Patience, patience!

So you arrive home from a hectic day at the office, and there's the box you've been waiting for, with your new lube, a vaginal moisturizer, and those dilators that have promised to return your sex life from painful to normal. "Oh boy!" you think. "Orgasm tonight!"

Please, please, please, slow down. I know it's hard to wait when you've been anxious to find an answer.

The conditions that cause painful intercourse in the first place can be comforted and in many cases reversed, but only with practice and time. Practice and time that are worth taking, when the result is the kind of sexual intimacy you want.

Picture a young athlete. She is powerful, flexible, supple, and graceful. She practices her sport every morning and night. Then she graduates, gets a desk job, has a couple of kids, spends nearly every waking hour sitting at her desk or in her mini-van, carpooling. Her fitness slowly drains away.

One day, she decides to get back into shape. If she tries to complete a workout at the level she did when she was in peak condition, she will get hurt. No doubt about it. She knows, or will soon realize, that she must start slowly. She'll get her fitness back, but only if she works within her comfort zone. When things start to hurt, she needs to back off. Keep moving, but slow down, decrease the intensity. Please approach your new sexual aids, your vibrator of course, your vaginal dilators, especially, with this same understanding. Pushing too hard, going too fast, will hurt you. You are trying to restore pleasure, and I recommend letting comfort and pleasure be your guide.

As always, if the pain just won't resolve, do discuss it with your doctors. Finding the real reason for the pain is the fastest way to resolve it.

Meantime, put the box down. Have a healthy dinner. Take a nice bath. Relax. Then begin, slowly.