There are those who opine that having a blog is a self-indulgent exercise in navel gazing.
Fine.
But this is a sex blog, so let's do some self-indulgent vagina gazing, shall we?
I'm not sure when I became aware of my vagina...perhaps about two or three when I went through the typical "what's it called" phase all toddlers go through while exploring their bodies. My mom went with the straightforward (while not entirely accurate) vagina (as opposed to vulva). Men have penises (penii?) and women have vaginas.
I went through what I'm sure was a mortifying several YEARS of telling anyone who would listen to me that men have a penis and women have a vagina. Loudly. Proudly.
And then I forgot about it...or at least it was background noise.
I remember being told in early elementary school about good touches and bad touches. I recall that our "private parts" were a place where we shouldn't let people touch us. Okay, sure...good touch, bad touch, got it.
Except that I can't really be that breezy on the topic. Because when I was about eight or nine, someone did try to touch me in my private place. My babysitter's husband. It was summer, she was out getting stuff, he was watching us in her stead, and "The Dark Crystal" was on the screen. I had grown tired of running around and playing games and sank onto the couch to watch the movie. He was there, and I knew that there was something wrong about the way his foot kept sliding under me to touch me. I moved. He moved. And so on.
I wasn't raped. I'm told that what happened to me doesn't even register as molestation, per se, as it does "inappropriate touching."
Whatever.
The reason I bring it up is that it affected my relationship with my vagina. Not only did I have a lot of emotional discomfort of knowing that something wrong had happened, I had a vague notion that it had something to do with having a vagina. That there was something perhaps wrong with a vagina. I talked to a counselor for a time, but after a while, I just ran out of things to say. It wasn't like I was still attending the home daycare (my mom reported it and him to just about everyone...I don't know what happened, although I'm 100% sure he didn't go to jail or end up on a sex offender registry, if there was such a thing in the late 80's).
It was around this time (and by that it could have been a year or two later...the dates blur beyond the idea that it was late elementary school) that I began doing something by myself in the bathroom. I don't really know what to call it...certainly not masturbation. But I would straddle the lip of the tub and jump up and down...today my vagina winces at the memory, so I'm not sure if what I deriving was pain or pleasure, or perhaps both. I don't know if it was a pre-cursor to masturbation (although I doubt it as I didn't actually start masturbating until I was almost 16) or if it was an attempt at punishing myself for something elusive.
I was 11 when I got my period. After much longing to not be the last girl to get it, I was thoroughly disgusted by the process, which I also found incredibly painful. I now know that I should've been put on birth control at a young age to help regulate my very irregular very painful periods, but my old school pediatrician would NEVER have done that. As a result, I missed a LOT of school each year starting in about fifth or sixth grade.
I remember my fear and fascination with tampons, and the idea that you actually put one up there (try to imagine the last two words said in a young horrified fascinated tween voice). I wanted to, as the promise of a less messy period and not staining any more white jeans were tempting...but I worried about that old chestnut of it breaking my hymen and taking my virginity (cue the eye rolls). It would be years before I actually tried the damn things, and now I loathe the idea of a pad.
Speaking of pads, I also was mortified at the idea of PURCHASING pads. People would know that my vagina was leaking blood! What if the cashier was a MAN???? As the kids today would say "like OMFG, I would like totally die and stuff!"
A slightly distrustful detente sprung up between my vagina and I. I didn't know when it would launch bloody attacks on white jeans or khaki skirts, but I was proud that I was a "real woman."
Which is when my mom began the talks. You know...THE talks. Except hers went "I got pregnant the first time I had sex." Because that won't freak a girl out. And then she talked about what could/would happen if I got pregnant in high school. Because THAT wouldn't freak me out even MORE. So it is with no hesitation and much fanfare that I lay my many neuroses about sex during my high school year at her feet.
However, as we all discovered, there are things you can do that don't involve sex. Or even the opposite sex. Or anything other than our sex organs and our hands (or shower heads). At 16 I became a compulsive masturbator. I would masturbate multiple times a day. I grew to love, if not my vagina in its entirety, certainly my clit.
I was 17 before someone else touched my vagina in a way that was pleasurable. Movieguy touched me through my jeans, and about a year later, a boy I dated very briefly (I was a cashier, he was a bagger at the local grocery store...how very stereotypical and trite, I know) got his hand into my jeans before I got scared and pulled away.
It was around this time that I wanted to get a good look at it. And it was about this time that I realized vaginas are very hard to see, and require much awkward positioning in front of your mirror attached to the back of your bedroom door while praying no one walks in on you.
Losing my virginity then, was a bit of a shock for my vagina. Especially since it wasn't very good, and he wasn't very caring about things. Having sex with a different guy less than two weeks later who WAS very good (and better endowed) was a bigger shock, as was the realization that hey, I like penii up there.
Having my first pelvic exam was also a bit of a shock, especially when you factor in the cold metal of the speculum. Oh, and that apparently I have an elongated vagina that requires the "long" speculum. Like most men who claim to have a bigger than average penis, I am often not believed when I tell gynecologists this, and had to put up with many insertions of the normal speculums followed by a somewhat embarrassed "yes, you were right," removal of the first speculum, and insertion of a longer one. I have gotten to be a bitch about this as I have gotten very weary in my old age of the two speculum dance.
I spent 18 to about 26 viewing my vagina as a sexual organ exclusively. Sure, I worried about an unplanned pregnancy, but managed to use birth control very effectively and never had to deal with one of the hardest decisions a woman might have to make. It wasn't really until 26 that I began thinking seriously about the other function of my vagina, and the cause of that shift was Sexyhusband. Because unlike those amorphous kids I wanted "someday," I wanted his baby.
Marriage followed, as did a conscious and effective application of birth control until last year, when I got pregnant for the first time.
Seeing that first positive after tens (hundreds?) of negatives (I am a compulsive pregnancy test taker and having a chronically late period did nothing for my paranoia) was cause for much elation as that baby was wanted. Seeing the blood about a week later was hard. Hearing that the baby wasn't going to make it was harder. Getting the D&C once I began to miscarry was hardest of all because even more than when I experienced the "inappropriate touching" I felt hostile towards my vagina. It had let me down. It hadn't done its job.
Of course, I understand that miscarriage is sadly common, and that it has to do with a million different factors, none of which in my particular case, have to do with my vagina. I don't have an incompetent cervix. My uterus is in working order. It was just "one of those things."
Incidentally, I recently read that Buddhists believe that miscarriages are souls one step away from nirvana, who need only to be loved one more time before they can enter nirvana. While I consider myself an atheist, I still find that notion comforting.
It took time and a lot of love and support to put myself back together again emotionally after the miscarriage.
Getting pregnant again did not heal my relationship with my vagina. If anything, it made me MORE distrustful of that body part initially, especially when we experienced bleeding with this baby. As it turned out, her placenta had had a bit of trouble implanting and blood had pooled in my uterus. Every time I orgasmed, some would come out. Which created a very unhealthy dynamic between my psyche and my vagina.
I am lucky to have had the support of a wonderful husband during these past almost 32 weeks...because pregnancy following miscarriage isn't an easy thing to go through. I also will state that having a supportive therapist has been a huge deal for me. In addition to the emotional hurdles, I had to deal with the unpleasant reality that occurred when my vagina stopped working reliably and I began to pee myself when I coughed, threw up, laughed too hard, or didn't make it to a bathroom fast enough, no matter how many kegels I did. Which sucked.
In about 56 days, give or take a few, with any luck I'll be pushing a little girl through my vagina out into the world.
And so we reach my current relationship with my vagina...contemplative.
It's pretty damn impressive when you think about it. My vagina has been many things-a source of pride, a source of shame, a source of annoyance, a source of fear, a source of joy-but it's never been a source of life.
The process of becoming that source of life is pretty frightening. I mean, have you ever SEEN a 10 centimeter circle? My vagina is going to get HOW BIG???
We attended a childbirth class recently and the natural childbirth video sent me into what was basically a panic attack. Sexyhusband had to keep reminding me that no one was going to hold a gun to my head and make me do this without drugs. In fact, everyone involved is pretty pro-drugs in my case (lest we not forget my back surgery of two years ago). But watching another woman go through pain (pictures lots of moaning and grunting and moaning...and that was before there was pushing) was very scary, which is when I began to realize exactly what I'd signed up for.
I'm frightened of this. Sure it's natural, women have been doing it forever, blah blah blah...but this time it's MY vagina. I have worries that I never had before, like whether or not it will go back to normal (I know the answer is yes) and how long will it take to heal from the trauma of giving birth so I can return it to the much more familiar job of sex organ.
In the meantime I suppose the real current attitude I have is trepidation...I mean, sure, in theory I have about 56 days, but since when do women actually have kids on the day they're due? I could blow at any time! It's like a ticking time bomb between my thighs.
I wonder what the three year old me who would proudly announce to anyone who'd listen that she had a vagina would say about all this. She'd probably run around explaining that a BAY-BEE was going to come out of her vagina like it was the coolest thing that could ever happen to a person.
Come to think of it, maybe the little girl I need to get to know isn't the one who's currently growing in my uterus, but the little girl I left behind 27 years ago. She suddenly seems very wise to me, and could teach me a few things about my vagina.
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