I’m terrified of being catagorized as an opal-type, but I can’t help wondering who else had this trauma as a teen. Anyone?
Some friends and I were talking about losing our virginity, and among the three of us, we had one person who was surprised to learn that all the cultural memes about pain and blood are actually true for many women - she had nothing like that. Then I was the standard - had a hymen, it hurt and bled, but not a big deal. Then one woman who said she went to PP to get birth control, and after examining her they told her she’d probably do better with a hymenectomy (or whatever they really call it), because she had a really thick, fibrous hymen. So she went back and had it done before having sex.
I’ve wondered about providing the opportunity for my daughters to have theirs dealt with medically. In this day and age, is battering it with a penis really the best we can do? Of course they would be monumentally embarrassed to ever discuss it in any way in which their parents might find out, so that’s an obstacle, but damn, a little Novocaine and a pad at the ready would have been a more sensible way to go about it, IMHO.
Ignorance fought. I had no idea there was such a surgery, much less that it wasn’t really rare.
If it makes you feel any better, I have no idea what being an opal-type would even mean (except that your OP seems to contain three clauses).
How romantic.
But seriously, these seem to be pretty divergent descriptions. A little Novocaine and a pad —v trauma…
Did the trauma involve trying before realizing that surgery was necessary or is my ignorance more intractable?
Yeah, I’m curious about the “trauma” thing to. I’d think the point of the surgery was to reduce the trauma some woman associate with the experience.
There are definitely better ways to handle it than having some masochistic GP jam a few fingers in there “for your own good”.
No, actually, it wasn’t.
The first sentence sounds more like assault and the second like a non-sequitur.
The best I can find is that dyspareunia is not necessarily related to an issue with the hymen. And for many women it can be very traumatic emotionally and physically.
Maybe I’m missing something key in the opal reference.
<disclaimer> I don’t have a vagina. But, II’ve had contact with several in my lifetime. 
I’ve heard friends remark that sports, tampons, and doctors visits partially tear hymens anyway. Not to mention boyfriends with wandering hands during make out sessions.
By the time the first sexual experience occurs there’s not a lot of intact hymen to tear open.
I’m guessing it’s referencing Opal’s tendency for TMI about what normal people believe to be personal issues.
I think the post means novacaine and a pad VS (versus) trauma.
Moved MPSIMS --> IMHO.
I’m not sure why I’m having such a tough time communicating in this thread.
To clarify: Yes, --v = versus.
My point was that Novocaine and a pad sounds like it’s better than sex–literally.
as opposed to…
Trauma, which sounds like, well, trauma!
Also, I don’t find this to be TMI at all. It might make people a little squeamish, but the OP is asking about something that happened in her life and wondering if others have shared the experience.
In fact, I would like to hear more about what her situation was like as I don’t know much about this.I hope that doesn’t sound skeevey.
I have had sex with three virgins in my lifetime (four if you count me) and–while I was young and likely self-absorbed–I never noticed anything being different.
Being a dumb kid, I figured I would have to get a running start and dive across the room to break through some nearly impenetrable barrier. (I was a little afraid I wouldn’t be able to do it.)
I Let’s go down to the quarry and throw stuff in there’d.
An unfortunate incident at age 6 with a men’s bicycle and a mailbox pretty much finished mine off. :eek:
I’ve always been vaguely curious as to whether de-virgination really hurts as much as romance-novels and middle school girls made it out to.
A friend of mine had issues with tampons and went to the doctor. She was given a choice of a set of doctor approved “toys“ in gradually larger sizes, or the scalpel. She went with the scalpel.
(Toys seems like the wrong word because they were designed to gradually stretch everything, but I don’t know how else to describe them.)
Of my three virgin partners, we never encountered too many problems. The first asked me to stop almost immediately and we waited another week before resuming with no problems. The second seemed to go just fine. The third had small amounts of blood every time for a couple of months but then it went away; she worried me the most because I felt like I was constantly hurting her, but she assured me I wasn’t.
Apparently some do not tear-release-whatever clean and this can cause problems down the line. My 20 something daughter had to get this attended to by her doctor a few years after she lost her virginity.
The mother of one of my high school friends apparently had this problem. When sex was still painful a couple of months after marriage, she went to the doctor, who simultaneously broke her hymen and told her that she was pregnant. Must have been an interesting conversation with her husband afterward.
They’re called vaginal dilators. Essentially graduated dildos sold in a clinical looking set. They can be used to enlarge the already exiting hole(s) in the hymen. It’s very very rare for a woman of teenage age to have a hymen that’s solid; most hymens are perforated with one or more holes of varying sizes, even without any fencepost or horseback related trauma or stretching.
Vaginal dilators can also come in handy years after the hymen is history, if surgery (like a c-section or rectal surgery), hormonal wonkiness or physical or psychological trauma has tightened the vaginal walls themselves to a point where a penis can’t comfortably penetrate, or for a condition called vaginisimus, which causes painful muscle spasms of the pelvic floor muscles during intercourse.
I had to have surgery. As in, under anesthesia, couple days off work recovery time surgery. Physically could not get a penis in there before it. Two fingers were uncomfortable and tampons were impossible. I was an adult at the time. I have no idea what I would have done if I’d been a teen.
I’m happy to answer questions, not sure what/how many details are wanted.
Surgical, no. Professional, yes.