Pain Is Not Pleasure

Hello there,

Today, we are going to talk about something that is bizarrely still taboo to discuss in our modern society; The vagina. Something I wish I had known years ago as a teenage girl. Something that was never discussed as even a possibility.

Now we all know about sex. I'm sure many of you can recall your first time. Was it special? Romantic? I know mine was not.

Many of us are told that your first time is supposed to be painful because you're "popping the cherry." Guess what? That is a lie dating back to "biblical times." What I mean by that is that in Deuteronomy 22, it states, "If any man take a wife, and go in unto her, and hate her, and give occasions of speech against her, and bring up an evil name upon her, and say, I took this woman, and when I came to her, I found her not a maid: Then shall the father of the damsel, and her mother, take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel's virginity unto the elders of the city in the gate. And the damsel's father shall say unto the elders, I gave my daughter unto this man to wife, and he hateth her; and, lo, he hath given occasions of speech against her, saying, I found not thy daughter a maid; and yet these are the tokens of my daughter's virginity. And they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city. And the elders of that city shall take that man and chastise him; and they shall amerce him in an hundred shekels of silver, and give them unto the father of the damsel, because he hath brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel: and she shall be his wife; he may not put her away all his days.

But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel: then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die: because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father's house: so shalt thou put evil away from among you."

This testament to the patriarchal society we now reside in has driven it into our heads that you are supposed to bleed the first time because the hymen is supposed to be a barrier. That is in fact, not true. Vaginas, when properly aroused, will self-lubricate to allow penetration, without the need to bleed or experience pain. According to Planned Parenthood, "Many people think the hymen totally covers the opening of your vagina until it’s stretched open, but that’s not usually the case. Most of the time, hymens naturally have a hole big enough for period blood to come out and for you to use tampons comfortably." This is the same thing that my gynecologist said to me the day I found out mine was abnormal.

My hymen was all but completely sealed over. Every single time I attempted to have sex, it would feel like someone was stabbing me in the vagina. However, because both me and my partners believed that the first time was supposed to be painful, I tried to push through it.

Nothing helped. Not pain relievers, not alcohol, nothing. After years of pain, my body became naturally conditioned to expect pain during insertion. This became a problem during my first pap smear.

I was able to relax just enough for her to see that it wasn't possible for me to be screened.

I had two options. Physical therapy or surgery. I needed both, because even after the surgery, my body still rejected everything that tried to be inserted.

Now, I bet you're wondering why I'm sharing this with you today. It is because the idea that painful sex is normal needs to be abolished. Girls need to be told that if they experience pain with sex, then their partner is just not arousing enough. Initial discomfort is normal, but a stabbing pain and bleeding is not. This kind of forced penetration can even lead to infection. Tell your loved ones that it is not normal and to see a doctor if the pain is so intense. Push it. Make the doctors check. I would highly recommend a women's health facility.

Nobody told me that there could be something abnormal down there. Every time I said it hurt, friends, family, and doctors would blow me off saying it was normal. The studies show that this is a rare occurrence. However, I wonder if that is so. Most people believe pain is normal, so I wonder how many cases of such a thing have gone unreported.