(no subject)

[emo-princess.livejournal.com]

When I have sex it still hurts really bad..I have no clue if this is going to be an every time thing or not!! I mean I have had sex with my boyfriend about 6 or 7 times now and it doesnt seem to be getting any less painful for me. I was just wondering if maybe this is normal and if others experience this as well??

Also my boyfriend noticed that when he fingered me there was a lil' hump right when he put his finger in like his fingers had to go over a lump to get to the "good stuff". So I have no idea what this would be or if its normal or what?? please help because I am quite scared!!

Comments

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Vaginismus is not rare, not by any stretch of the imagination. It's vastly underreported, because many people don't think of a woman having painful sex as a medical problem.

Okay, I'm going to stop writing now before I go into my "how Western medicine has fucked up treatment of sexual health, women's health in general, and women's sexual health especially" rant.

[emmett-the-sane.livejournal.com]

Tell me about it! :(

My first gf, P, experienced painful intercourse, but was very afraid to talk about it with a professional. I read as many books as I could find (the web would have been nice to have, then), and figured out that she probably had vaginismus.

So, after a year or so of encouraging her to call her Kaiser (it's a sort of HMO) advice nurse and possibly schedule an appointment regarding vaginismus, the advice nurse told her: "No, it's just all in your head."

P put down the phone in tears. And that's pretty much where it lies with her today, over a decade later.

[lissarae.livejournal.com]

"Vaginismus is not rare, not by any stretch of the imagination. It's vastly underreported, because many people don't think of a woman having painful sex as a medical problem."

Thank you for bringing that up! I have Vaginismus, though I was unaware of it until a few years ago. Previously I had just believed the doctors when they told me it was "all in my head" (which sure didn't help matters).

emo_princess: Definitely take the advice in this thread... the more you know about your body, the better it is (for you and for your sex life). And I'd agree that a visit to the Gyno is in order. jmkelly put it perfectly: "Not to channel Dear Abby or anything, but if you're old enough to have sex you're old enough to take care of yourself, i.e. by seeing a doctor." As for being freaked out at the prospect of going, well, you're going to have to do it eventually. Better to do it now versus waiting for there to be a problem to prompt you. I would definitely search this community and the web to find out what to expect when you go, it can make it a lot less scary if you're prepared.

[jmkelly.livejournal.com]

I was wondering about that--not being in any position to know--I saw "2%" on the website that Google found, and over the next 5-10 minutes began to think, hmm, how many women who find intercourse painful due to vaginismus report it to their doctors (if they even have doctors), and how many report it but still get brushed off with "it's all in your head"? If we assume that only half of those who suffer from it tell their doctors, and half of them get brushed off, the incidence immediately goes up to 8%, and we haven't even considered women without doctors yet.

Thanks for holding off on the rant. Suffice it to say that Western medicine, after a somewhat promising start in the Renaissance, completely lost its grip on both male and female sexuality, to the detriment and even loss of billions of people's lives. Odd that the tradition that came up with smallpox vaccine and penicillin was completely unable to understand or acknowledge sexuality, especially female sexuality, for so long.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Besides which, even one in fifty is AMAZINGLY common for a disease that removes one's ability to participate in an important function.

The actual numbers that the Boston University Center for Sexual Medicine is coming up with are even higher.

Ends up with something like 50% of women having some sort of sexual dysfunction that deserves treatment. Most of them are relatively mild ones, more annoying than crippling. But the crippling ones aren't uncommon, either.