“I’m a ballet dancer. I basically break the bones in my feet for a living,” Carly had told her, trying not to sound too annoyed. “What else’ve you got?” At that, the doctor had raised her eyebrows and told Carly that all her tests looked normal and she was probably just too tightly wound.
Another doctor had prescribed her a numbing cream to put on her vulva before sex.I don’t want to feel nothing, Carly had thought in frustration,I want to feel pleasure. Or at the very least, not pain.Yet another doctor had told her that she probably wasn’t aroused enough and should figure out what turned her on and incorporate that into her sex life.
“I know what turns me on,” Carly had snapped across the small, brightly lit exam room, the least arousing place in the entire world. She’d never lacked for desire. She’d always wanted the sex she tried to have. Wanted it to feel good, wanted to give her partner what he needed, wanted it to please, please,please, this time, justwork. It was maddening that even though her entire job, her entire life, really, revolved around controlling her body, around training it to do something so few people could do, she could not control this. She could make her body do things no human body was ever meant to, but she couldn’t do this one thing. This extremely natural, normal thing that everyone else could do.
“It isn’t that I don’t want it,” she’d told that doctor. “I just want it not to hurt like a motherfucker.”
That ob-gyn hadtsked and shaken her head, and then none-too-gently suggested that Carly see a therapist, because the pain was probably in her head. But Carly was already pulling her feet out of the stirrups and reaching for her bra. The doctor didn’t believe her. That was the problem, she thought: the doctors never really believed her when she told them how bad the pain was, or how many supposed solutions she’d already tried.
And if her sexual partners ever noticed that she was gritting her teeth and faking it, they never mentioned it. Usually, she could switch off her brain and push the pain away, moaning and digging her nails into their backs in what they seemed to think was pleasure. Her mind would drift out of her body, and she’d sometimes feel like she was watching herself have sex, putting on a damn good show that none of her boyfriends seemed to realize was all artifice. When it was over, she’d struggle to come back to herself, her brain too slow and waterlogged to speak. One guy had joked, his tone barely concealing his unearned satisfaction, that he’d fucked the words right out of her.
After a while, she’d started to resent their credulousness, hating the fact that they could feel so much pleasure and not even notice that she was in pain. Or worse, that they could take their pleasure even when they suspected she might be in pain. It made her burn with fury that they could enjoy themselves and not notice or care that she sometimes sighed in relief and wiped away tears as soon as they came. Inevitably, after a few weeks—a few months, at most—she’d cut them loose.
It wasn’t until a few months ago, when she’d read an article about pelvic floor physical therapy and made an appointment at a discreet, spa-like clinic in midtown, that she’d found a doctor who believed her. And more than that, a doctor who didn’t find her complaints mystifying or her problem unsolvable. Angela saw clients like her all the time. Clients who had given birth or gone through menopause and now couldn’t have sex without pain. Clients who, like her, had never experienced pain-free sex in their lives. Angela examined Carly gently with her well-lubed and rubber-gloved fingers, managing to slide a single finger two knuckles deep into her vagina before Carly winced and recoiled against the exam bed.
Angela explained to her that even though Carly’s pain felt like it was on the surface, like her most delicate flesh was being ripped and torn, the problem was actually in her muscles. Her pelvic floor was too tight, Angela had said.
“But it’s supposed to be tight. It’s strong. My pelvic floor is working all day, every day,” Carly had said, craning her neck up from the exam table to meet Angela’s eyes. “You can’t do anything in ballet without activating your core and your floor.”
Angela had leaned back in her rolling chair and shook her head, her glossy brown waves flowing around her kind face.
“Your pelvic floor isn’t meant to work all day every day. It needs rest. It’s a muscle, and muscles get sore if you don’t give them a chance to rest. If your pelvic floor is working all the time, it’s never resting and relaxing. It’s tight and spasming, which is probably why penetration is so painful.”
Carly frowned. The explanation made a certain amount of sense. But resting wasn’t really something dancers were encouraged to do, unless they were seriously injured. Once, when she was nine or ten, a teacher had told her that after a day without ballet class, the dancer would notice the difference. After two days, her teachers would notice it, and after three days, the audience would notice. The warning had stuck with Carly, and she’d never taken more than two consecutive days off if she could help it.
“So I need to learn how to rest my pelvic floor?” she’d asked Angela. How would one even do that?
“That’s right. We can work on some exercises that will release the muscles, so they have time to switch off and become less stiff and sore.”
Carly had nodded eagerly, wondering why it had never occurred to her to approach a physical therapist for this problem. PT was usually the very first port of call for any dancer in the company. There was a physical therapy room on site at the theater, and if not for PT, half the dancers at NYB wouldn’t still be working—or walking. Plus, she trusted Angela. After years of blank faces and condescending suggestions from doctors, it was a profound relief to talk to someone who was so unfazed by her condition. But then, Angela said something that put a damper on her relief.
“And I would advise you to stop having penetrative sex for a while.”
Carly felt her eyebrows rocket upward.
“Excuse me?”
“You can learn how to release the muscles, but you also need them to unlearn what you’ve taught them over the years. Your body is smart. Every time you force penetration even though it hurts, you’re teaching the muscles that penetration is painful and they should try to protect you from it. They’re seizing up because they want to protect you. It’s a perfectly natural response.”
Carly swallowed, her throat suddenly tight.They want to protect you. Her body had known, all this time, what she needed. Had sent her one screaming, burning message after another, all but begging her to stop forcing something that was hurting her. But she’d ignored it. On some deep cellular level, beneath her skin, she’d known better. She’d wanted better. She’d pushed through the pain anyway.
She swallowed again and sat up on the crinkling paper as Angela tossed her rubber gloves in the trash can and scribbled some notes on a clipboard.
“Isn’t there some other way?” she objected weakly to Angela’s back. “Could I just double up on the exercises? It’s just that … I really want to have sex.”
Was that true, though? If she was honest with herself, a tiny part of her was relieved that Angela had told her to stop. She’d known for years that something was wrong, but it had taken Angela’s firm, compassionate order to feel like she had permission to do something about it. The kind of sex she was having now—the kind of sex she’d been having for years—wasn’t what she really wanted.
What she really wanted was sex that felt good. Sex that didn’t make her feel like her body was failing her, and like she was failing herself for continuing to have it. She wanted to want someone and have that want answered with pleasure and comfort, instead of with pain and disappointment. And if temporary abstinence could help her achieve that, then wasn’t it worth a shot?
So Angela had sent her home with a pack of sleek plastic dilators, white cylinders with rounded tops, and instructions on how to practice releasing her muscles and then inserting the dilators slowly. The thinnest one was about the width of a pen, and the largest the width and length of an average-sized penis. Once she could consistently insert the smallest one without pain, she was allowed to move on to the next one.Weirdest PT exercises ever, Carly had thought. She remembered opening the package and seeing them all lined up, a parade of the most sexless sex aids she’d ever seen, and jokingly asking Angela if they had any purple sparkly ones in stock.
Angela had chuckled indulgently and sent her on her way after reminding her that her best chance at success was to be consistent with her exercises and not put anything except the dilators inside her for a while. Carly said she’d do just that and left the clinic feeling optimistic and excited to make good on her promise.
And she had, so far. She’d been diligent about doing her exercises every day and had progressed to the second dilator, which was about the width of a thick finger. At the time, she’d just started dating Carter, a former college lacrosse player who now worked in private equity. Carter was perfectly coiffed, perfectly pedigreed, and could carry a perfectly good conversation about contemporary art or current events. Perfect, perfect. Her parents would have loved him. Carly had had sex with him a few times, but after her first appointment with Angela, she told him that she couldn’t do that anymore and wouldn’t be able to for a while. She’d taken a deep breath and explained that it was a medical issue and reassured him, with her best attempt at a sly and flirtatious grin, that there were still plenty of fun things they could do. He’d seemed fine with it. He’d certainly seemed fine when she’d pulled him into the all-gender restroom to show him what kind of fun things she meant. They’d had a perfectly nice meal after that, though they spent most of it pretending not to notice the knowing look on their server’s face. And then he stopped texting her back.
After four days of unreturned calls and texts, Carly got the message. Men couldn’t be trusted. Not to see her when she was in pain, and not to want her when she was trying to do something about that pain. Unless they could fuck her they way they wanted to, she was of no use to them. Unless she could give them penetrative sex—“real sex,” Carter had called it—everything else she had to offer was worthless.
And that was when she’d made her vow. Screw Carter and all the men like him. No more fuckboys. No more men at all, if all they really wanted was something she couldn’t—no,wouldn’t—give them.
