An overactive pelvic floor is the most common symptom of having pain during sex. But remember having pain during sex isn’t normal. The tense pelvic floor causes your vagina to be too tense. When your pelvic floor muscles surrounding the vagina are too tense, it’s difficult to have something inserted into the vagina. Relaxing and enjoying sex is nearly impossible because of the overactive pelvic floor. You can develop other medical issues when your pelvic floor is too tense. Think of vaginismus or vulvitis. You can also develop inflammation symptoms near the vaginal entrance, like vestibulitis. Research shows that young women around the 16-30 years of age and women above the 60’s have an increased chance of developing an overactive pelvic floor. A probable cause during those specific ages are the events that take place. For young women those events are starting to menstruate, sex and pregnancy. For older ladies the cause is often the menopause. Events often cause changes to take place. Lets talk about pain during the sex.
If you’re looking for pelvic floor exercises or go to the exercises page. If you’re looking for products for your pelvis and go to the Pelvic Store.
Having sex, making love, banging, screwing, having intercourse, being intimate, doing each other.. these are a few synonyms of what could be the most fun activity known to mankind. To adore your partner, or to just enjoy. I don’t think I have to explain to you how fun it is to have sex. But what if these fantastic 30 minutes are 30 minutes of pain for you? Having pain during sex can know a lot of causes. Check in with yourself of what this cause could be. It can be something physical, but it can also be something mental. Is there some trauma involved, or an inflammation? Aren’t you looking forward to sex? Are you afraid to have pain? Or is sex not a fun activity for you at all?
An overactive pelvic floor and pain during sex
When your pelvic floor muscles are performing less, you can develop incontinence symptoms. A weakened pelvic floor can cause for involuntarily incontinence. This probably is a commonly heard cause. But an overactive pelvic floor makes it more difficult to get rid of feces or to properly empty the bladder. It’s also harder for the vagina to relax when the muscles carry too much tension. The entrance will narrow which makes it more difficult for a penis, finger or other objects to insert to pleasure yourself.
An overactive pelvic floor is common among younger women, especially when they haven’t had children yet.
Young women and a tense vagina or pelvic floor
Research shows that young women and women of age have more change of having an overactive pelvic floor. These are phases in life where a lot changes for a woman, thus a lot of change happens around the pelvic girdle. Think of the first menstruation, having sex for the first time, or welcoming your first child. The pelvis also changes at a later stage of life. A menopause throws a lot around when it comes to your hormones. Changes can bring a lot of tension. But remember having pain during sex isn’t normal.
It’s incredibly hard to lose tension when you carry a lot of it in your pelvic floor. Your pelvic floor muscles subconsciously tense up a lot, which makes it hard for you to try to get rid of this tension. You don’t have the (full) control over those muscles yet. It’s also known that women that have an overactive pelvic floor have a negative self-image about their genitals or pelvic area.
Next to having a negative self-image, insecurity or confusion can also cause you to have tension in your pelvic floor. Maybe you don’t know what to expect during sex or you worry about the moment you’re going to have sex. If that’s the case, you can enter the moment with a lot of extra tension. You will feel more pressured when the next moment of sex will arrive. You can imagine that you can land in a vicious cycle.
Different cultures and the risk of developing vaginismus and/or vulvitis
What I’ve noticed is that I’ve found a lot of information regarding women with a different cultural background than the common Dutch woman. It’s safe to assume that immigrant women or women with an Islamic background are quicker to have an overactive pelvic floor than the native women. This has to do with cultural pressure, taboos within the community, and the lack of proper sexual education. I’ve noticed that those young women are pressured a lot when it comes to sex. Sex is linked to marriage and having sex before marriage basically doesn’t exist. Masturbation and self-exploration barely happens and there are unfortunately still rumors that a tampon can break the hymen, which doesn’t exist in the first place. Inserting something into the vagina is something that gets avoided. It’s also not normal to take about sex while being married.
It’s logical that the confusion about sex and about your own vagina is a roadblock when you want to be able to enjoy sex. These young women will be nervous and tense during their honeymoon, and probably after that as well. The pressure for performance runs high. The man, the woman but also the families have high expectations and this causes the pressure to increase among these young women. It is considerd normal to experience pain during sex isn’t normal.
It’s hard to relax because of the additional pressure and the tension it brings in and around the pelvic floor and the muscles near the vagina. The risks of developing vaginismus or vulvitis increases with it.
Stop when you have pain during sex
Inserting something in the vagina can be painful and can even bring a tearing sensation. We call this dyspareunia. Inserting a finger or a tampon is already sensitive. Getting turned on or wet is nearly impossible because of the tension in the pelvic floor. Don’t continue when you experience pain. Pain is pain. Pain is a boundary your body has set for itself, so don’t cross it. Stop when you have pain during sex. Find out the cause of your pain and don’t force anything.
Trauma and pain during sex
Having pain during sex is caused by an overactive and overly tense pelvic floor. The vagina and the pelvis can be too tense if they get subconsciously tensed up. This can be caused by trauma. The pelvic floor contracts together out of defense. Maybe you’ve experienced something negative. Your tense pelvic floor could be a product of that. Your body reacts to a trauma or an event that’s confrontational to you. The tension is like a defense mechanism. Of course you want to relieve it. There are a lot of specialists that are able to help you with these issues. Think of a sexologist or a psychologist. It’s also recommended to focus on relaxing. Try to relax and take a look for my relaxing pelvic floor exercises for that.
Vaginismus caused by a tense pelvic floor
We speak of vaginismus when the muscles in and around the vagina, the pelvic floor muscles, have been tensed up too much. The vagina gets pressed shut which makes it difficult to insert something. For one person it’s impossible to bring something in, and the other person can insert the minimal, like a finger. A penis is impossible to insert. Well, maybe some aren’t.
You could be in a lot of pain if you still want to be intimate with your partner. Friction causes a lot of hurt. But still, it’s hard to be aware of the tension. You often aren’t even aware of when the pelvic floor is tensed up. Some things need to happen in your lower body if you want to be able to enjoy sex. The blood flow in the vagina increases when you get turned on. This causes the temperature in your vagina to rise, so the fibers relax. It will become nicely soft, warm, and wet, because the moisture levels will also increase. Sounds great, right? The moisture is also called lubrication. The lubrication ensures that your body is prepared for a round of bed-wrestling. Lubrication is the erection for women. Incredibly important and essential.
Are you experiencing a lot of additional tension in and around the vagina? Then your blood flow will be less. Your vagina remains stiff and dry. A lot of women will be too narrow down there, because the tension gets increased whenever something is about to enter the vagina. You won’t have the feeling that something slides in, instead you get the sensation that something needs to be pushed in. This goes with some trouble and will be painful. This gets caused by a tense and overactive pelvic floor.
If vaginismus is persistent, it can develop into vulvitis.
Vulvitis caused by a tense pelvic floor
The vagina becomes inflamed because of the tension. You won’t be happy with anything that ends with -itis. This means you have an inflammation of some sort. Vulvitis means that there are inflammation symptoms near the vagina. This can be caused by a yeast infection or a tense pelvic floor. Having too much friction around the entrance of the vagina can cause you to have a lot of irritation. Having rough sex can bring forth a lot of tension and irritations around the vagina, like a burning or a poignant sensation. The whole area needs to be calmed down and soft before you can properly get it on.
If those symptoms align with your story, it’s recommended to get into contact with your doctor or a pelvic therapist. A pelvic physical therapist or exercise therapist are able to help you.
Specialists for your pain during sex
Sexual issues don’t know 1 cause. That’s why they get treated by a handful of specialists. Multi-disciplinary, so to speak. The gynecologist, psychologist, sexologist and pelvic physical/practice therapist can discuss together to set up a treatment plan for you. This allows thoughts, physical wellbeing and feelings to be treated accordingly by everyone, with the common goal to let you enjoy sex again.
Having gone through a traumatic experience or having negative memories can create obstacles for your ability to enjoy sex. Sometimes subconsciously as well. your body reacts without you being aware of it. This can become a vicious cycle. Every time when you think you’re ready to have sex could become another negative experience, which can cause you pain and the pain can affect your thoughts the next time you try to have sex, and so forth.
This is what you can do when you have a tense pelvic floor, vaginismus or vulvitis
Learning how to get control over your pelvic floor muscles is crucial. You’re experiencing too much tension in your muscles. Relaxing is the most important thing for you to achieve. I have collected a lot of relaxation exercises and advices for you, which you can explore by clicking on the blue words. A dildo set can help you be on your way as well. Find out what a tinier size or a bigger size does to you, and learn how to relax by applying the relaxation exercises once you’ve inserted the dildo. Furthermore, it’s important to seek help from a professional. Always visit the doctor first, they can decide which specialist is the best for you to go to next. This can be a pelvic floor therapist, pelvic practice therapist, sexologist or a psychiatrist.
A pelvic physical therapist can help you optimally with your issues. That way you can determine for yourself the amount of tension you carry in your vagina. With just a few tips and tricks you’re already able to have sex with more enjoyment.
This doesn’t mean that you’re going to practice without pants on at those therapists. The therapist will ask you to practice the pelvic floor exercises at home. This can become a fun activity overtime, but take your time and rest in between. Take it seriously, because it can give you a lot of enjoyment.
My personal recommendations
You can find my personal recommendations for a weakened pelvic floor here
I hope you’ll be able to immediately do something with the information you’ve found. If you’re still looking for some more help, then keep on reading. Below I will sum up some products that are suitable to help you strengthen your pelvic floor:
- Strength building pelvic floor exercises: These strength building exercises are specially put together for you so you can train and strengthen your pelvic floor. This is a training module with a lot of different pelvic floor exercises that become more challenging as the periods pass by. Like this you will make sure that you will have a very strong pelvic floor and you solve/prevent your pelvic issues, pelvic pain and other pelvic problems. Click here to directly go to the pelvic floor exercises.
- Vaginal/anal exercising cones: The vaginal or anal exercising cones (also called vaginal balls or Ben Wa balls) are suitable to combine with the strength building pelvic floor exercises from recommendation 1. The vaginal cones differ in weight. Depending on your recovery rate and progress, you can change up the weights. The pelvic floor exercises remain challenging that way so you can keep on working on having a strong pelvic floor. Click here for the overview of vaginal and anal exercising cones that I can recommend to you.
You can find my personal recommendations for an overactive and tense pelvic floor here
I hope that you’ve found useful information. If you are still looking for some more help, then keep reading! I will sum up some products that are suitable to help you relax your pelvic floor:
- Relaxing pelvic floor exercises: These relaxing pelvic floor exercises have been composed specially for you so you can learn how to relax and control your pelvic floor. This is an exercising module with a lot of different pelvic floor exercises that will become harder with every phase. This way you make sure that you can get your pelvic floor under control so you can end up relaxing it. Practice relaxing your pelvic floor when you’re experiencing issues with vaginismus, vulvitis, obstipation, difficulty urinating or with different types of overflow incontinence. Click here to go directly to the pelvic floor exercises.
- Dildo set with different sizes of dildos: Your vagina can be too tight when you experience having an overactive and tense pelvic floor. This causes sex to be painful, even inserting a finger or tampon can already bring pain. Learn how to relax the pelvic floor with the relaxing pelvic floor exercises, section 1. Use a dildo set where you can adjust the width and length yourself. Start with the smallest and use bigger ones overtime when you’re ready. Click here to directly go to the 6-piece kegel set. You can also click here for a 4-piece dildo set. It’s smart to start with the smallest dildo. Slowly build up to what you can handle.
- Orthopedic cushions: Do you have pain when you’re sitting because of an overactive pelvic floor, pelvic instability, lower back pain or pelvic pain? Then a orthopedic cushion can give you some extra seat comfort. You can also perform the relaxing pelvic floor exercises on this cushion. Click here to directly go to the different orthopedic cushions which I’ve tested out for you.
And lastly, are you looking for more information?
Hopefully this information was useful to you! If you’re still looking for some more information, feel free to take another look around on the website. It’s filled with in-depth information, tips, a web shop and also exercises. I still have a lot of articles with lots of information about other symptoms and issues. Feel free to click on the blue words to take you straight to the right page.
