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THIS week I have decided not to entertain many questions, but one issue — painful sex.
If it hurts to make love, then I hope to help. There is no doubt about it, it’s very difficult to imagine happy and pleasurable intercourse until you have enjoyed it.
It can be particularly difficult for girls. To start with, their sexual parts are hidden away from their gaze, whereas a boy’s are mostly very much in view, and he is familiar with them from his earliest infancy. If their mother was fairly anxious about potty training and cleanliness, girls may early have learned to think of that area of their body as being ‘‘dirty’’. Later, parents anxious to ‘‘protect’’ their daughters may have made the whole subject of sex one clouded by guilt, doubts — more or less taboo. All this conditioning can make it almost impossible for a woman to respond to her body’s sexual signals, or to think of future sexual activity with anything but dread.
Fuller knowledge of how your body works can relieve some of that anxiety. To start with, get to know your own body, in particular the genital area.
Get a mirror, lie down and part the outer lips of the vulva, the outer sexual organs, so that you can see what lies hidden behind. At the top is the clitoris, a little peak of tissue hidden or partly hidden by a hood. Below those are the labia minora (amalebe), the inner lips, covering the urinary opening, and below that the opening of the vagina. This may be partly covered by the hymen or maidenhead, which has many myths attached to it.
The hymen is a membrane, usually half moon-shaped, covering the lower half of the opening to the vagina. It usually gets stretched by the first act of intercourse. Provided this is gentle and loving, and the woman is properly aroused, this is usually uncomfortable rather than painful, and accompanied by very little loss of blood and often none at all.
The vagina is surrounded by very strong muscles which keep it collapsed. However, when a woman is sexually aroused, the muscles at the entrance to the vagina relax and the vagina balloons out. No penis can ever be too broad, nor any vagina too small for successful intercourse. The vagina can expand to allow a baby’s head to pass through, so there is no question of it being too narrow to allow a penis to enter.
When couples think that it is a physical mismatch which is preventing them having pleasurable sex, the problem is almost invariably a psychological one. If the woman is afraid of intercourse, or not fully aroused when the man attempts penetration, then her vagina may not be sufficiently lubricated — for when a woman begins to be aroused her vagina produces lubrication without her necessarily realising — the muscles around the vagina may still be in a tight ring, and intercourse will either be painful or impossible. The man may find himself bumping up against a wall of muscle refusing him entry.
PERHAPS YOU ARE NOT READY
Girls may be afraid of sex for all sorts of reasons. It may be the condition that I mentioned earlier. They may have a very loving partner; they may be married, and still can’t overcome their fears.
A girl may be afraid of sex simply because she is not ready for it or she is not with the right partner. A girl may feel pressured into sex, because friends say they are having sex, or a boyfriend is trying to talk her into it.
Well, to start with, those friends may be exaggerating or, if they are having sex, they may not be enjoying it as much as they pretend. For the overwhelming majority of women, sex is not pleasurable unless it is part of a deep, loving and mature relationship. It is illegal in this country to have intercourse with a young person under 16. Most girls are not emotionally ready for sex, nor have they formed the right type of relationship until some time after that.
No girl should ever feel she should have sex because her friends are.
If the pressure is coming from her boyfriend, she should remember that no boy or man who really loves her will try to persuade her to have sex until she really wants to. If he tries to blackmail her into having sex by saying that he will leave her if she doesn’t, then she can take that as a definite sign that he doesn’t love her or care about her deeply.
If any of that seems to apply to you, then don’t feel that you have a problem because you don’t want sex at the moment. The chances are that you will, when you are emotionally mature enough and when you have the right loving partner.
And please, when you feel you are ready to have sex, don’t even start until you have sorted out a reliable means of contraception.
SEXUAL ABUSE
Women who have been sexually abused often have difficulty establishing happy sexual relationships. Have you been raped? If you have that explains why you are having painful sex. You need counselling.
VAGINISMUS
If you know that your relationship is right, that you do care for one another deeply — perhaps you are even married — but you can’t make love, then you may be suffering from vaginismus. As explained before, it is not that your vagina is too small, or your partner’s penis too big, but that the wall of muscle around your vagina stays clamped shut.
It could be that your partner’s knowledge of what turns a woman on is more limited than he realises.
Some men still think that a woman’s sexuality is centred in her vagina, but this actually has few nerve endings compared with the clitoris. It usually takes a woman something like four or five times as long as a man to get sexually aroused. He should not attempt to penetrate unless he is sure that she is ready. This is usually after some time, caressing the clitoris or the area around it or wherever else you find particularly pleasing, having moved on to that from other parts of the body.
Women vary in what arouses them to orgasm. Some climax when their nipples or other sensitive parts of their body are touched but for most women stimulation of the clitoris is essential. The man should try stroking or rubbing it or the area around it, in different ways, simply doing what feels more pleasurable or exciting. When you have an orgasm the muscles of the pelvic floor rhythmically contract and relax. It may feel like throbbing in the vagina. The intensity varies widely, but it certainly should feel pleasurable. The man should try slipping a finger into your vagina.
You can choose a time when you won’t be interrupted. Start early enough so that you both have some energy left.
Get the room warm. Have a drink or some background music — whatever helps you to relax. Leave a light on.
Choose one of you to start — you take it in turns to lead. Using a little cream or oil, you massage and stroke one another all over. Don’t be afraid to say what feels good and what not so good. Say whether light stroking or firm massage feels good where. Keep your thoughts on how your body feels. Don’t worry about looking funny, or whether your partner is getting tired — his turn will come.
The first time you do this ‘‘sensate focus’’ exercise as it is called, do not touch one another’s sexual areas. Don’t move to touch these until you are both comfortable doing the exercise. The important thing is not to hurry the stages.
When the time seems right, then you can begin showing one another how to give the most pleasure by stroking and massaging the penis (he is sharing in this pleasurable learning too!) the breasts, round the back passage if you enjoy that, the clitoris and vagina. Lick one another all over, if that feels good. Experiment with kissing and licking one another’s sexual parts. Remember the only rule is that you should both enjoy it. You can caress your partner to climax. When you feel ready, your partner can slip a finger into your vagina — next time, two. If you find it difficult to get into the mood, don’t be afraid to use fantasies of whatever seems most sexually exciting to you.
When you feel you are ready for intercourse, you should take the position on top, so that you can feel in control of what happens, and not risk feeling trapped and helpless underneath. Straddle your partner, and slide his penis into your vagina gently. He must resist the temptation to make any thrust upwards. You must feel in control of what happens. At first you may only be able to cope with just the tip of the penis, but as long as your partner does not rush you, you should in time be able to accept more.
Learning to relax and take life calmly can help you tackle any problem, and is particularly helpful for a difficulty like this which is related to emotional stress.
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