. Beyond irritating, but I accept it’s hard to understand. If this was happening to someone else, I’d be the first to tell the poor girl to relax.
And that’s the problem; it’s a condition so alien to most people it gets overlooked and downplayed. All psychological issues present huge grey areas, and though we’ve come a long way in the last decade, this particular minefield is only just making its way into mainstream media. (Big thank you to Isley Lynn’s Skin A Cat, and Netflix’s Sex Education.) Compared to the *2,047 clinical trials on erectile dysfunction currently published on PubMed, vaginismus has just 10. A black and white reminder of how low-interest female sexual happiness is within medical research. *A further 93 studies since Lili Loofbourow’s sharply topical article last January. Vaginismus? Nothing new to report.
Lack of diagnosis keeps vaginismus in the background, but it’s easy to see why we’re sent home to chill out and try again. Sex is an impossible headache of variables: attraction, technique, time, temperature, partner, position, personality, performance, positivity, penis-size. It took me until my mid-twenties to rule them all out.
My personal turning point – and I can only talk about what’s worked for me – was coming across Vaginismus.com. Their website offers a simple treatment program; without suspicious joining fees or suspicious-looking products. You’re given two books and a set of dilators, which you work through at your own pace.
Fast forward 18 months, and I’ve seen a massive improvement. A mixture of pelvic floors and dilation training has given me better control over my PC muscles, and I’ve started to disassociate penetration with pain. It’s been a slow process, but I’ve learnt to trust in the brain’s power to change the body. ‘Curing’ myself – myself – made me feel good too. I got back a little bit of self-esteem I didn’t realise I’d lost.
I even had my first almost-pain-free relationship earlier this year. Getting a urine infection from too much sex was practically a medal.
Something positive about vaginismus is gaining a different perspective on sex; specifically, seeing vaginal intercourse as the main event. You work around it. You get creative. I’ve made my peace with intercourse, but it’s not getting put on a pedestal after years of orgasms without it. A healthy lesson for anyone, to be honest.
In short, there are many things having vaginismus has got me interested in: misconceptions about the condition, lack of diagnosis and education, pelvic floors for young women, our definition of ‘sex’, historical sexism in medical research...the list goes on. It’s overwhelming – but these are all conversations we can start to help with from experiencing it first-hand.
For now, I’m just happy to have lost count of the good times. Pain still happens, but it’s manageable because I stop the second it hurts. Pushing through only tells the body to defend itself even harder – leading to an endless negative cycle. The brilliant flip side? Good times lead to more good times; which lead to more good times; which lead to more good times.
Having vaginismus doesn’t make you weak, dramatic, or inexperienced; it’s just a poorly-researched condition that needs dragging into the 21st century.