Pain during sex.
When sex hurts
instead of feeling good.
Pain during sex feels different for everyone. It can be burning, stinging, or a dull pressure. It can be only at the start, or deeper. It can be there all the time, or only sometimes.
Whatever the form: it isn’t imagined, and you don’t have to learn to live with it. Many people see several doctors before they get an explanation that fits. That’s exhausting, and it only makes it harder to bring it up again.
You might recognise:
“Pain triggers fear. Fear triggers tension. And tension makes the next time more painful. That circle can be broken, but not by simply relaxing.”
This pattern is called the pain circle, and it explains why pain can persist so stubbornly, even when there’s no longer a clear physical cause. Guidance focuses on breaking that circle: not by pushing on until it works, but by calmly, step by step, building up a new and safe feeling.
Step by step, without pressure. There’s no quick fix for pain that’s built up out of fear and tension. But there is an approach that rebuilds trust step by step, at your pace.
Ruling out the physical first
If that hasn’t happened yet, we first check whether a doctor, gynaecologist or pelvic floor physiotherapist needs to look at something physical. That can simply run alongside the guidance.
Learning to recognise and release tension
We build up calmly, without the pressure of having to get somewhere. That often starts with touch without a goal, not with penetration.
Clearing the fear, not the sex
Not just pushing on, but regaining the trust that your body can feel safe again.
Often together, can also be on your own.
Pain during sex often affects your partner too, in insecurity, holding back or guilt on both sides.
Starting on your own
Nice if you first want to get a grip on what’s happening in your body, without someone else there straight away.
Together with your partner
Valuable because the way you deal with the pain together often reinforces or, on the contrary, eases the pattern.
Ready to break the
circle?
You don’t have to wait until you know exactly what it is. A first conversation is there to work out together what’s going on.
Email praktijk@deseksuoloog.nl you don’t have to figure it out alone