Some women don’t have vaginismus until they experience trauma. One woman told her story to Cosmopolitan, saying that her vaginismus didn’t start until after she was raped by a friend of a friend while watching a movie in her own home. She didn’t realize there was an issue until she tried to have sex with a boyfriend a year later and found that her vagina contracted to the point where her boyfriend couldn’t get inside.
She went to the doctor for her annual pap smear afterwards and cried when she found that she couldn’t bring herself to pry her legs apart to do the exam. The gynecologist had been rude about it, saying "You're going to have to deal with this or that boyfriend is going to leave you.” She wrote a letter to the board of directors in protest, but never scheduled an appointment with the new doctor she got.
She was diagnosed with vaginismus in 2010. Only .49% of women have vaginismus. That’s a lowball number, though, because there aren't a lot of studies on it. That can be attributed to the fact that a lot of women are too embarrassed to seek help on the issue. Getting over it can be like body-building: it takes lots of working with certain muscles, patience, and practice. Pelvic floor therapy can help cure it, as can practice with vaginal dilators and psychotherapy.
While her story had some dark points, there was hope. While she never had sex with that boyfriend, she’d ended up being able to have sex with someone else who’d been able to deal with what was happening to her body, and they’d been together for years before breaking up over unrelated issues. She was even able to have sex after that, so she’s hopeful that she has it beat. “Sex remains a struggle, even years after the rape, but I know my body. I am confident enough to share my issue with vaginismus with men I trust and I have enough self-esteem to know that if a guy can't handle it, he isn't worth sleeping with anyway.”
A writer over at Bustle also told her own story. Unlike the previous woman, S. Nicole Lane had had vaginismus from at least the time of her first period, recounting a story involving her first tampon. “At 11 years old, I cradled a tampon — a symbol to me of my newfound womanhood—and squatted oh-so-elegantly over the toilet. The Care and Keeping Of You: The Body Book for Younger Girls was spread out on the floor and I kept my focus on it, trying to follow its directions on how to insert my very first tampon. But despite my best efforts, I was never able to get the tampon in. I didn't know it at the time, but my struggle with that tampon was caused by vaginismus.”
Lane actually came up with a pretty good way of getting us to visualise vaginismus. She compared it to the impulse we have to protect our eyes: “Think of your eyeball and how it reacts when a finger or any other object comes toward it. The eyeball immediately, without your conscious efforts, closes shut. This is similar to how vaginismus operates. Vaginismus means that the pelvic floor muscle tense, and extreme tightness occurs.”
Lane also had awful experiences with doctors. Since painful intercourse and vaginal pain are symptoms of other things that are life-threatening, doctors try and rule those things out first and don’t normally consider vaginismus. According to her, she’s heard it all, including being asked if she was abused after repeatedly stating that she hadn’t been.
She also says that she had both primary and secondary vaginismus. Her primary vaginismus was the reason she couldn’t insert tampons, and she got secondary vaginismus after one gynecologist did a procedure that she promised wouldn’t hurt. “The “promise it won’t hurt” procedure turned out to be an electrocauterization of the cervix. Cervical cauterization is used to treat cervicitis, an inflammation of the cervix, and cervical lesions caused by HPV. It appears that I had cervicitis, and when I had cervicitis, sex hurt. Once sex hurt, my body reacted and protected itself (thanks, bod!), and thus ensued my life with vaginismus and muscle contractions.” Apparently that procedure was so bad, she found herself crawling up the stairs of her house and passing out right after the procedure.
That treatment seems to be working. According to Lane, there are ups and downs in her longtime relationship, and there have been successes. “Vaginismus doesn’t go away with a pill. It isn’t cured by taking medicine, or receiving a shot. It’s time-consuming, it can feel all-encompassing, and caring for it involves dedication and persistence. I remember sobbing when I was told that my diagnosis was 'in my head,' and not something that could be cured by a single doctor's appointment. I would have given anything for a quick cure, a simple antibiotic, or even another procedure. Unfortunately, we can’t choose our ailments. These are mine. I wear them proudly, and I will be okay, anyway.”
Unlike the woman over at Cosmopolitan, Lane got her dilators and used them every day. “I use the dilators for twenty minutes daily, or two times a day for ten minutes each. They come in a cute little pink pouch, which includes lube and five different sized phallic tools. I went right to work in hopes of stretching, and psychologically tricking my vagina into loving penetration again.”
There’s an active subreddit on vaginismus over at Reddit, and its there that a lot of women come together to talk about their condition. Some women go there to talk about their progress with therapy, some women go there to talk about their success stories and offer encouragement, and still others are trying to work through getting diagnosed. Some women are confused as to what’s happening to them, and some of these women aren’t women yet, they’re young girls and teenagers feeling lost and unsure how to proceed with getting better.
One important thing is to know that the condition can and does get better and disappear entirely. Lara Parker talked to Buzzfeed about how talking things through in her relationship helped her get to a point where the vaginismus wasn’t as much of an issue. “For years, I believed that pleasure and vaginal sex were synonymous. Sex and the City taught me that women were almost always able to enjoy AND get off from regular ol’ penetration. And when I realized I may never be able to, I felt like less of a woman. I always assumed literally everyone was orgasming from sex except for me, but multiple studies show that only around 25% of women are able to orgasm from vaginal sex alone. Regardless of my medical conditions, I am not alone in this. And when I realized that, it was easier to let my body off the hook.”
Another woman found that she regressed a bit when she ended her relationship. Reddit user vaginismus4321 got diagnosed eight months ago and worked through it relatively quickly, working through the entire kit of dilators and even being able to have penetrative sex several times a day. When they broke up, she assumed she was cured, but she found that when she tried to have sex again two weeks ago, it hurt so bad her perineum tore slightly. This is when the whole “practice makes perfect” thing would come back in. However, things like this can and do pass.
The Reddit forum is also open to men. Husbands and boyfriends write to the group all the time, asking how they can better support their wives and girlfriends. Sometimes men aren’t supportive when their significant others are dealing with vaginismus, but many, many, many men are willing to be patient and work through it with their partners.
Lastly, vaginismus doesn’t mean you can’t have a healthy sex life. Penetrative sex isn’t the end all and be all of sex in general, and there’s a lot you can do. One woman talked about working her dilators into sex with her partner to make things easier for her, and another woman talked about her journey from severe vaginismus to being basically cured. “I never thought it would be possible to overcome this. However, due to my determination to not give up again and to overcome my fears I was able to beat this. It took me many years to become ready to fully face and deal with this. Of course it varies from girl to girl, but it is possible for anyone to overcome this. Don't doubt yourself. It may take time and you may need to wait until you are ready, but it is worth the effort to see the results.”
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