You’re Not Broken: Understanding Pain During Sex
You’re Not Broken: Understanding Pain During Sex
By Taylor Neal
** This article focuses primarily on the anatomy of people with vulvas, though concepts are applicable to any body, gender or anatomy.
Many of us have been taught that one of the key components of a healthy relationship is a wildly passionate, constant, problem-free sex life.
Our culture is continuously silencing and stigmatizing sex, while simultaneously over-sexualizing all aspects of romantic relationships. No matter how healthy, stable, and pleasure-filled our relationships might be, often if our sex lives don’t mirror the steamy intimacy we see in Bridgerton, or if we’re not having the same type of sex we see glamorized in media, we feel inadequate sexually, like we’re doing something wrong regardless of what our relationship feels like otherwise.
If our partnered sex lives aren’t reflecting what we’ve been taught a “healthy relationship” should look like because of external factors such as busy schedules, desire discrepancy, or lack of desire for sex, we often feel something about the relationship is broken. However, if we feel that our own bodies aren’t working the way they should in relation to sex, if our own body itself is the barrier, we can end up feeling like we are broken.
When we have been taught that a passionate, constant, perfect sex life is what dictates a good relationship, then we believe that the ability to show up passionately, constantly, and perfectly, is what deems us a good partner.
If you’re experiencing pain and/or physical discomfort during sex, let me be the first to tell you, you’re not broken.
While it may feel like our bodies are turning against us when we aren’t able to show up perfectly to sex without any barriers, this is often the most important time to turn inward, to our bodies, to hear what they might be trying to tell us.
When The Body Speaks: What Is Normal?
Being at odds with your body can feel extremely frustrating, confusing, and discouraging when all we want in the world is to “function normally” as a sexual partner. But let’s think about this concept of “what is normal” for a moment, where did this idea come from?
Realistically, our ideas of how our bodies should be functioning often comes from the very limited amount of sex (mis)education we received growing up, whether it be from school, pornography, our friends, or social media. I say (mis)education, because proper sex education would have taught us there is no such thing as normal.
During our sex (mis)education, we most likely weren’t taught much more than how to put a condom on a banana. We might also have been taught that penetration will hurt the first time a person with a vulva has sex, but it should be smooth sailing from there.
In reality, there are many reasons why it probably won’t be “smooth sailing” from there.
Firstly, you may not desire to have penetrative sex, which is one of the major factors often forgotten during sex (mis)education when we think about functioning “normally.”
What Type Of Sex Do You Desire?
We’re taught that penetrative sex is at the top of the sexual hierarchy, and any other form of sex is either less valuable, or simply considered foreplay in relation to the real thing. Because we’re taught that penetrative sex is the default for what sex means, if we’re engaging in sex that involves a penis and a vagina, this type of sex then naturally becomes what we feel is expected by default; this is the “normal” way to have sex with this anatomy, we believe, so this is what we must do and our bodies should be able to do it.
If you simply don’t desire to have penetrative sex, no matter your anatomy, your body will most likely reflect this in some way or another. The lack of desire for a certain type of sex can result in bodily experiences that appear to us as dysfunctions, when actually our bodies are functioning perfectly as they should, and they’re just trying to communicate to us that this thing that’s happening isn’t something we truly want. Bodily experiences such as difficulty self-lubricating, difficulty to gain and/or maintain an erection, lack of pleasure, and physical pain when engaging in some or all types of sex, are just some of the ways the body strives to communicate with us in these situations.
In many cases, we push through these forms of communication from the body until we simply cannot ignore them any more. Most of the ways our body communicates sexually (lubrication, erection issues, lack of pleasure, pain) can be navigated around if we’re quite determined, but when sex becomes so painful that we physically can’t push past it, we are often forced to stop and question what’s going on.
If we do truly desire the type of sex we’re having, and yet we’re still experiencing a significant amount of pain during any type of sex, it doesn’t mean we’re broken or not normal. While it’s quite natural to meet this pain with anger, frustration, and/or shame, it can be much more useful to meet this communication from our body with curiosity and compassion.
Our bodies will scream at us until we start to listen. In turning to our bodies with curiosity and compassion, we are attentive, we are listening, and from this place the body can begin to speak more softly.
If you’re experiencing pain during consensual sex, there are many factors that may be at play. The first step to figuring out what is going on is to reframe your relationship with your pain, from frustration to curiosity.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s okay, and completely understandable, to feel frustrated. Let yourself be frustrated, let yourself be angry, let yourself feel whatever you need to feel. Then, when you’re ready, perhaps come back to yourself and imagine your sexual body as a child trying to be heard. Kneel down beside them, look directly into their eyes, and let them know you’re listening. From here, get curious.
I’m Listening, So Why The Pain?
We’ve already discussed the matter of whether or not we desire a particular type of sex, but we could very well be desiring a certain type of sex and still be experiencing fear and/or anxiety in relation to it.
When we’re experiencing any type of anxiety and/or fear in relation to sex, whether it be from sexual trauma, our beliefs around sex, our beliefs and/or feelings towards our own bodies, or stress coming from partnered dynamics, our body is operating from its stress response, otherwise known as a sympathetic dominance of the nervous system.
The Stress Response of the Vulva
When the body is operating from a stress response, what is happening is that the Sympathetic Nervous System is taking on a dominant role in our body.
The sympathetic nervous system is the part of our nervous system that comes online when the body perceives a threat. When our nervous system evolved in early humans, its primary purpose was keeping us alive during a time when humans were more often getting chased by lions and bears, which is why we refer to the sympathetic nervous system as “fight or flight mode,” which you’ve likely heard before. To learn more about how your nervous system works, read our blog on it here.
In today’s society humans are experiencing threats more often on an intrapersonal level than we are experiencing threats in the form of large cats, however our nervous system still functions in the same basic way.
When we’re feeling stress, fear or anxiety in relation to sex, our body perceives a threat, turns on the alarm signals, and goes into fight or flight mode, this stress response, in order to keep us safe. Realistically, if you’re being chased by a lion the last thing you need to worry about is stopping for sex, so your body removes sexual function from the priority list in order to keep you safe. The problem here, is that when our stress is related to sex in some way, we end up avoid sex all together or we try to push through it.
On a physiological level, imagine some of the bodily signs of general stress; tension, rigidity, agitation, shortness of breath, etc. When we think of stress in relation to sex, we can think of our sexual bodies operating with these same physiological responses.
For people with vulvas, this muscle tension, rigidity, agitation, and all other bodily responses related to stress can physically manifest in the muscular tissue of our sexual organs. Vaginismus, which is a common condition in which involuntary tensing of the vaginal muscles causes pain during any form of penetration, is the vagina’s equivalent of walking around all day with your shoulders tensed up to your ears.
If penetrative sex, or any form of sex or penetration has been traumatic and/or stressful to you in the past, your body has learned that penetration and/or sex is a threat. Therefore, even in the most safe and arousing conditions, your alarm system may still go off, and your body protects you in the only way it knows how, by making penetration and/or sex extremely difficult because it’s not a priority when a threat is present.
If penetration and/or the physical act of sex hasn’t been particularly traumatic or stressful itself, often our beliefs and conditionings around sex offer this same level of stress response.
Getting Curious
For some, conditions such as Vaginismus, Vulvodynia (pain occurring in any or all areas of the vulva), and other vulvar/vaginal pain, has been part of our experience since the very beginning of our sexual journey. For others, sexual pain can develop at any stage in life.
If you’re experiencing some form of stress, anxiety or fear around sex, and then your body is responding by making sex even more difficult, it can start to feel like a cycle of stress; stress about sex in general, stress around the pain it causes, stress about not wanting to disappoint our partner(s) with not wanting or being able to have sex, and repeat.
To break the cycle, we have to get curious about the root causes of our stress. If we’re unclear about where our stress, anxiety or fear may be coming from initially, we can start to ask ourselves questions like:
Who taught me, or where did I learn about sex?
What was my household like growing up in relation to bodies and sexuality?
What were my first experiences with sexual relationships like?
Who did I talk to about sex and relationships with during my first experiences?
How do I feel in general about my body?
What was my caregiver’s relationship with their body?
What is my definition of sex? Where did I learn this?
How familiar am I with my desires?
Where do I find pleasure in my life, outside of sex?
When do I feel most relaxed?
When do I feel most safe?
Spending some time getting curious about our relationship with sex, our bodies, and intimate relationships can start to shed some light on where stress, fear, or anxiety around sex and intimacy might be rooting from. The answers to these questions usually offer a starting point, or a window, for where our attention needs to exist more if we are seeking to heal.
Other Causes of Pain During Sex
If you’re feeling pretty secure in your relationship to sexuality, there are many other factors that could be contributing to pain during sex that aren’t necessarily caused by muscle tension and/or stress.
Some other causes of pain during sex might be:
Lack of lubrication (self-lubrication or use of lube during any form of sex)
Lack of arousal
Sex positions that don’t align with your body
Changes in hormone levels due to pregnancy, childbirth or breastfeeding
Changes in hormone levels for gender affirmation
Menopause
Menstruation
Yeast infections, bacterial vaginosis, UTI’s, and other vulvar/vaginal infections
Sensitive vulvar skin and skin irritation from fabrics or products
Razer-burn or other hair removal methods
Soaps, lotions, or any other products that throw off the vulvar PH balance
Scented or chemical-ridden menstrual products
STI’s such as genital herpes, chlamydia, gonorrhea and more
Lack of desire for a certain type of sex
This list is far from exhaustive, but it aims to cover enough of the common causes of pain during sex to let you know that there are plenty of reasons why you might be experiencing pain or discomfort, and none of them mean that you’re broken.
If you’re experiencing pain during sex that feels caused by muscle tension, tightness, or lack of lubrication and/or arousal, the best way to figure out what’s going on is to book in with a sex therapist to support you in getting curious about your body and your relationship to sex.
If you’re experiencing pain during sex that feels less like muscle tension and more like something else is off, the best way to get to the root of what’s going on is to book in with a healthcare practitioner that specializes in vulvar health.