girlfriend experiencing pain during sex causing mental health struggles

[sophie417]

My girlfriend and I have been having sex for several months now. We were both virgins when we first started, so we haven't experienced it with other people. We're also both girls, so all we've done is fingering and oral. For me, there is no pain, but she experiences a lot of pain. She describes it as a sort of punching feeling. She's also talked about a different, really exposed feeling that she gets not only during sex (she says "like i’m wearing a dress with no underwear sitting on cold floor") but its worse during sex since she's naked. Since shes talked to me about the pain I've stopped doing anything sexual to her, so it's pretty one-sided which I feel bad for. It's causing her a lot of anxiety and sadness and I don't know what to do. I just want to help her because I love her so much and don't want her to be in pain but I can't figure it out. We've looked online and most solutions just say to go to a gyno which won't work because we can't tell our parents. Any insights?

[Sofi]

Hi sophie417,

I'm so sorry your girlfriend is feeling sad and anxious about this. It's really sweet you care about her and want to help her get past this. I'm wondering, is her pain only when there's any insertion, or is she also in pain if she receives clitoral stimulation? The former could be vaginismus (you can read more about it here).

Unfortunately this is indeed something she should go see a GYN about. The good thing is she doesn't have to tell her parents it has to do with sex - the pain most likely would also happen when using tampons or menstrual cups, for example. She doesn't have to be detailed or explicitly mention the pain is coming up during sex, just that there's pain in that general area. Is that something she is willing to do? It's good to see a gynecologist for general wellness around your age anyway, even if there wasn't pain involved.