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| Scene from "Enchanted." "And when you go out, you don't wanna wear too much make-up, otherwise the boys get the wrong idea, and you know how they are, they're only after one thing..." "What's that?" "I don't know, no one will tell me." Image source. |
[content note: NSFW language describing the mechanics of sex]
I have some thoughts about the good pure girls who follow all the rules, and then sex is painful. (Sort of inspired by this post, How Evangelical Women Navigate Sexual Pain Disorders: New Peer Reviewed Paper!)
A big thing that I think is missing in the discussion about this is the sheer scale of the ignorance, if you're a good pure girl. Not knowing anything at all about the practical details of how your body works, or how penis-in-vagina (PIV) sex works. You read in a book somewhere that sex means the penis goes in the vagina, but that doesn't make intuitive sense, and you've never watched porn. So then you try to have sex, and it's confusing and makes no sense and doesn't work, and it's painful- and the advice is to go to a pelvic floor therapist to get that treated.
This advice skips several important steps- I can't agree with giving this advice to a good pure girl who has just discovered that sex is painful for her. Yes, I think pelvic floor therapy can be a very useful tool, very helpful in some situations- but it's a tool, it's a tool which you should use if you understand your own situation and what you want. But giving it as the default advice when sex is painful... no. Painful sex, purity, and ignorance, they're all tied up together, and I really believe the first step should be to do something about the "ignorance" aspect of it.
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Have you ever had a nightmare when you go to school on the first day, and the teacher tells everyone to hand in their homework, and you're like "Homework? There was homework? On the first day?" Imagine getting to your wedding night and finding out there was homework you didn't know about. "There was homework? On the first day of marriage? I'm supposed to know how to get my vagina to open? What? I'm a good pure girl, how would I know anything about that?" And then you scramble around, trying to scribble something down and do the homework before anyone notices. You scramble around, finding a pelvic floor therapist to fix you before anyone notices how badly you've already failed as a wife.
How would you know anything about that? You're a good pure girl. You and your partner love each other, in a romantic, pure way, not a sinful, carnal way, so sex will just work automatically, without you knowing anything about it. Right? And then it doesn't, and you are failing your husband, it's your responsibility to get this problem fixed, get it fixed as fast as possible because you owe it to your husband to be able to have sex in the specific way that he wants, it's all about his needs, not yours.
I'd like to suggest, if sex is confusing and painful, to take your hand and feel around "down there" to get an understanding of the geometry, what exactly you're trying to do, where exactly it hurts. If you're utterly horrified by this suggestion- a good pure girl would never do that!- then I have to sit you down and tell you, you are not at a place mentally/emotionally where it's a good idea to have your partner doing things to you "down there." You should not attempt to have PIV sex, if you're horrified by the idea of holding in your mind information about the layout of your body and what mechanical steps need to happen in order to do PIV.
(And that's fine! It's fine to not have sex! It's fine to not be at a place mentally/emotionally that you can have sex!)
I don't know, maybe I'm wrong and for some people this does just work automatically without thinking about it. But, if you tried it, and it was painful and confusing, you are not one of those people.
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A good pure girl- before marriage, she avoids doing or thinking about anything that might be sexual. That will guarantee that she will have a perfect marriage and a perfect sex life, she was taught. And then when she is married, her job is to focus on her husband, make sure that during sex, she's doing everything the way he wants. She has even internalized the idea that she shouldn't honestly communicate to give feedback on what she didn't like, what was painful- it might make him feel bad and ruin the mood.
And then she finds she can't. She can't play the role of the good wife, because it hurts too much- she literally can't endure through it. Sure, she knew that in marriage, she would have to have sex when her husband wanted to, even if she didn't want it, she knew that was part of the deal. But this, this is so painful it's impossible.
What do you think she needs here? Does she need to go to pelvic floor therapy, to change her body so she can perform the required steps and meet her husband's needs and fulfill her role as a good wife?
Or does she need a different perspective? What if, for the first time in her life, she considers the idea that sex can be about her and what she wants? Her whole life, it's been "you are allowed to do absolutely nothing" or "you must do what your husband wants"- she has never been allowed to think about what she wants. (She's horrified by that idea, actually- wouldn't that be cheating, to think about what she wants, without her husband's needs looming large over her thoughts? Isn't everything about her sexuality supposed to belong to her husband? To take ownership of it herself, in ways that don't center him- wouldn't that be cheating?)
There are other options, besides going to pelvic floor therapy. One option is to not have sex. Or, you could learn how to masturbate. Or, you can do other kinds of sex besides PIV. Yeah just because you're in a hetero marriage doesn't mean you're required to do PIV- really! It doesn't! You have options!
Pelvic floor therapy can be a useful tool, for someone who understands their current situation, who knows what their goals are, and makes a choice to try it because it might be useful. Or, even if you don't have that understanding yet, you can try pelvic floor therapy as a way of gathering information. But *you* are in charge. Do the therapy if you decide it matches your own goals. Don't do it just because you have no idea what's going on, and all you know is you're failing your husband because you're not good enough.
Don't do it because "sex is painful, which is a problem because I'm unable to do the bare minimum to give my husband a good experience."
What if you change your whole mindset- it's not about minimizing the amount of pain you have to endure in order to do a good enough job for your husband. What if it could be about what you want?
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Ignorance. Sometimes it's called "innocence"- not knowing anything about "adult" topics because you're so pure. When you're a good pure girl and you're not married, that's the standard to hold yourself to. Innocence. Purity. Not having a damn clue about your own body.
And then being all surprised-pikachu when you finally attempt to have sex- the moment where all that hard work is supposed to pay off, all those years of never thinking about your own body in a sexual way- and it isn't anything like what the purity-culture leaders promised.
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In my review of the book "Pure," I noted that some of the people in the anecdotes seemed to have a belief that there was a "correct" way to have sex, and they were failing if they weren't able to figure out what those steps were, and check them all off:
What really strikes me about this excerpt from the book is, Muriel and Dmitri had this mindset like there's some specific thing they're supposed to do, as a married couple, and they're trying as hard as they can to figure out how to do it, and feeling ashamed for having trouble with it. They weren't viewing sex as something that was for them, that they could figure out in their own way, based on what felt good for them.
Like it was a specific series of steps, which no one explains to you because it's supposedly "natural", and then when you're confused about what the steps are supposed to be, you feel like something is wrong with you.
I'm queer now- which means I view sex as something that people can choose for themselves. People can make an informed choice about which parts of it they want or don't want. Make it something that makes sense for you.
What if it can be something for you, that you choose because you want it? Rather than just doing what purity culture said you're "supposed" to do?
But that would require first thinking about the extremely practical details of what the experience is like for you, what you liked or didn't like- and a good pure girl is not allowed to do that. It would require treating your feelings and desires like they matter- just as much as your husband's, and *more* than the feelings of whatever authority figures taught you to be pure- and a good pure girl is not allowed to do that. It would require making choices. And a good pure girl is certainly not allowed to do that.
The first step has to be, stop being a good pure girl. After that, you can decide if pelvic floor therapy would be helpful.
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The Cleveland Clinic site has a page about vaginal dilators (a series of differently-sized dildos, used as a treatment for vaginismus and other kinds of sexual pain). Here's a test: go to the section "How do you put a vaginal dilator in?" If you read those steps, and every single one of them sounds utterly terrifying, because you're a good pure girl who has never even considered such things, you're a good pure girl who has never even heard of a dildo, you have a vague fear that a dildo is something bad (is this cheating?) but these ones must be okay because they're from a doctor in a medical setting, and you're thinking about how to steel yourself to endure it, in order to be good enough for your husband, it's terrifying but you have to do it anyway, then this treatment is not the right thing for you.
If you read those steps, and you feel like, "yes, I am familiar with my vagina and the situation going on there, and I get how these exercises could be helpful," then it's probably a good treatment for you.
(And there are other aspects of pelvic floor therapy; it's not just dildos. The other approaches should be judged in the same way- does it sound like something reasonable and helpful for you, based on your own knowledge about your body, not on someone else's judgment about your body? Or does it sound terrifying because you've never thought of your body in that way, and you are going to attempt to follow the steps that someone else decreed for you, while still not thinking of your body in that way because you're a good pure girl? No, don't do that.)
I mean, I don't want to scare anyone away from therapy that might be helpful for them. I'm not saying "pelvic floor therapy is BAD"; I'm saying pelvic floor therapy carries the assumption that your goal is to have PIV sex. You should carefully consider whether that's actually your goal, because the doctor is probably not considering that- they're just assuming that's your goal. And you really can't make that decision- on whether PIV sex is something *you* actually want, rather than something your partner wants or something you were told you have to do- when you're so good and pure that you've never thought about anything like that. (Are you prioritizing PIV over other kinds of sex that you would actually like and would actually feel good for you? Well, stop doing that. Stop being so pure, stop being a good wife, think about what kind of sex you actually want. Buy a vibrator. It's your body; you are allowed to do that.)
Sure, go to the therapy. It could be a good way to get more information and help you make choices about what's right for you. But know that you can say no. Only do what the doctor tells you if *you* believe it's compatible with your situation and your goals. You are in charge of your own sex life.
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Related
Sea Monsters on Land, and My Life With Vaginismus
Vaginismus Is Not A Problem, In And Of Itself
Separating Vaginismus From Asexuality
"Pure": A Book About the Aftermath of Purity Culture
How Pregnancy and Childbirth Changed My Asexuality (or, actually, A Post About Vaginismus)
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