Sex is never an easy thing to talk about. For whatever reason, it has sort of become taboo. I think that is a good thing—to an extent. Publically discussing all the intimate details of your sexual relationship with someone is completely inappropriate (also weird, unnecessary, and lots of other things). I’ll try to avoid doing that here.

Welcome to a special edition of Seth’s Steemit Blog where Seth isn’t the author for once (but he did draw some pictures!) I’m Seth’s wife, Jessica.

Today I'll take you on a journey through my life and introduce you to a subject you might not have heard of: Vaginismus.

Let's Talk About Sex

When he gives you that look...

Some people try to avoid talking about sex at all costs. But what about in a medical sense? Without disclosing any personal details—but discussing it in a purely clinical way? This is often uncomfortable as well, though I’ve never quite understood why.  

It’s sex.

Everyone does it.

If humans didn’t have sex, we would be extinct within 100 years. I don’t think it should come as a shock to anyone that couples have sex…and for reasons other than procreation (if this is shocking, I’m going to assume you’re under the age of 8, and I kindly suggest you go back to playing with your Lego.)

I pride myself in my honesty and I want this subject to be no different. I’ll try to make light of an uncomfortable topic by inserting humour wherever I can.

My Upbringing

I didn’t grow up in a religious home, but it was a very conservative one nonetheless. My parents are both recovered alcoholics and are active members of Alcoholics Anonymous in our community (in fact, that’s where they met). I have other family members who are still active alcoholics; either seeking treatment or in denial.

I suspect that my parents’ dark pasts caused them to be overprotective of my sister and me. There were a lot of things we weren’t allowed to do, things we weren’t allowed to watch, swear words I didn’t know existed, and terms that were completely foreign to me. For example—I was playing Catch Phrase when I was fifteen and someone was trying to get me to guess the word “booze”. You think that saying “Another word for alcohol” is enough for me? Nope, because I had never heard the word “booze”. The fact that my friend’s mom would sit and drink wine while watching us play was unfathomable to me (I got teased for that.)

Perhaps because of their conservative nature and desire to keep us sheltered, my parents never spoke about sex with either my sister or me. Ever. Not even when we were old enough. We never received the talk. I suppose my parents decided that it was the job of the public school system to teach us.

They never even talked to us about puberty aside from my mom telling me that I would never have boobs as big as hers.

What happens when you don’t talk to your kids about sex? You miss the opportunity to teach them that it’s okay to be open and honest with your parents. They’ll learn that since mom and dad don’t talk about it, it’s probably meant to be all hush-hush. And if I have a question about something sex-related or even puberty-related, it’s better to ask Google (I grew up when the internet was just becoming a thing). It’s a missed chance to create a relationship that is based on mutual trust and respect.

My Religion

Flash forward to when I was fifteen years old, and I became a Christian. I’m sure we’re all familiar with the attitudes toward sexuality that many Christians hold:  

Bad. Dirty. Wrong.  

Sinful.

This wasn’t exactly my experience. I was never explicitly taught any of these things. When I went to youth group we were told that sex was created by God, but it is only good within the context of marriage. Outside of that context, it is sinful. I never had any issue believing in this aspect of Christianity. I still don’t.

But even though my church didn’t hold any directly negative views toward the act of sex in and of itself, the subject was still very hush-hush. It was an extremely taboo topic, especially among the older generations. I guess they missed the fact that there’s a whole book on sex in the Bible. Ever heard of it? It’s called Song of Solomon. Google it. You’ll be shocked at how explicit it is.

Once at our young adults group, we tried to discuss birth control. Not like, “Hey what kind of birth control are you on?”, but discuss it in an intellectual, moral and philosophical manner (FYI: I am on birth control, most Christians aren't against it.) The next week there had to be a “special meeting”, because some people felt that it was inappropriate to discuss such topics in the Church setting (I try my best not to be too judgmental—but seriously?).

My Marriage

Flash forward another seven years, and I got married. Yes, I remained a virgin until my wedding night. And I was terrified. Literally, terrified to have sex. I had heard that your first time hurts and that you may even bleed. Scary, right? Side note—why is it that women have to experience everything painful? Anyway. Come the honeymoon, I found that I couldn’t have sex.

I don’t mean "couldn’t" as in I cowered in a corner and refused to try—I mean that when we tried, it was impossible.

Penetration was not happening.

No matter how hard I tried, no matter how much I wanted to, we could not do it.

We searched the internet, looking for a possible reason. We flip-flopped between it being his “fault” and my “fault” until we came upon a scary word—Vaginismus.

To keep this from getting too long, I'll cut it off here. Tomorrow I'm going to continue this story and provide a lot of information about that big scary word. Stay tuned and please follow @sethlinson!

~Jess

UPDATE: Part 2 is now posted!

All pictures were created exclusively for this post by @sethlinson, with the exception of the Frodo GIF. That came from Tumblr... and originally Lord of the Rings.