How I’m Dealing With My Numb Vagina

I lost sensitivity “down there” and this is what I’m doing about it.

Yesterday I had great sex with my boyfriend. My clitoris felt sensitive when he touched me during foreplay, and when he penetrated me during sex I experienced vaginal pleasure. Sex isn’t always so enjoyable for me anymore though. My vagina too often feels like a block of lead between my legs.

What I mean is that my vagina lacks the sensitivity it used to have. Too often it feels numb.

I have to be honest with you: My vagina has been through a lot. My whole body has been through a lot — and this has all contributed to my vaginal numbness.

It’s impossible to ensure that a sexual experience is going to be mind-blowing when you hardly know the person you’re going to bed with.

What exactly has my vagina been through? Two pregnancies and two births. A lot of bad sex with my husband at the end of our marriage. A whole slew of lovers after I left him. Sometimes the sex with these lovers was great. Sometimes it was awful. It’s hard to know how the sex will be when you’ve only known a guy for a couple of hours. I’m not saying I regret it; I’m just saying it’s impossible to ensure that a sexual experience is going to be mind-blowing when you hardly know the person you’re going to bed with.

On top of the pregnancies and all the sex, I also use my vibrator a lot. I have a Hitachi Magic Wand — and it’s amazing. The problem is no man’s tongue can flutter that quickly or apply that much pressure to my clitoris.

Unfortunately, I believe that the overuse of my vibrator has also contributed to the desensitization of my vagina.

Then there’s the bigger problem of my body in general. I have sore, knotted muscles extending up and down my back. Some of this is the result of stress from my marriage as it was ending; some has come from grinding my teeth at night, which I’ve always done.

I’ve also spent many years hunched over a computer and walking around with bad posture. When I don’t stand up straight or sit up straight at my desk, my lungs become constricted. I can’t breathe properly when my shoulders are hunched. If I’m not breathing correctly, the muscles all over my body constrict.

Should it be any surprise that my muscles are tight “down there” too?

I don’t want to depend on my vibrator anymore. I just want to have great sex with my boyfriend.

Before I had babies, I had a lot of sensitivity in my vagina. A guy only had to put his tongue to my clitoris, and I would almost instantly climax. In fact, this used to be a problem. I would often come too soon during sex. I was a premature female ejaculator. I would come and then I wouldn’t be interested in continuing with the sex.

Those days are over.

No wonder I use my vibrator so much. But I don’t want to depend on my vibrator anymore. I just want to have great sex with my boyfriend.

I didn’t feel like my vagina was mine anymore. My uterus existed to carry a baby, nothing else.

Things became really difficult in the vaginal department after I got pregnant the first time. I endured ultrasound invasions, and those of the latex-encased fingers of a variety of different doctors. Is your cervix ripe? Nope, not yet. Are you dilated? No, I don’t think so. Has the baby lowered into the birthing position? Uh, no, but thanks for the multi-finger inspection.

While I was still pregnant, I had a chorionic villus sampling taken, which is a biopsy of the placenta. To do this, a gynecologist inserted a speculum inside of me and wound it open. Guys, I’m sorry if this is freaking you out, but I want you to understand how hard pregnancy is on a woman’s body — and especially on her vagina. The doctor then used forceps to extract a small sampling of my placenta. That was sent off to the lab for testing. The sample tested negative for birth defects — still all the poking and prodding had an impact on my nether regions. I didn’t feel like my vagina was mine anymore. My uterus existed to carry a baby, nothing else. My vagina was nothing more than the canal through which the baby would enter into the world.

I was pregnant twice in three years. The stress of the pregnancies strained my body. The weight of the babies on my pelvic floor weakened it. The tension of my pregnant belly wrecked my back.

My sons were ultimately both born through Cesarean sections. Nevertheless, my vagina never felt the same afterward. My entire lower end felt ravaged by the births — from my pubic area to my anus. When I tried to have sex with my husband six weeks after giving birth, the sex was painful. Add to that the anxiety of new motherhood, sleep deprivation from nursing all night, and the fact that my hormones had gone haywire with two pregnancies in three years — I wasn’t exactly in the mood for sex. That, and it hurt to be penetrated.

Combine all this with other problems in my marriage, and my husband and I would never get back to the place we had been before our sons were born. By the end of our marriage, sex was something I endured just to keep our marriage together. I didn’t want to have sex with my husband anymore — I was not turned on by it — but I did it for him. Though I did feel closer to him afterwards, while the sex was happening, I didn’t enjoy it.

I believe this only served to tense up my vagina even more.

I enjoyed all the sex, even if it wasn’t always great sex.

Once I left my husband, my libido returned in full force. Probably because our sex life was so dysfunctional while we were married, leaving my husband ignited my sex drive again. Suddenly, I was hungry for sex all the time. Besides wanting pleasure, I wanted attention. I wanted the human touch — I wanted intimacy with a man. With many men. Yes, I enjoyed all the sex, even if it wasn’t always great sex.

However, I do believe I am still holding onto tension in my vagina from years of less than pleasurable activity there.

The muscles in my body are all connected, so when I’m tense in other parts of my body, I’m also tense in my vagina.

Muscles on either side of my vaginal cavity have become cramped from the stress that my body and vagina had been through. I believe these muscles are impeding my vagina from relaxing. These muscles are connected to the muscles in my glutes, in my legs, in my back, in my feet and in my shoulders and my neck. The muscles in my body are all connected, so when I’m tense in other parts of my body, I’m also tense in my vagina.

When I’ve gone to get back massages, I have been able to experience increased sensitivity in my vagina afterward. But I can’t go get a massage all the time — especially not a professional one — so one way I’m trying to deal with my tight muscles in my body is by doing a lot of breathing exercises.

As a whole, I’m not breathing correctly. I don’t breathe deeply enough. So now as I lay in bed at night, I concentrate on taking deep breaths, letting my belly expand all the way on the count of four. Then I exhale in the same way. I relax myself before I fall asleep, and this is helping a lot.

Besides practicing these breathing exercises at night, I’m also doing them when I sit in front of my computer. I focus on pushing back my shoulders, both when I’m seated and when I’m walking around. By making these small changes, my muscles feel less taut and this has led to my my vagina relaxing more.

I believe this is why I was able to have pleasurable sex with my boyfriend yesterday.

I feel my vagina unwinding. I feel my pelvic floor softening.

Though I tend to like being more submissive in the bedroom, I have found the need to be much more selfish lately, as I try to re-sensitive my vagina. I’m no longer letting my boyfriend lead our sex all the time. I’m taking more initiative to direct the experience myself. I’m taking more care to tell my boyfriend when to slow down or even to stop to give me a rest. I feel my body healing as result. I feel my vagina unwinding. I feel my pelvic floor softening. I feel my chest expanding to accept and give more love.

I lost sensitivity “down there,” but I’m working hard to get it back.