Q&A: Pain and Desire
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Here’s a question about pain and desire from a reader:
Q: I just listened to the podcast with the first update about the new caya version! I am ugly crying. I have been having such difficulty with any desire for sex with my husband. I just finally realized it is because after the birth of my daughter, the extreme tearing through labia and clitoris and then stitching was done in hospital. Resulted in a mess that was painful to have sex even 6 months later. I kept having sex as that is what I am supposed to do as a good human giver. I had appointments with a gynaecologist after discussion with my physician. I just kept being told that there is nothing they can do to fix it. They suggested I have another baby as the birth will likely fix things. So I kept having painful penetrative sex. I became pregnant 2 years later. I hoped this would fix things. The baby was born via c-section because he was breach. Things did become less and less painful over the 5 years since the c-section of my second child. Sex is not physically painful now, but I just don’t want it. I feel anytime my husband wants sex that I just feel uncomfortable or mad that he dare ask me. Very Occasionally I will initiate sex and I do enjoy it, but it is so much work to get myself to that point. Sex on my own is so much easier. I guess I just want to know, if there is any hope for me?
I am just putting this all together here. Obviously something I need to work on. But I feel betrayed by the doctors who just told me to just have sex even with the pain. That my husband initiated sex with me even though it hurt. I feel the most devastated that I listened to them and did!
A: YES THERE IS HOPE FOR YOU OH MY GOD SO MUCH HOPE OOZING OUT OF ME ALL OVER MY OFFICE, THROUGH THE SCREEN, INTO YOUR LIFE, SO MUCH HOPPPPPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In addition to the hope oozing out of me is shared anger at the doctors who told you to just have sex—and I feel even more motivated to keep talking to providers of all disciplines about sex and pain and pleasure. I want the world never to do this to anyone ever again.
I am so glad you’re pain-free now. That’s an excellent (necessary!) beginning.
I’m also glad you enjoy the sex that you do have. That too is an excellent beginning!
Your difficulty at this point mostly has to do with the way our brains learn to avoid things that it has learned are associated with discomfort and pain. When I was a little kid, I touched a hot tailpipe on a car, and it was years before I could walk by a car tailpipe without creating distance between me and it. Right? Of course your brain isn’t actively interested in sex; it spent such a long time getting burned, it would be irrational for it to dive right back in as if it hadn’t learned anything!
It’s going to be a gradual process, but as you have more and more pain-free experiences and, even better, more and more abundantly pleasurable experiences, your brain will unlearn its hesitancy and avoidance around sex.
That means that for a while, spontaneous desire is going to be off the table. It’s not even a goal. It shouldn’t be a goal. Pushing for the goal of spontaneous desire would be disrespectful of your hardworking brain, which is still trying to keep you safe. You’re going to set dates, sometimes with yourself and sometimes with your partner, to reward your brain and body for all the amazing things they’ve done for you, with buckets of pleasure. You’re going to block off time on your calendar not just for the pleasure itself but also for the time it takes to create a context in which your brain has easy access to pleasure. As we learn in chapter 3 of CAYA, “context” is everything in your external circumstances and your internal state that allows your brain to shed all the stuff that hits the brakes so that it can interpret the world as a safe, fun, sexy, pleasure-filled place where it can relax and enjoy pleasure without any performance demand.
You and your husband both are going to reject the standard cultural narrative that sex is “supposed” to be spontaneous or unplanned, that it “shouldn’t” require any preparation to feel desire and pleasure. You know from the new CAYA and the audio preface that couples who find their way back to each other, erotically, are not the couples who have spontaneous sex or don’t plan or prepare; in fact, they are the opposite. They decide that it matters enough for their relationship that they cordon off space and time just for this, that they not only show up, they prepare for it, the way you would prepare for a romantic date night.
On the other side of this experience, you’ll be among those who have realized that the mainstream cultural idea of how sex works in a long term relationship is not only incorrect but fundamentally flawed. You’ll be free from that narrative. You’ll know that pleasure, not spontaneous horniness, is what belongs at the center of our definition of sexual wellbeing, and therefore you and your partner will talk to each other delightedly and frankly about what contexts grant you access to the most pleasure. And you’ll do what you can to create those contexts, because you choose to, not because either of you feels like you’re “supposed to” or you have an obligation or any of that other nonsense.
Again: HOPE IS SHINING OUT OF ME. This doesn’t mean I think it’ll be easy. The outside world will keep telling you all kinds of lies, like your pleasure isn’t as important as your partner’s or that if it takes effort you’re doing it wrong. And so you’ll have to keep affirming for yourself that your pleasure and your partner’s matter equally, and that putting in effort is the way to make great sex happen. But you can do it! I’m so excited for you! Keep communicating with your partner and reminding him that it’s about pleasure, not desire, and it should take at least as much effort as either of you ever put into preparing for a date early on in your relationship.
PS: If you're looking for the podcast preface to the new edition of Come As You Are that the asker is referring to above, you can start listening to it here. (It's three episodes total.)
Questions or comments? Please email my very tiny team at unrulywellness@gmail.com
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Stay safe and see you next time.
