Vaginismus

With vaginismus, your pelvic floor tightens without you meaning it to, which makes penetration painful or even impossible. It is not unwillingness, and it is certainly not you making a fuss. Your body is protecting itself, completely outside your control. You want to, but your muscles stop listening for a moment.

What actually happens? The muscles around your vagina clench the moment anything tries to come in, like a fist closing. Sometimes with everything, sometimes only during sex. Often there is an old fright or some bottled-up tension underneath it, and sometimes there is no clear reason to be found at all. And here is what I want you to take with you: it happens far more often than you think, and it responds well to care. You are not broken. You are not the only one either.

By Victor, gigolo in Amsterdam.

Why is it worth doing something about? Because vaginismus almost never fades on its own as long as you keep pushing it away. And because the way out is gentler than most women fear beforehand. No big procedure. Patience and small steps instead, at your own pace. Many women notice that simply understanding what is going on in their body already takes away a good part of the fear.

What you get back is more than penetration becoming possible again. As the tension drops, calm returns to your body and to your relationship. You no longer have to avoid intimacy out of fear of the pain, and that is an enormous relief for you both. Recovery rarely runs in a straight line. But the direction is one of daring a little more each time, and being a little less afraid each time.

Here I write with patience about vaginismus, about why it happens and why it really is not your fault. And above all, how you learn to relax again in small, safe steps, without ever forcing yourself into anything.