When Everybody Isn't Doing It
How three women have coped with painful intercourse
By Ashleigh Braggs
When Elise left her physical therapist’s office, she knew it was for the last time.
Every Monday for five months, the 23-year-old graduate student, had made the trek to the South Loop. There, her physical therapist used her fingers to stretch Elise’s vaginal muscles for an hour, pushing pressure points until the muscles released. It didn’t take long for a sharp, digging pain to ripple through Elise’s body. But even though the therapist told her that she could stop any time that the pain became too intense, she toughed it out. Soreness is a natural part of any exercise, she told herself. It would eventually get better.
And sometimes it would. Then again, on weeks when the rigors of her Ph.D. program were at their worst, the tension in her vaginal muscles was so great that it felt as though she’d never had any treatment at all.
Elise also had homework. Every night before going to bed, she stretched out the muscles in her upper legs and lower back. Every other night she inserted white, bullet-shaped, plastic dilators into her vagina to try and help loosen the muscles. She took a deep breath and tried to push it in. Sometimes it took more than one attempt. Sometimes her hyper-toned muscles would force the dilators to slide out. When, after a few weeks, she had become comfortable with the smallest dilator, three inches in length, she started again with a slightly larger dilator, the size of two fingers; then eventually the third, the diameter of a screw driver handle. Finally, after months, she reached the last and largest dilator, the size of an erect penis. Conquering this last challenge meant that she might finally to be able to have sexual intercourse without pain.
Elise has vaginismus, a condition that causes the vaginal muscles to tense or spasm, making any form of vaginal penetration difficult and sexual intercourse painful, even impossible. Many women with vaginismus cannot endure the insertion of tampons, their own fingers or even cotton swabs. Medical professionals have trouble defining or diagnosing the condition. For women like Elise, the difficulty of living with vaginismus is compounded by the confusion of trying to decide which definition of vaginismus to believe, and what treatment is appropriate.
Pain-free pelvic exams and intercourse with her boyfriend, Eric, motivated Elise to stick with her physical therapy treatments. Elise met Eric through mutual friends, and three years later, he still speaks of her with a tone of admiration. “She is intelligent, playful and witty and it was that trifecta that first made me notice her,” he says. “One of the remarkable things that happened, and this has never happened with any other girl, [is] we fell into it so naturally. I don’t think in most working, committed relationships, the members of the couple understand each other as instinctively as we do.”
Vaginismus is a disorder that affects the vaginal muscles; it does not directly affect the libido. Women with the condition tend to be sexually responsive. Elise and Eric were able to enjoy other forms of sexual intimacy as long as penetration was avoided.
Eric had always tried to emphasize to Elise throughout the course of their relationship that he didn’t mind that they did not actually have intercourse. “It wasn’t like it was an ultimatum, and she had to put out or shut up. I made it very clear to her that this wasn’t a deal breaker by any means. And I meant it,” he says. “I whole heartedly mean it. It’s an obstacle. I wish we would get past it. But at the same time, I certainly don’t resent it and I don’t mind it.” During the course of their three-year relationship, Elise and Eric have attempted intercourse less than a dozen times.
