Answers

Regarding my perspective on the modesty of writing this blog, let me put it like King Solomon might have: There's a time to be modest and a time not to be.

I believe with matters of emotional and physical health and wellness there is no time to be modest. This is a time to act, to educate, to inform and hopefully to save lives and people's marriages. People need to know this condition and situation exists and that there are folks out there who can treat it and they are not alone in it.

Regarding a lot of the well-meaning comments asking why I don't:

-Get really drunk and let my husband penetrate me
-Take muscle relaxants or anti-anxiety medication
-Have a hymenectomy (my hymen broken)

It's kind of like a mother  having her first child. She wants to have her baby naturally with a vaginal delivery. Now, if things go really wrong she might end up having a C-Section and that can be good and happy for everyone. And sure, she might have an epidural along the way as well. But she really wants to have the baby naturally if she can mostly because she wants to feel normal.

I want to feel normal. I would prefer to think my husband and I could make love when I'm not hopped up on alcohol (in that case it's also a sin; you can't have sex when your partner is drunk in Judaism) drugs, medicine or having to have some other person intervene and break the tissue.  I'm not saying I won't do these things if they become necessary. But I'd rather do dilators first, if I can/ something more natural and then move along to the more extreme remedies as we go along. I also don't want to become dependent on something (like anxiety medication) when the issue of spasming is something I can learn to control either on my own or the help of a physical therapist.

Maybe I'll change my mind but this is how I feel right now. Everyone is entitled to hold on to a little piece of normality.