When The Sexpert Can’t Have Sex

Of all the devastating news Dr. E. gave me, by far the most difficult for me to handle is the fact that I can’t have sex…for an indefinite period of time. Until I get better. If I get better.
For anyone who knows me well, sex is something that has defined my life. It is a huge part of who I am, how I see and relate to the world. It is what I breathe, what I study, what I advocate for.

I used to believe that sex was best had at least twice a day; an easy thing to do in the beginning of my relationship with my partner when we only saw each other once every six months or so, for a week to ten days at a time. During that time, everything in our lives, outside of the bubble of each other, stopped. Once our clothes came off, they were rarely and very reluctantly put back on. Since we lived a time zone apart and saw each other so infrequently, we had little opportunity to transition from friends to lovers and dating each other was not something we really did.

Although I know we have an enduring friendship and a sturdy relationship, in addition to all of my “new” medical problems, I worry the most about how not being able to have sex will impact our relationship and, most of all, my self-esteem.

I’ve had pain for so long I really don’t remember not having it, but not having had sex as frequently with anyone other than my current lover, the pain occurred much less often. And when it did occur, I generally chalked it up to being my fault…to not being wet enough, or wanting it too many times in one day/night, or not being able to focus my mind on what was going on. I rarely blamed my inept (or sometimes very capable) partners and I only sometimes blamed the endometriosis. Perhaps once every millennium or two I might get an inkling that maybe I wasn’t enjoying this because of past abuse experiences, but generally I tried to shove those thoughts out of my mind.

All too often I kept pushing on despite the pain. Sometimes I pushed through it because it reminded me that I was alive, that I could feel something on the days that were so dark and endless. Other times I kept going because it was my body goddamn it and it was going to respond the way I tell it to…which is with pleasure and not pain. That approach rarely worked.

When I told my partner about my multitude of diagnoses and treatment options, I saved, what for me, was the most humiliating part, for last. I told him that we wouldn’t be able to have sex, or any kind of penetration for me, until I get better. If I get better.

I waited for him to process what I said. I waited for him to blow up. I waited for him to get angry. I waited for him to protest, to cry, to pressure me like so many of my other lovers. Most of all, I waited for him to leave.

Instead, he just sat on the sofa, took a few agonizingly long moments, which felt like an eternity, to think about what I just said. Finally he proclaimed, “Ok. We’ll wait as long as it takes then.” I sputtered and protested. I tried to spar with him about how he would eventually get fed up and leave or pressure me to give in “just this once.” He reminded me that it was far more important to him that we are able to have sex without me being in pain and he was willing to wait as long as it took for that to happen.

I should have been happy. I should have been relieved and grateful, maybe even crying on his shoulder in gratitude, but instead I was bitter. Bitter and disbelieving.

Always the optimist, he assured me I would get better (as if he has any authority or credibility to be assuring shit like that!). I didn’t feel his enthusiasm or optimism. He told me that our relationship is about so much more than sex-that we started out as friends for 7 years before we ever had sex-that we could get through this together. But I remained doubtful. I started to believe what a dear friend once told us-that two people who love each other but don’t have sex are friends, not lovers. At the time I thought it was a ludicrous thing to say, but now I was beginning to fear the weight of its truth and I wanted a goddamn lover not a fuckless friend!

My partner had to remind me, the sexpert, the one with the insatiable sex drive, the one who studies sex, talks about sex, advocates for healthy sex for all people, that there were more ways to be sexual and intimate than just sticking a penis in a vagina. He had to remind me of what I had been preaching for so long…preaching from the comfortable, arrogant distance of one who isn’t directly impacted by what they are talking about, to people who weren’t listening anyway (or so I thought)! He had to remind me of what I swore was true, that is, until it affected me directly, until it affected us and our relationship. Somehow, the strength of my previous convictions wobbled away with this new news.

Although once upon a time sex was a multi-times a day event, we, like so many other couples, eventually fell into a routine where sex was once or twice, three times at most, a week. It was often late at night between two people who generally would rather go to sleep, with too little foreplay, too many muttered words about how “next time will be different” and definitely, too much pain. As I tried to process my new doctor’s orders to abstain from sex for an indefinite period of time and this was already what our sex life looked like, how the fuck was abstinence going to make it any better?

My partner may have gone through a five year period where he didn’t have sex because the situation wasn’t right or he knew she wanted more than just sex or he was too tired or drunk or whatever his noble reasons were, but that sure as hell wasn’t me! As he pointed out somewhere in our conversation, I use sex to dominate my body, to have it as often as possible, when I want it and how I want, in whatever way I want it-on my terms! Rarely did I choose to abstain from sex, even if I knew the other person wanted more from the experience then I did.

Maybe he could go years without having sex and satisfy most of his needs with masturbation, but I am a recovering Catholic and as open as I am about sex and masturbation, I’m still only sometimes ok with touching myself at all…and besides…that wasn’t much of an option for me now except to apply greasy medical ointments in a most non-sexual manner!

Despite the fact that sex, in some positions, an increasing number of times, was painful for me…sometimes curl up in a ball in agony afterwards…sometimes only hurting for a brief moment or two, it was still away to be close to my partner and to be closer to myself. And I never knew if there was going to be pain or what kind of pain I might be in until we got to that point, if we got to the point.

The times when there was no pain, when I was on top or he was going down on me and orgasm after orgasm flowed through my body, I was enlivened. I was beautiful. I was two steps further away from every negative, violating and painful sexual experience that had previously consumed so much of my life. There was no way in hell I wanted to give that up now!

I never considered the toll that having painful sex was taking on my body-the body imprints (as Dr. E. would say) that it was leaving behind. I also rarely told my partner exactly how much it hurt, which, as I look back on it now, was an amazingly hypocritical thing for someone who values honesty so much, to do.

Eventually the pain of intercourse, the burning irritation of merely having his penis near my vagina or the all over my body feeling of acidic hives I would often get the rare times we didn’t use a condom, left me less and less likely to want to have sex. I grew increasingly more likely to start a fight or read a book or stay up until well after he went to bed so that sex became less of an issue, almost a non-option. And then I got pissed off about the fact that we weren’t having sex and I often took it out on him; though no one ever saw the ways in which I internally took my frustrations with sex and pain out on myself.

By taking sex and any form of vaginal penetration out of the relationship, for an indefinite period of time, what was that going to do to us? To our relationship?

Oh, I failed to mention another layer of complication. Due to the pain I feel, which also sometimes occurs when I orgasm, I am supposed to avoid anything that makes me cum. The problem that avoiding orgasms causes for me, and I know I won’t get much sympathy here, is that if I am aroused enough, I can cum without any genital stimulation at all. So, does that mean that my partner should stop stroking my hair and nibbling on my ear to the point where I cum because it makes my lower back spasm in pain?

If all of this is the case…if we are supposed to avoid sex, avoid any penetration for me and any orgasms for me, how the fuck are we going to survive this? Sure, I can get him off, but what about my needs? They didn’t dry up just because it hurts! How am I going to survive this? He can at least jerk off! What the hell will I do for a release? I become a lunatic when we go three days without sex! What the fuck are my options now?

It’s my body that’s in pain, that’s causing all these problems and one of my biggest and most comforting sources of release and relief has just been yanked away from me. What the fuck do I do now?