Living With Sex

By Julia Dr Reeve

Do you live like a virgin but long for a different life?

Do you feel fearful and anxious just before vaginal penetration? 

Do you avoid sex, inserting tampons, going for a pap smear because t

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dr. Julia Reeve
• Release date: Feb 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9783949140044

Book preview

Infographic One, Part 1 - Overview

Introduction Without Sex to With Sex

The invisible chastity belt of vaginismus

Figure 1 The invisible chastity belt of vaginismus

There are many reasons why you might be living a life without sex. You may not have a partner because you haven’t met the right one or are going through a divorce or breakup. Or, if you do have a partner, the passion in your relationship may have died out, or you are both just too busy to find time for sex right now. This book isn’t for you.

It’s for you – or any woman or couple – who desperately want to have a healthy and fulfilling sex life but just can’t. And it is primarily for those women or couples where vaginal penetration is impossible because it is too frightening or painful or only endured while suffering pain. This issue is known as ‘vaginismus’ or ‘genito-pelvic pain syndrome’ by healthcare professionals.

Suffering from vaginismus doesn’t mean that you have low libido or don’t desire or lust for sex. On the contrary, sufferers often enjoy sex in all its variations – except for vaginal penetration. However, with time, this is like drinking cappuccino without milk, and couples tend to become more and more frustrated. In most cases, women start to question whether they are healthy and normal, while men begin to wonder if their partner doesn’t love or trust them enough or worry that they are doing something wrong.

Over time, any attempts at ‘normal’ penetrative lovemaking become more and more infrequent because it just doesn’t work. Couples often end up thinking: Why bother trying if it always results in disappointment and frustration? These women or couples usually search desperately for an answer, perhaps turning to psychotherapy, physiotherapy for the pelvic muscles, hypnosis or sex therapy – but often without any noticeable improvement to their sex lives. Any feelings of sexual lust over time, disintegrate and are never entirely fulfilled until one day, the last little flame dies out and living without sex altogether becomes the standard.

Why Use This Book?

If you are suffering from vaginismus or have a loved one who does, then this is the right place to be because there is a way to entirely overcome this condition and enjoy sex with vaginal penetration. The treatment may not always feel comfortable or easy, especially because you have to conquer specific fears, and it will require your full participation. Still, it is a fast and proven method.

I am a gynaecologist, psychotherapist and sexologist, and have been treating women with vaginismus for over 25 years. My unique therapy method has evolved as I learned about vaginismus through knowledge of gynaecology, psychotherapy and sexology and from working with women and their partners. Each couple and every single woman who comes to see me, has their own story to tell, their own personal pain and fear. I share many of their case studies in this book (all their names have been changed to pseudonyms) because interaction, feedback, observation and evaluation have brought my therapy method to where it stands today. I hope it will help you better understand the condition and how to heal it.

The method I apply in my clinic is the same one described in this book, and I hope this approach to treating vaginismus helps you overcome this challenge and heal. You can use my method on your own or with your partner. Doctors and other healthcare professionals can find therapy methods and guidelines in Living with Sex to help them treat vaginismus. When applied, my approach leads to fast results and has been a life-changer for those women/couples I’ve had the pleasure of working with. It can help you transform your life from living without sex to living with sex.

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Overcoming vaginismus is straightforward but will require your full participation

Figure 2 Overcoming vaginismus is straightforward but will require your full participation

Sex: The Magic Ingredient

Apart from providing us with offspring, sex should be fun. Sex is definitely not just about penetration. We can’t know how vital sex is to the individual because it varies from person to person. In a relationship, partners must be well-matched sexually – in libido, tastes and desire. That way, neither partner loses out or feels it’s all too much. Those who can’t enjoy vaginal penetration will usually find other ways to experience sexual pleasure. Still, there will always be something missing, and if this isn’t acceptable to both partners, then it’s likely to become a massive problem in time.

If you look at couples who stay together and are happy, they tend to have one thing in common; we can’t see it, but we can sense it. They share some sort of special glue that helps them stick together for a whole lifetime. The ingredients of the bond might include friendship, deep understanding, feelings of love, independence, common interests or leisure activities, and last but not least, satisfying, pleasurable sex, which makes it for the most an essential component.

Couples/women who have vaginismus enjoy all sorts of sexual activities. Some will have penetrative sex but not vaginal. However, most long to feel ‘normal’ and have sex with vaginal penetration (which I refer to as PVSex – penetrative vaginal sex in this book) but need help with this particular element in their relationship. I use the word `normal´ here because this is the term almost all my patients use themselves - they always write, ‘I want to feel like a normal woman.’ Naturally, they are normal women but they don’t feel like it.

A significant number of the couples I have seen for therapy have been together for a long time – some between five and 20 years – without having PVSex. They describe how they tried and tried initially, and slowly over the years, their ventures became fewer and far between – until all attempts to have PVSex diminish, and some couples stop having sex altogether. It is impressive to see how these couples have so much love and friendship that they stay together, despite the lack of PVSex. Single women who come to therapy often describe how boyfriends have left them because of the vaginismus.

Case Study

Grace (28 years) described how her first boyfriend stayed with her for five years, until she was age 22, before giving up on her and finding someone else to have ‘real’ sex with. At 24, the second man she dated lasted a mere four months. She thought things might be different with another man, but in the end, it was precisely the same and just too much for him. He said he couldn’t wait that long. Her third boyfriend lasted only one week, and she was 25 years old. When on the third date they weren’t able to have sex, he never returned her calls. Then she decided to tell her dates beforehand that she had problems. Most men never contacted her again, while others were simply curious and hurtful. After researching on the Internet, Grace found that her dilemma had a name – vaginismus. With this information, she could to start looking for a solution. It took Grace just six weeks after completing her three-day therapy to find her next boyfriend. She was able to have PVSex straight away and now, two years later, they are still a couple.

I knew after therapy that I needed to find Mr X, someone to share my first time sex with. I found him quite by chance and soon after therapy. I tried having sex and it worked! I could have hugged the whole world! This has changed my life completely!

Grace

Case Study

Jessica (39 years) and Robert (42 years) were teenage sweethearts. They met when Jessica was just 15 years old and had been together ever since. When Robert turned 35, he told Jessica that he really didn’t want to stay a virgin for the rest of his life. They had stopped looking for ways out of their dilemma and had put all their energy into their jobs. They longed to have kids and to lead what they called a ‘normal’ sex life. They started searching for solutions and tried various methods of therapy over the years. The couple had PVSex just ten days after finishing this therapy. A year later, Jessica was pregnant, and they now have two children.

We now have two children something I could never have imagined before! I tried so many different things before this therapy worked. I conquered my vaginismus really fast and got pregnant without the help of doctors! Sex is getting better and better.

Jessica

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To make that change and transform from living without sex to living with sex, you will need help and support from your loved ones. If you stick to the programme described in this book and become determined about reaching your goal, then you, too, can enjoy sex with vaginal penetration within 30 days. The techniques described in this book will help you learn how to have PVSex without fear or pain. And I’ll be there, guiding you and showing you how to open the door to a life with sex. If at any point you feel like connecting, please join our forum and get talking to others who can share experiences and ideas with you (see the Resources section).

Vaginismus in a Nutshell

If you suffer from vaginismus, you are not alone, one out of 10 women suffer from it. ¹, ², ³, ⁴ Unsurprisingly, many sufferers avoid sex altogether or remain virgins for life or stay single. The condition affects women of all ages and is independent of ethnic origins, social status, age, or religious background. Vaginismus is the main reason for unconsummated marriages, often leading to heartbreak and frustration. Women and their loved ones suffer silently because sex is, in many countries, still taboo and treatment is hard to find. The majority of doctors are unfamiliar with the problem or don’t know how to treat it. For sufferers, it can be like wearing an invisible chastity belt to which no one has the key. 

Let me reassure you that having vaginismus doesn’t mean you’re an ugly duckling or broken. Many sufferers are beautiful, talented women who hold high positions in society; they are well-educated and knowledgeable. They are often married or in long-lasting relationships; some decide to remain single.

Women and their partners are usually ashamed of telling their general practitioner or other health professionals that they can’t have PVSex. It is also not unknown for women with vaginismus to create stories to hide the real reason why, for instance, they don't have children or join in the conversations about sex with friends. In particular, many women describe how they have made up stories about their sex life in front of friends to avoid attracting attention to the fact that they are still virgins.

Case Study

Helen (22 years) told me she had been making up stories of her love life for so long that things were getting extremely complicated, and she didn't have the heart or bravery to tell her best friends. When she eventually plucked up enough courage to share that she suffered from vaginismus, her friends were stunned. After the initial shock, they embraced her warmly, and she found encouragement in their loving support.

I always cry a lot. But when I was with my best friends, there are four of us, I decided I couldn’t lie any longer. They were all laughing about some guy one of them had met and I burst into tears and told them that I couldn’t have sex because it hurt so and I never wanted to have sex ever. They all cuddled me - you know a big group cuddle. And then one of them said, ‘So, now what are we going to do about it?’ That’s when I first told myself there must be a solution!

Helen

Social Consequences and the Virgin Queen

The social consequences and costs of vaginismus can be immeasurable, including:

Not being able to join in when your friends discuss their sex lives and perhaps lying to cover up the truth. 

Not being able to wear tampons and feel free during your menstrual period. Not being able to go swimming during your period.

Feeling isolated because you can’t always join in.

Withdrawing from social activities.

Fear of opening up and talking to the doctor.

Being unaware of what is wrong, thinking you are not normal.

Frustration because your doctor doesn’t have a remedy.

Fear of gynaecological examinations.

Avoiding conversations with friends and family about getting pregnant and having kids.

Having to see a gynaecologist or fertility clinic because you want to get pregnant without having sex.

Feeling afraid of giving birth and needing a caesarean section.

Women with vaginismus may visit many doctors, psychotherapists, physiotherapists, even surgeons seeking help but often to no avail. Desperate to get pregnant, many women end up going to a fertility clinic for artificial insemination or other methods to get pregnant.

Possibly, the first-ever documented case of vaginismus was Queen Elizabeth I of England, also called the Virgin Queen. It was public knowledge that Elizabeth had a lover for many years. However, the lover secretly married another woman and had children with her while continuing to court the Queen. When Elizabeth found out, she was devastated and angry, but why did he risk angering the Queen – the most powerful woman in the country?

The reason becomes more evident if we look at later years when Elizabeth was engaged to marry the Duke of Anjou. In preparation for the wedding, she was examined, as was tradition, by several doctors. Then the marriage was called off because the Duke was deemed unsuitable.

After the Queen’s death, the poet and playwright Ben Jonson (1572-1637) asserted that Elizabeth ‘had a membrana on her, which made her incapable of man’. He claimed that at the coming over of Monsieur [the Duke of Anjou], ‘there was a French surgeon who took in hand to cut it, yet fear stayed in her’. ⁵ In an essay by K. Peterson ⁶ there is an in-depth account of the queen’s gynaecological health. According to Peterson, it is not clear whether the Queen did actually have an operation as the surgeon died suddenly before he could carry out surgery. The Duke of Anjou was sent back home. Interestingly, the same essay cites the French philosopher Peter Bayle (1710) ‘it is certain, she (Elizabeth I) had no vulva’. Peterson also cites Paré, a famous surgeon of that time, who saw in two virgins and an older maid ‘there is another membrane, which, when it is present (which is but seldom) it stoppeth, so that the yard cannot be put into the orifice of the womb, for it is very thick above towards the bladder, it hath an hole by which the