Ever since I started hooking up with guys and after having come to the realization that I wasn’t totally normal in the sex department, I started wondering about relationships and sex and if I was ever going to be able to have a normal relationship with a guy. I didn’t have the chance to find out until this time last year when I met a wonderful guy who wanted me to be his girlfriend despite the fact that I was a virgin (sure, he kind of became an asshole in the end, when he dumped me with no real explanation, but he’s still the only man I’ve ever loved, therefore I’ll refer to him as “wonderful”). Needless to say, we never actually had sex. We tried and tried for months, and I couldn’t believe how patient he was being with me. Despite this malfunction in the relationship, I thought everything else was perfect, he made me insanely happy and I thought that one day I’d be able to just do it. But that day never came, and unfortunately, the relationship ended before I even got the chance to find out that my problem was an actual medical condition. I never got to find out if he would have chosen to stay with me, had he known about it (this is, of course, without taking into consideration the fact that he stopped having feelings for me). But anyway, all that is beside the point.
Needless to say, now that I know that I have this “disability”, I’ve become convinced that I’m going to spend the rest of my life alone, because no man in his right mind would wanna be with a permanent virgin. However, I was very happily surprised to see that a lot of the women in my support group are actually married or are in serious relationships. So at least I know it’s possible, and they’ve reassured me that there are nice guys out there who look past the sex. We’ll see if they’re right. They’ve also reassured me that intercourse isn’t the only type of sex. There are plenty of other ways to enjoy sex without penetration- “non-traditional sex” as I now like to call it.
Today, in one of my frustrated moods, I posted an email to the group talking about my experiences and my fears when it comes to relationships and vaginismus:
Hi everyone,
Please excuse this long, random, and somewhat off-topic post, but I wanted to share this with someone, and who better to share it with than my supportive, awesome group of women with vag? Ever since I found out I have this “condition”, I’ve been thinking a lot about relationships, especially when it comes to women with vag. I would normally just write this out in my journal or something, but if any of you actually read this, I’d like to hear some of your opinions/insights.
From reading all the posts, it seems to me that a great majority of you are married or are in serious relationships, even though a lot of you have never been able to have sex with your partners. Although it’s great to hear that women with vag are still able to have normal relationships with men, I find it kind of baffling. I guess I have a warped view of men and relationships, but judging from my experience, I find that men are complete horndogs, and would never want to be in a relationship with a woman he couldn’t have sex with.
In college, “dating” consisted of a girl going to a frat house with her girl friends and 5 bucks in her pocket, drinking as much keg beer as possible, and hooking-up with the first good-looking drunk guy to hit on her. If she was lucky, said drunk guy would like her enough to make this type of drunken hook-up a regular weekend thing. I am ashamed to say that I was one of those girls, although I hardly ever went past the making out phase, and there was obviously no intercourse involved (thank god for vag, in this case!) Needless to say, my relationships at that time never went anywhere. As one guy bluntly put it for me, there was no point in him continuing to hook up with me because our hook-ups never went anywhere. Once I graduated college, I did manage to meet slightly more mature men who took me out on standard dinner-and-a- movie type of dates. These guys were seemingly interested in getting to know me, but somehow I could never get past a second or third date without the guy trying to slip his hand in my pants. Then there was the awkward conversation following the “I’m sorry, but I’m a virgin.” Most of them had already figured it out before I even said it. Most of them didn’t wanna have anything to do with me after that. The one who did told me that he didn’t care that I was a virgin and wanted to be with me anyway. Then he dumped me and broke my heart after 4 months of unsuccessful attempts at intercourse.
My point is, how is it that so many of you have managed to build stable, committed relationships with loving and understanding men, without sex? I don’t know much about relationships at all, and I know I’m being completely superfici al and naive in thinking that men only want women for sex, but my experience has taught me otherwise. Even the nice guys seem to need a physical connection before they can establish an emotional one. How is it that all of you have made that emotional connection, without the physical part of it? What was the beginning of your relationships like? How did your relationships progress? For the single women who go on the occasional date, what has that been like?
I’m sorry if I seem like I’m prying into your personal lives, but I just want some kind of reassurance that us single women with vag can still have hope that we’re not going to end up alone. Ever since I found out I have vag, I’ve thought of it as my death sentence to having a serious relationship, and I’ve therefore stopped even trying to meet men. But I’m only 24 years old, I don’t WANT to give up.
I got some wonderful responses. Some highlights:
“Having vag. doesn’t mean that you can’t have any physical contact at all, and there are lots of men who like orgasming, and like being with lovely people, and are more than happy to orgasm with lovely people in ‘non-traditional’ ways!”
“I understand what you are saying about college, frat parties and that kind of dating– i knew a lot of people in college who were into that. But i think that to understand how these relationships can work has to do with having a mature and open idea of what a relationship is and not letting yourself be bullied by what asshole guys tell you. Cuz i think in reality sex doesnt really make a relationship- -ultimately it is friendship, to have a partner who is a close or best friend, who you can talk freely with about everything that is on your mind…. i think romance and sex arent codependent. you can ahve sex without love. you can have love without sex.”
“Think of how many rotten eggs you can eliminate from their reaction to your decision not to have sex (involuntary or not!!) Sometimes those reactions may tell you a lot about a person that it could have taken a long time to figure out if you were in bed together immediately. It gives you the opportunity to know the person on many more levels besides physical.”
“I would just say to have faith that there are great guys out there and you’re not naive in thinking that someone can (and will) love you without the penetrative sex, because that is absolutely true!”
and my personal favorite…
“I know it’s extremely frustrating, but don’t ever lower your standards for a man. In a way, you can look at vag as a real test as to whether or not a guy will be able to handle the rough parts of life, which are inevitable, whether it’s vag or something else. Just know that all of us deserve to be with the right person for each of us; what that means can be very different from person to person, but in general there must be trust, respect and affection. Sex is great too (or so I’ve been told), but it’s not the be-all, end-all.”
