Vulnerabilities

Ah, pain.

I’m still in need of vaginismus stories! If you’re a regular on Substack, you can message me directly using the button below. You can also email me at vaginismus.stories@gmail.com, send me a DM on Instagram or connect with me on TikTok.

I’ve had a busy few weeks.

The Tuesday before last, Dr. Janelle Howell, otherwise known as the Vagina Rehab Doctor, sent out an email about whether good sex is a want or a need. It was a fantastic read, and I highly recommend her emails and all of her content, but it was something she mentioned about dancing that stuck out to me this time.

At a wedding last month, I danced. This is noteworthy because I never dance. My partner’s grandfather was puzzled by my dancing, and remarked that my partner and I “didn’t touch” at all when we were on the dance floor together.

To be fair, I don’t know how to dance. I was doing what felt the most natural in my rigid body, which is perhaps why Dr. Howell’s email got me thinking. Dancing is sensual. It’s erotic, and oftentimes requires movement in the hips that vaginismus has notoriously made difficult for me. Could that indicate some sort of heart chakra blockage? Much to think about before I dance again…

Earlier that same week, I marked a long overdue item off my to-do list by reaching out to my go-to medical expert with the proposal I’ve been working on and a rough draft of my outline. I was experiencing only a fraction of the usual hesitation that comes with sharing my writing. A year ago, this email would have probably taken me hours to draft and send, but I’m noticing changes afoot.

That Thursday, a promotional post soliciting stories for my book was approved on the r/vaginismus subreddit. I declared the day before to anyone who would listen to me that the post would go live to 35k people with vaginismus and officially mark the end of my anonymity on the internet.

Of course, it didn’t.

A few people subscribed to this newsletter (important) and a few more emailed me about their experiences (more important) but still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was on the precipice of something big. I still feel like I am.

I’m coming up on two years of this undertaking. Two years of writing for an invisible audience, two years of submissions, edits, rewrites, interviews, and imposter syndrome, two years of dropped Zoom calls because I refuse to upgrade my account, two years of explaining to silent dinner tables what my book is about only for all eye contact to cease when I utter the word, “sex.” I know my research needed that time to develop, and I’m beginning to understand that my ego needed it too.

While I was in Wisconsin for the aforementioned wedding, I picked up Cassandra Speaks by Elizabeth Lesser from Lion’s Mouth Bookstore in Green Bay. I’m only a few pages in, but already I feel as if I’m being spoken to:

“It doesn’t matter where you work, what you do, where you live. Women know something that the world needs now. We know it in our bones. We’ve always known it.”

Vulnerability is a hard thing, maybe more so with a condition steeped in shame. Dancing requires something of me not unlike what drafting that email, posting a solicitation for vaginismus stories, and blogging about vulnerability does — a willingness to be seen, a lack of concern about what others might think, a confidence that after two years of this work and more than a decade of my own healing, I know what the hell I’m talking about.

While I was outlining this post, my sister texted me about an underperforming TikTok she posted and I replied, “If you build it, they will come.” I’ve been building, and I’m excited to see what comes.

A quick update to my post about fantasizing — my personal life has been a bit of a wreck lately. It probably goes without saying that intimacy (and dilator work) doesn’t always come easily in times of transition, even with the support of a loving partner. I’ve since upped my daydreaming game, and now more than ever, I highly recommend romanticizing your inner world when times are uncertain.