Currently listening to…
During a recent late-night scrolling marathon, I came across a TikTok or rather, a TikTok came across me, about the de-projectification of self. Target audience reached!
Relax. Said the TikTok.
You are not a project.
You do not constantly need to be improving.
These messages resonated with me. My most obsessive checklist items (Run five miles! Drink green tea!) are mostly compulsions disguised as self-improvement that I forced into my daily routine back when I was spending my summers watching VH1 marathons of America’s Next Top Model and using my babysitting money to buy tabloids in bulk. Even after unpacking these behaviors in therapy, I’ve had a hard time completely disentangling my sense of self from them.
Thinking about the evolution of my checklist takes me back to when I first started pelvic floor physical therapy for vaginismus and my PT asked me if I knew how to do Kegels.
“Oh, yes!” I replied, reaching into my bag for the actual, tangible to-do list (not kidding) that listed my daily self-improvement tasks. “I do 10 sets of five every day!”
The room was embarrassingly silent. I know I’ve promised the story of my physical therapist breaking up with me on this blog and one day I will write that post, but for now I’ll just share her humbling response,
“Brittany, your pelvic floor muscles are abnormally strong. Kegels are the opposite of what we’re trying to do here.”
By this time, I’d already been diagnosed with vaginismus. I knew that the working definition of vaginismus when I was diagnosed was sporadic contractions in the pelvic floor muscles that make penetration of any kind extremely difficult or impossible. I knew that the goal of my pelvic floor physical therapy was to not only gain better control over my pelvic floor muscles, but to avoid repetitive behaviors that help make them stronger. And yet, I prioritized those 50 Kegels every day. For years.
This is a funny (tragic) example of the disconnect that was required for me to constantly strive for self-improvement without critically thinking about what might actually help myself improve. Like I said, target audience reached.
But for me, the concept of de-projectification is more complicated.
In my body, vaginismus feels like a constant state of needing improvement. This isn’t to say that my partners haven’t been kind, gentle, supportive, loving, patient, and understanding. They have, but my progress has been slow, and intimacy is still a challenge for me. My attitude is still what I related to most in Fran Bushe’s My Broken Vagina — I am constantly trying to “fix” sex.
As part of that fixing, I’ve made it my goal to practice penetration with dilators every day. The only problem with this goal is that I absolutely hate practicing penetration with dilators. During interviews for my book, single, heterosexual women with vaginismus often tell me how lucky I am to have a partner to practice dilating with. So, in a joint effort to both fix sex and avoid dilators I thought… why not invite my partner to practice?
This has brought about complications of a new kind.
For starters, dilator practice is rarely something I couple with pleasure. I’ve found that a vibrator helps me to relax before insertion but experiencing vibration during insertion is extremely difficult for me. I most often begin by taking deep breaths and positioning my vibrator at a low speed while listening to a podcast, reading, or watching a show. Even though I’m doing an inherently sexual thing, the context is very non-sexual, and I don’t feel pressure to present any certain way because I’m alone.
Adding my partner to the mix immediately shifted this. Instead of defining for my partner the parameters of practice, I started our first attempt by taking off my shirt. In my mind, because my partner was now going to be involved, I felt the need to present as sexy. Naturally, this shifted the context and excited my partner but it wasn’t great for my headspace. When the practice session started feeling more like a sex attempt, I panicked.
I realized that the pressure I so often put on myself during a sex attempt is very different from the calm, relaxed state I try to enter in order to practice penetration with dilators. It’s the same action with very different contexts. Practice, for me, is solely about successful penetration without pain. It’s really just stretching. When I’m having sex, I’m of course trying to experience penetration without pain but I’m also trying to connect with my partner, communicate what feels good, bring them pleasure, be sexy, and ultimately FIX sex once and for all.
This experience brought about the need for my partner and I to differentiate between “sex” and “practice.” Taking the time to clarify which one I’m inviting him to so there’s no confusion or hurt feelings has been a quick fix.
The more I think about it though, the more I wonder if the contexts should be so radically different. Maybe I should be bringing my calm, almost meditative presence to sex attempts and maybe I should be striving for connection and pleasure during dilator practice. What might combining those approaches do for my sex life and for my pain?
Furthermore, how do I de-projectify something that has always been… well, a project? Dilators have been a work-in-progress in my life for almost a decade. If you have vaginismus, you know that we often measure our progress in treating the condition with literal centimeters! I already find it difficult to part with my to-do list tasks, and this one has been the most important one for the majority of my adult life.
I think the answer to that last question is probably learning to incorporate pleasure in the bedroom, during dilator practice, and throughout all areas of my life. I’m reporting live from the frontlines of vaginismus treatment that even after successful penetration without pain, there is still so much left to figure out.
I’ve got a post about exploring pleasure coming up later this week.
I think you are on to something. Maybe your list should be shortened of a few things. Maybe lists are not always necessary. Maybe sometimes should just happen with what ever feelings happen to be present. After all, your sexual moments are YOUR sexual moments not your lists. Great writing as usual young Lady!