If you don't mind sharing .... what cultural and/or religious foundation are we looking at here?

Does that play a part of your vaginismis?

Pep

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by Kati:

Yes, I was RAPED at 14 years old and it really sucks. It's the worst thing that can happen to a woman. I hate it; I hate that this happened to me.

</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">My daughter is 14.

Boy .... this makes me MAD! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Mad]" src="images/icons/mad.gif" />

If you get out of being "14 years old" in your mind .... while having bedroom relations with your H .... you will empower yourself and stop being a victim today for what happened to you when you were 14.

Don't allow that monster who raped you when you were 14 have any more power over you today .... take charge of your womanhood today.

Pep <img border="0" title="" alt="[Cool]" src="images/icons/cool.gif" />

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Pepperband:
[QB]If you don't mind sharing .... what cultural and/or religious foundation are we looking at here?

I was raised as a catholic. My parents separated when I was about three years old (my father had multiple affairs with lots of women) and I lived with my grandmother. She was very good to me, but she was very 'proper' and Sex was something dirty and nasty. Women who dressed 'improper' or liked sex were sluts and whores. I used to remember that I played with myself as a very young child and she would catch me and spank me and she told me to stop doing those nasty things. My parents came back together when I was eights years old and they had another child. I was raised in the catholic church, but I don't consider myself particularily religious. I used to fear the church. I cried having to go to confession and I would sit in the booth and not say one word.

Does that play a part of your vaginismis? I don't know if it does. It could be, but there is not proof. I also used to be a gymnast for many years (very competitive) and I developed incredibly strong thigh muscles and many times I would hold off urinating and I would squeeze my thighs tight. My physical therapist and gynecologist both think that this might have contributed to vaginismus because the tightening became almost automatic. To this day, I have not idea what caused me to have vaginismus. I've always felt very ashamed about this. I felt incapable of doing what comes so natural for most women.

Kati

Probably the Catholicism by it's self is OK .... but your beloved Granny's attitude toward sexuality may play a (small) part. I think the rape is far more significant, don't you?

If you have ever learned to wear contact lenses, this will be easier to conceptualize:

If something comes near your eye, you automatically >blink< your eye shut , very quickly, to prevent being injured. You don't have to take the time to *think* .... "Gee, here comes a pencil tip, I better shut my eye right now." No, there is a reflex that works quicker than thinking .... to protect your eye from injury.

Then, you go and try to wear contact lenses. It is very difficult for some people to consciously resist shutting their eye as their finger with the contact lens balanced on the tip moves toward their eye. Most people shut their eye just before the lens reaches their eye. And it's REALLY hard not to do this. It takes a deliberate willing of your mind to overcome the natural protective blink reflex.

But, most people eventually are able to touch their eye without blinking, with practice.

Now, back to your vagina. Probably mostly due to the rape, you have a nervous system that has become very protective of anything approaching your vagina. After all, you were seriously injured in this way when you were young, and your reflexive clamping of the muscles surrounding the genital area has become a reflexive nervous system response intended to protect you from harm.

Just as a person can willfully over-ride their blink reflex (with practice) to put in contacts, you can willfully over-ride your reflexive muscle tightening .

Practice practice practice

Start with your own finger, and gradually add another, then another until you can have willful control over these muscles. You can tighten, and untighten, at will.

Really, when you think about vaginismus in this way, it just makes sense that you are trying to protect your vulnerable area, an area that was violated.

Feeling "guilty" about having vaginitis is not going to help. Feeling that you can have willful control to release these muscles .... seems better to me! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

Now go wash your hands! LOL <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

Pep <img border="0" title="" alt="[Cool]" src="images/icons/cool.gif" />

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by Pepperband:
[, with practice.

Now, back to your vagina. Probably mostly due to the rape, you have a nervous system that has become very protective of anything approaching your vagina. After all, you were seriously injured in this way when you were young, and your reflexive clamping of the muscles surrounding the genital area has become a reflexive nervous system response intended to protect you from harm.

Just as a person can willfully over-ride their blink reflex (with practice) to put in contacts, you can willfully over-ride your reflexive muscle tightening .

Practice practice practice

Start with your own finger, and gradually add another, then another until you can have willful control over these muscles. You can tighten, and untighten, at will.

Really, when you think about vaginismus in this way, it just makes sense that you are trying to protect your vulnerable area, an area that was violated.

Feeling "guilty" about having vaginitis is not going to help. Feeling that you can have willful control to release these muscles .... seems better to me! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

Now go wash your hands! LOL <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

Pep,

I have come a long way. Before I was not able to use tampons or anything. My gyno prescribed some dilators and I was able to learn how to use them within a short period of time. I can now use tampons and I can insert most dilators. However during sex, I often needed to 'practice' first and I guess it was a mood-killer to my husband. Sex became 'Work' and it killed the mood. We did it less and less, used alternative ways of sex etc., but it wasn't the same.

In the last six months, I have been practising diligently and I could feel improvement. Last night, we had very good sex and there was no pain involved at all. It was very pleasurable to me and HIM. He seemed really happy afterwards and was very loving. I will definitely not stop 'practicing' now no matter what happens between us. ;-)

I think that I will be able to fulfill my husband's as well as my OWN sexual needs better now. I'm learning and it's actually fun. Takes my mind off this whole mess.

I'm very unsure though on how to handle the other things. He doesn't talk much about it. Wants to 'make it up' to me. Hasn't said that he will stop contact with the other woman. He said that he will think about it. Says they are just friends and that they have never had an intimate or sexual physical contact. I don't know for sure though....

Kati

Pep <img border="0" title="" alt="[Cool]" src="images/icons/cool.gif" /> [/QB]</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">

I just wanted to write again because I want you to know how much all of the advice meant to me that you have given to me over the last few days.

We actually had a pretty good weekend, and Pepperband, I did let the tigress come out (for the first time ever...) and I think my husband liked her. It was not easy for me to let him be part of me this way, but I'm glad I did.

Maybe things will get better now; I cannot say for sure. I cannot predict the future, but I'm glad that I came here for help. You don't know me, but I want you to know that you have helped ME a great deal.

I hope that I will be able to experience true intimacy, hopefully in my marriage, but if not then with somebody else.

Please know that I feel like a very heavy load has been lifted off my shoulders.

Kati