Is it just me or am I the only one that thinks vaginismus sounds like a geography term, sort like penisula? Genitalia mostly surrounded by water perhaps?
In any case, glad the OP has a possible handle on the problem and possible solutions. Though like many others have alread noted, there are plenty of OTHER possible explantions that should certainly be checked out by the experts.
I’m such a giant asshole. I couldn’t get past the part where a woman who grew up in a sexually repressed environment has an overly tight vagina. I think Motley Crue wrote a song about that once.
Anyway, sorry OP for threadshitting. I know this is serious for you.
Well, I think a lot of gay men raised in conservative Christian churches in rural areas have 3 options:
And I think option #2 is the most commonly-chosen.
it’s not quite the same for straight men. At least when they leave the church, it’s usually because they feel their life will be (often) unequivocally better. For gay men, if they leave the church without actually being able to come out of the closet, there’s still a huge area of misery in their lives that WOULDN’T get fixed by leaving…so what would be the point of leaving it? At least they keep their support structure.
Plus a lot of gay men probably actually think they are bad for being gay, and stay in the church because they feel it well help them avoid/resist temptation. Straight men, OTOH, are less likely to have some frowned-upon secret desire that they feel ashamed of, and/or feel like they need to get help with.
Certainly I see a suspicious amount of swishy men in these kinds of churches, and they always seem to have been raised in them.
Hey The wind of my soul,
Glad to hear you’re finding out the medical end of things. There’s a LOT of things that can make penetration hurt, and most of them can be dealt with. A good gynecologist will take you seriously, be respectful, and make suggestions. If they don’t, try another. (Er, and if you haven’t tried using lube yet, do. It’s by far the easiest and most common solution. Sometimes we just don’t produce enough on our own, no matter how turned on we are.)
I was also raised very sex-is-evil, and after four years of marriage to a terrific guy I’m still exorcising some of the shit I got programmed with. It takes time. It’s also well worth it. 
Things I have found to help: Getting a nice vibrator and experimenting in privacy, alcohol, an active fantasy life, alcohol, a partial hymenectomy that removed any pain worries on that front, alcohol, making out like teenagers with my hubby, and did I mention alcohol? Your list may vary. Read lots and try anything that sounds like fun. 
Wrong continent. 
Except I didn’t think we were talking about women finding sex anywhere from uncomfortable to painful as a result of a religious upbringing, I thought we were talking about vaginas contracting to the size of an earhole and penetration being physically impossible even if one partner was willing to inflict pain and the other one to tolerate it out of marital duty. You seem to be making the same mistake as I was accused of a few posts ago.
English Whisky Co. Chapter 9 peated single malt.
Phrasing?
Yeah yeah, and your neighbor is an uptight cunt. Very funny. You’ll be laughing out of a different hole one day when you get vaginismus, little man.
Holy fuck! :eek:
No, but that’s still spooky.
Is this some weird beat poem I don’t get?
Groooovy.
This thread has pretty much run its course, but since I see some speculation going on in this thread I figured I’d address it.
First of all, the religion is Christian Science. Believe me, I could start a whole separate thread on the damage this religion has caused.
Second, for those of you who have been speculating about why my gynecologist didn’t catch it, well, first of all I haven’t developed a continuing relationship with a gynecologist because I’ve switched pretty frequently, due to graduating from college, getting different health insurance, or just plain not liking the doctor and switching.
But more significantly, I think gynecologists actually have caught it, but only sort of. You see, when I get my PAP smear test I warn the doctor that I don’t react well to them sticking something inside of me, that it puts me in a lot of pain. They’ve seen me tense up (I believe two different ones noticed this), but commented that a lot of people tense up when being examined because it’s an unfamiliar person, unfamiliar setting, etc. They probably just didn’t realize that I tense up outside of that setting as well, and I probably didn’t offer the information to them because I just wanted to get out of there.
To those of you who mentioned getting a specialist to look at it, I am due for my annual PAP smear in a few months, and I think this would be an excellent thing to bring up when I get that done. Although I do suspect that the problem is that I tense my muscles, because honestly, it feels like I’m tensing my muscles.
Lastly, Anaamika, your advice is really interesting. It certainly sounds more fun than using a dilator, and getting used to putting something in there in the privacy of my own bedroom, with no pressure to perform for anyone else, could be an effective solution.
Thanks for all the support and advice, everyone! And sorry to water down the pit by including a constructive, supportive thread.
nm
Oh, Christian Science. My cousin’s joined them, not sure when, I saw a shit-ton of stuff on Facebook about it, up to an anecdote about someone falling into a lake and lying at the bottom for hours but deciding they weren’t going to die, with gushing comments such as “wonderfully Scientific in its detail” I kid you not. :smack: Didn’t know they were particularly renowned for sexual repression though.
Anyway, all hijacking aside, good luck with the ladyparts - I hear the success rate for reprogramming them is quite high and with care and patience they will perform superbly well. I certainly hope so.
But yeah, touchy-feely-snuggly threads belong in MPSIMS. 
What song?
Kickstart My Vagina.
Wind, about 1/3 of women from Spain (numbers vary depending on which stat you look at, but they come up to 20-50%) masturbate without getting anywhere close to “touching ourselves”. I’d been doing it like that consciously for about 10 years before I found out that “that” was masturbation… and had been masturbating without getting my hands anywhere near my diapers, well, back when I wore them. If your techniques work, then to hell with everybody else’s.
For the rest, yeah, maybe therapy or a gyno will help, but practice is also important. I’ve had sex with guys who hurt me a lot and with others who didn’t, and the basic difference was that the second ones were having sex with me whereas the first ones were in bed with Standard Woman Number Something Or Other.
If they were hurting you a lot why did you not stop the sex immediately??
Hmm. So what are these millions of Spanish women doing to masturbate? Sitting on clothes dryers?