Hey there!
My name is Sarah, and welcome back to Everyday Consent.
Before today’s video I’d like to make a quick disclaimer.
Believe it or not, I am not a doctor.
For today’s topic especially, I highly encourage you to do some of your own research and consult
health professionals of your choosing to learn more.
Okay.
A while back, I made a video about Self Awareness, which you can see here:
In that video, I talked about why being aware of ourselves, our minds and our bodies, is
a big first step in communicating with our partners and understanding each others’
desires and boundaries.
Today I want to continue talking about Self Awareness, specifically when it comes to pain
during sex.
In particular, I’m talking about the kinds of pain that we sometimes ignore or put up
with because we think we have to or because we think it’s normal.
Quick note: talking about what is “normal” when it comes to sex is a very tricky thing.
We use the word ‘normal’ to mean a lot of things.
Sometimes we mean, is this something everyone experiences?
Or we might mean, is this something anyone at all experiences?
Sometimes we mean, does this make me a freak, does it mean something is wrong with me, or
that I’m a bad person?
Sometimes we mean, does this make me special, or more interesting?
All of these are important questions, I just want us to be really careful about knowing
which ones we’re actually discussing.
So for the purpose of this video only, when I say something is ‘not normal’ all that
I mean is that it is not inherently necessary in most cases, and if it is harmful, it is
needlessly so.
So with that in mind, I want you all to know: unintentional, undesired pain during sex,
is not normal.
Sex does not have to hurt.
It is almost always avoidable, or at least improvable.
Sadly, this is not always the case, if there is some chronic condition or other issue involved.
Sometimes that pain can be improved or mitigated too, but that’s not the kind of pain I’m
talking about today.
Also, pain can be a very positive part of sexual experiences for many people when it
is intentional and mutually agreed upon, but that’s also not what I’m talking about
today.
I’m just talking about unintentional, usually accidental pain.
And that kind of pain does not have to happen.
To some of you, this might seem obvious, but from my own experiences and those of my friends,
and from all kinds of discussion boards online, it apparently needs to be clarified.
I’ve heard and read all kinds of questions and stories about people experiencing some
sort of pain during sex, but being so unsure about whether it’s normal or not, that they
don’t even tell their partners that something’s hurting, and they just let it keep happening.
Which is kind of weird and upsetting, right?
So why does this happen?
One thing I’ve noticed is that these experiences seem to be especially common in people who
are newer to sex or to particular sexual acts.
And I think it’s common for them not to talk about their pain because it is new.
Sex is very complicated, and involves all kinds of new sensations and experiences.
And if it’s all new to you, then you don’t really know what to expect or what is “normal”,
so you might even think that the pain is normal, and just a part of the experience.
I know that was exactly what I thought when I first started having sex.
I had a lot of issues with my cervix getting hit during penetration, which caused this
odd, intangible discomfort that was also often painful.
I would describe it as kind of like when you put your finger in your throat and get too
close too your uvula.
Like that feeling, but worse.
I also sometimes would get weird, shooting nerve pains when my partners stimulated my
clitoris too quickly or too roughly.
So I was having all these painful experiences, that I’m sure my partners were not trying
to cause, but I wasn’t telling them about it, and in many cases, not even trying to
make them stop.
Why?
Well, for one thing, the sensations themselves and where I felt them were really new and
unfamiliar, so initially, I didn’t even necessarily register them as pain.
And even when I did, I just figured that was part of what sex was.
And I knew that I wanted sex, so I figured that must mean I wanted this too and that
I would probably learn to enjoy it.
It was only over time and from talking to friends and reading books that I learned that,
not only could I have sex without these problems, but also that sex was much more enjoyable
without them.
For cervix pain I learned that changing positions could help, and for the clitoris issue, I
learned that just waiting longer until I was more physically aroused or using lube did
the trick.
I also learned that I could tell my partners about this, and they were always happy to
make changes so I could be more comfortable.
But let’s back up a second.
I said earlier that I wasn’t always sure what I thought about these sensations because
they were new.
Basically, I didn’t understand what I was experiencing, and I had no idea how I felt
about it.
But how is that possible, how could I not even know whether I was hurt?
When very small children hurt themselves in a mild way, they don’t always immediately
react.
Instead they’ll look to the adults around them to see how they respond.
If the adults freak out and run to them and say “oh you poor baby”, then the child
will start crying.
But if the adults respond calmly, and say “are you okay?” in a positive, calm manner,
then often the child won’t cry at all and will go on their merry way.
This is because, one of the things the child is doing when they look around after being
hurt, is subconsciously taking cues from those around them to help define their experience
and the appropriate reaction to that experience.
And while sometimes pain is just pain if it’s severe enough, a lot of how we process it
and frame it is learned, largely from these childhood experiences.
I think this process of learning how to contextualize pain comes up a lot when it comes to working
out, as well.
Not all pain is inherently bad, and in fact, at it’s core, working out is intentionally
inducing pain and discomfort, for positive reasons.
“No pain, no gain,” right?
But not all pain is made equal, which is why it’s important to get help from an instructor
or a friend to distinguish good pain from bad pain.
Anyone familiar with exercise will know that pain from working your muscles is constructive,
while pain from pulling a muscle or injuring a joint is destructive and should be avoided.
But someone who is new might not be able to figure that out without help, which is why
it’s really unsafe to use a new machine or try a new move without any training.
They easily might hurt themselves, and not in a beneficial way.
But this also goes both ways.
An instructor needs to teach a student how to move and how to interpret what they feel,
but the student also needs to tell the instructor what they are feeling, in the first place.
With any luck, this means that over time, the student gets better at observing what
their body is feeling, communicating that, and, with an instructor’s help, interpreting
that, and moving forward.
And this, my friends, is called Body Awareness.
And so pulling this all together, this applies to sex as well.
The first step is listening to our bodies.
Paying attention to what we’re feeling and trying to put that into words.
Even if it’s unfamiliar and hard to describe, we can at least try, and with practice it
might get easier.
The next step is learning how to interpret those sensations.
This might just mean thinking to yourself, ‘do I like this?
am I concerned about this?’
In many cases we’ll need some help interpreting, because, like our student working out new
muscles, an instructor can help keep us from damaging ourselves.
This might mean talking to friends or looking things up on the internet.
I’ll take this opportunity to recommend asking a health professional.
Don’t worry about sounding dumb, if you are concerned, please ask a health professional.
Better safe than sorry.
And lastly, once we know what we are experiencing and what that means to us, our next step is
to share that hard-earned knowledge with our partners.
We call them ‘partners’ for a reason!
And that’s because they’re there to help and learn with us, towards the common goal
of having a great frickin’ time.
Happy consenting folks!
I’ll see you next week.