I tried making a Reddit account and it asked me to build karma before I could ask on any of the relevant subs so I’m posting here.
I can personally say that if anything goes up there, it hurts, and not in a good way. It does not feel pleasurable at all. It feels kind of like placing a finger on an open sore and pushing down.
Also, if you’re being examined, they tell you to take deep breaths, as if they know that anything going up is going to be painful. If sex is supposed to be pleasurable and enjoyable, why would doctors tell you to brace for impact, so to speak?
Lastly, women often scream during sex. It’s often said they’re screaming out of pleasure and not pain. But there are a lot of things I find extremely pleasurable, but I don’t scream while I do them.
Is it just one of those things that is painful but we’re conditioned into believing the pain is actually pleasure and I must have inconsistent pain tolerance and I am making a big deal out of this?
Hi OP, I’m an asexual woman with endometriosis and chronic pelvic pain. Coming at it from this perspective.
Consider that some people find fisting and stuffing jars up their butt pleasurable. People are really weird, so no matter what you think of someone is going to find it pleasurable. Just because they find something pleasurable doesn’t mean you also have to.
If you don’t find something pleasurable, that’s okay. You don’t have to do it, ever. How you describe your pain is how I feel trying to do butt stuff and I just absolutely do not want to engage with it because it doesn’t feel good. I’m not going to go to a doctor to get my butt examined so I can do butt stuff, and I’m sure most the men in this post telling you shit wouldn’t do that, either.
You can have sex without penetration, if you want to. It’s fine not to have sex at all. It’s also fine not to even masturbate. Sexuality shouldn’t be compulsory.
I have a friend who couldn’t do penetrative sex, so her and her husband went to sex clubs and did lots of kink stuff without penetration and she says it was great. Don’t limit yourself to the idea that sex is only penis in vagina. A lot of men to try to tell you that. Hanging out in queer communities has opened my mind to a lot of possibilities.
Vaginismus exists. You probably have it. Doctors are really shit at detecting it. Gynecologists generally only care about delivering babies. Its like my experience trying to get treated for endo. You don’t just go to a doctor and get treated for pelvic pain like a lot of comments seem to be handwaving. It’s a dehumanizing experience and your pain will probably be ignored anyway.
I personally vouch that pelvic floor physical therapists are amazing, but I totally get why someone wouldn’t want to do that. It’ll also probably take multiple doctors and all the pain and violation that comes with repeat exams so it’s completely valid not to engage with the medical system. It was not made for women.
It is perfectly okay to stay as you are and explore non penetrative sex.
That said, the actual answer to your question is that, yes, I am a woman who finds vaginal sex pleasurable. I don’t experience pain from it unless the endo is flaring. However, it causes chronic UTIs amid the other overmedicalized bullshit that sex brings when you are AFAB, so I don’t do it much anyway.
This was a very illuminating post, and expanded my horizons on the human experience. If I may, can I ask what AFAB stands for in this context? I don’t want to just try searching the internet because acronyms can be tricky to get right, even with context.