Sunday, July 24, 2011

Happy

We figured out something that works, is enjoyable and that makes me feel sexy. The imagination is a wonderful tool.

-I took the advice of one of the commenters here who separated dilation completely from foreplay. I did my dilation for 40 minutes (20 with large dilator, 20 with the dildo) while my husband took a shower. Then I put on my lingerie/negligee, had him come into the room and so on and the good times began. The separation mentally between the two different states (off state where I relax and just dilate, on state with my husband) worked really well.

-I found that the addition of a pair of really high sexy heels to my normal outfit made me feel more in control and overall more dominant. The power rush was liberating. This heightened my ability to feel sexy as well. I'm sharing this only because it might work for someone else in my position.

-We also made sure the bedroom had candles, soft towels, delicious smelling body butters and other good stuff as always.

I'm (or I could say we're) quite happy with the results of our experimentation.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Defective

Despite the fact that many people have been supportive and helpful to me by email, it makes sense to me that nobody else has really written publicly about this subject. Yeah, sometimes people post up on the ImaMother boards or ATIME but that's not a whole record of their experiences.

The reason why is it's hard to be judged by everyone.

At least I'm anonymous. But it's pretty horrible for so many people to completely misunderstand my situation and sit here calling my problems 'awful,' me 'abnormal', my perspective 'skewed,' or otherwise be telling me that I'm stupid, wonder how it's possible I didn't know stuff that to them seems basic. Leaving aside the people who just laugh at my whole situation and think that a bottle of wine would be the magic pill.

That's aside from the many people who have postulated that me and my husband will always have problems because of this and that we are otherwise messed up.

It's weird how it seems so hard for the average person to just be compassionate, be happy this is a problem you don't have and be supportive. If your friend had cancer you would do that. But instead of that a lot of you blame me and just make me feel more and more defective. I'm feeling bad enough already. Why do you need to add to it.

It's not like I'm a product that you can just take back to the shop and say, I'd like to return it.

A lot of you could stand to learn from Taanis 20a-b.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Shiur

Someone on the ImaMother boards linked to this Shani Taragin shiur on Intimacy.

I listened to the shiur. A lot of it is good and some of it I don't agree with. But since most of it is good, I wanted to suggest that all Kallot or future Kallot listen to it as a lot of it is useful/ accurate. She even mentions vaginitis (although I think she might have meant vaginismus). She believes in giving her Kallot a lot of information about everything she can expect, including a blow-by-blow account of how things will most likely go down on the first night, which is something I agree with entirely. I also like that she tells the Kallot about sexual intimacy in the middle of their lessons rather than waiting to the very end, so that she can ask questions.

I don't agree with her that women will feel some amount of pleasure if she's already moisturized/ lubricated. It could be not painful but I wouldn't call it pleasurable. That might also be because of my particular situation, though.

One thing I dislike a lot: She's machmir about saying that according to the Ramah you can engage in sex in any position as long as there is no shivchas zerah levatala. But she ignores the other approach of Rabbeinu Tam which the Ramah quotes. My posek and many poskim disagree with her understanding of the Ramah and say there CAN be shivchas zera as long as it is bderech akrai (not on a regular basis). And when it comes to people who have vaginismus or other sexual issues, there can be shivchas zerah all the time (masturbation of the husband by hand, for instance or orally) because at that point there is simply no way for there to be penetration of the woman. And I can refer you to my posek if you need a similar psak.

I also found this post called "The Wedding Night Nightmare by Anonymous" (it was also on the ImaMother boards.) I felt like I could totally understand where she was coming from...then I realized that she actually posted on this blog with the Help for PVV email. I hope people contact her and she can help them.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Blue

So I'm back to being blue.

We were so happy about the consummation, the penetrative non-painful sex and all that. But then I stopped doing the 10 minutes of dilation every day, thinking that I could just do that before we actually had sex. We tried that and we realized: no go. Pain is back. I need to stretch those muscles every day consistently.

What's worse is that when we did try to have sex that time (when I just stretched the muscles immediately before) I couldn't move to help him or interact with him at all because I was in pain. Not excruciating pain like before but still unpleasant. So I just lay there like a dead fish. It got better toward the end when I guess my body had become used to him and was also more lubricated.

When I checked afterward, there were little tiny papercuts around my vagina. That was why his semen had hurt me; it had burned when it made contact with the cuts (which were bleeding, by the way). I'm not sure what causes the cuts. Maybe vaginal dryness, but that would be weird because after all we do use a lot of lubricant.

I also don't feel attractive or sexy anymore. It's a huge mood-killer when you have to lie in bed and dilate yourself for 10 minutes with the large size dilator and another 10 minutes with the dildo before you can even begin thinking about making love to your husband. And your husband also has to sit there for 20 minutes or so just waiting for the good stuff to start. I mean, yes, he could engage in foreplay while I'm dilating but it's a bit hard to do because when I first insert the dilator I'm in pain and not really interested in kisses.

We are still hugely happy we consummated our marriage and we're glad that we know that it is possible to have pain-free sex. My husband is an angel. I'm the one who gets all weepy and tells him I know he's going to leave me and this isn't what he imagined when he married me and how am I supposed to look forward to sex when it hurts me. And he cuddles with me and says it'll be okay, we're going to get there and of course it makes sense I don't want to have sex when it's painful.

I guess I feel disappointed because I had thought once we had gotten to the goal of consummating the marriage it would all be better but it isn't yet. Hopefully soon.