How is my vaginismus?

Sexuality and the onset of vaginismus

If you look up the definition of vaginismus on the net, you will surely find this one: "Vaginismus is a sexual disorder characterized by involuntary contraction of the perineal muscles making penetration painful or impossible".

What is vaginismus?

Vaginismus is much more than a sexual disorder. It is a real suffering. A real ordeal, for the women who live it.

Vaginismus is also incomprehension and this question that we ask ourselves constantly: "Why do other women succeed and not me?"

Vaginismus is also this constant conflict between the body and the mind : The mind that says yes and the body that says no.

I myself have suffered from vaginismus in the past and I can tell you that it affected me not only sexually but also personally.

I didn't feel "normal" and I didn't feel like a "woman". It's stupid to think like that, you might say. But that's how I thought at the time.

I thought that the day I could have sex, I would be a "real woman".

If there's one message I want to get across to you, it's this: Vaginismus is curable and it doesn't have to be.

My relationship to sexuality before I started my sexual life:

I was never really interested in sex. It wasn't a subject that was discussed in my family and the only person who really talked to me about it was my mother. She started talking to me about it as a teenager when I first got my period. I remember her telling me to "watch out for men and protect myself when I have sex."

I had also never been interested in my sex. To me, my sex was just a tiny hole through which menstruation and urine passed (at the time I thought the urinary canal and the vaginal canal were the same).

At first I thought that my disinterest in sex was voluntary. But after doing some deep work on myself, I realized that my disinterest in sex and my sex had a deep cause: sexual abuse that I had suffered as a child.

I had totally hidden my sex. I was aware that I had one, but I had no knowledge of its shape, size, color or function. The truth is that I was afraid of my sex. I had never looked at it in a mirror. I only touched it to clean it. To me, the vagina was a rigid and very narrow channel. I thought that nothing could enter it (whether it was my own finger, a tampon or even a penis).

What triggered my vaginismus?

What triggered my vaginismus was the sexual abuse I suffered when I was 3 years old. I have very vague memories of what happened (I have a few flashbacks that come to me but it's still very hazy). But what I do know is that I had felt a very sharp pain in my sex. And the trauma came up again during my first time. I would even say that it got worse during my first time.

I had a very painful first time. I remember hearing a lot of women say how much the first time hurt and how you could bleed. Those words stuck with me and I was very apprehensive about that moment.

The famous day arrived and the worst case scenario I had imagined came true: I felt excruciating pain and I bled.

I remember that my ex took more than 30 minutes to penetrate me.

When he came in, I literally felt like I was dying.

What I felt at that moment was like being stabbed at the entrance to my sex.

Without knowing it, my ordeal began at that point. I didn't really worry about it at the time because I put it down to the first time. I didn't really worry at the time because I put it down to the first time. The next few times I had sex were just as painful, but I kept telling myself, "You're just starting your sex life, your body needs to get used to it first.

The first time is not always the one they show us in the movies. Sometimes it goes well. Sometimes it gets stuck and sometimes it doesn't happen at all. And you, your first time, how did you live it? Was it good? Pretty good? Or was it a nightmare like mine?

*Primary vaginismus is the form of vaginismus that appears at the very beginning of sexual life. It is opposed to secondary vaginismus which is the form that appears after a period during which sexuality was satisfactory.

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