Sexual Healing

by Barbara Keesling

  The first three exercises for deep sexual pain involve exploring your own vagina. You should do these exercises even if you experience sexual pain only during intercourse.

  Exercise 83. GENITAL CARESS FOR DEEP SEXUAL PAIN

  This is a basic genital caress with a few modifications that will help you have something inside your vagina without pain. Lie on your back and caress your body with some lotion. Remember to breathe deeply and relax all of your muscles. Have some lubricant handy.

  Put plenty of lubricant on your hand, and also spread some on your vaginal opening and vaginal lips. Lightly and slowly run your fingers over your vaginal lips, clitoris, and vaginal opening. If you have deep sexual pain, this part of the caress will not cause you any problems. Do the caress in the sensate-focus manner. Relax and breathe. Stay focused, and stay in the here and now. You may need to keep reminding yourself to go as slowly as possible. Your hand should barely move.

  Now slowly insert the first joint of your index finger into your vagina. Gradually keep inserting your finger, millimeter by millimeter. Slowly and completely caress the following areas inside your vagina: the vaginal sponge, the A-spot, the G-spot (if you can reach it), the walls on both sides, and the cervix (if you can reach it). If you discover an area that causes you pain when you caress it, avoid that area. Your goal here is to obtain psychological awareness of every millimeter of your vagina that you can reach with your finger.

  Exercise 84. VAGINAL CLOCK

  Having done the previous exercise, you’re ready to explore your vagina with a slightly different perspective. Think of your vaginal opening as a clock, with twelve o’clock at the clitoris and six o’clock at the base of the vaginal opening.

  Begin a sensate-focus body caress and genital caress as above. Use plenty of lubrication on both your hand and your vaginal opening. Insert the first joint of your index finger into your vagina, and press it against twelve o’clock. Slowly move your finger around about an inch inside your vagina so you feel all of the clock numbers. Touch twelve, three, six, and nine, holding your finger against each spot for a few seconds. Then make another circle around your vagina, this time touching all twelve numbers and holding your finger on each for a few seconds.

  It might sound funny to someone whose vagina feels too sensitive, but the goal of this exercise is actually to make your vagina more sensitive. As you touch each area, notice the sensations. As you hold your finger on some of the vaginal areas, they will develop a pulse. Some of the areas will feel more sensitive than others. This exercise will help you discover which areas of your vagina are most sensitive and which are least sensitive.

  After you have gone around the clock with only one finger joint inserted, put your finger in a little bit farther and go around the clock again—slowly. Really take your time with this exercise. Go all the way around your vagina again, pressing and holding at each clock number. Keep pushing your finger in deeper and deeper, following the clock pattern, until your finger is inserted as far as it will comfortably go. Now withdraw your finger a little bit and do the clock again several times in reverse (i.e., counter-clockwise), each time gradually withdrawing your finger.

  During this exercise, if you touch an area that is painful, avoid that area. Do not do anything that causes you any pain. However, see exactly how close you can get to the painful area without actually touching it. This exercise should give you an excellent idea of the exact areas inside your vagina that are painful.

  However, it’s possible that this exercise will not trigger pain for you if your pain only occurs with partner activity or intercourse. It’s also possible that your finger isn’t long enough to touch the areas inside your vagina that are painful to you. Don’t worry; the exercises later in this chapter deal with this issue. If you are able to complete the vaginal clock exercise without pain, good for you.

  Exercise 85. EXPLORING YOUR VAGINA

  During a genital caress, insert a finger into your vagina as far as is comfortable. When you reach a point right before you feel pain, back off and only do the caress up to the point just before you experience pain.

  You can also do this exercise using a small dildo instead of your finger. Insert the dildo to the point where you are afraid you might feel pain. Relax your PC muscle and see if you can insert just a tiny bit farther without feeling pain. Remember to breathe normally and to keep your legs and all other muscles relaxed. Make an ink mark on the dildo to show how far you inserted it. Each time you repeat this exercise, see if you can insert the dildo a little farther without pain. Your goal is to become comfortable with penetration, so you can experience it without pain.

  Don’t be concerned if you don’t feel any sexual pleasure or arousal when you do any of these genital caresses. Eventually you will feel pleasure with penetration. Our goal here is just to make you feel comfortable with penetration.

  Exercise 86. DRAWING YOUR VAGINA

  The cornerstone of the sexual healing program for deep sexual pain is a visualization technique. Using the information you learned from doing the vaginal clock exercise, draw a picture of your vagina. Draw it however you picture it mentally—tube-shaped or as a flat surface. Start by just making a simple line drawing. Now take a colored pencil or marker and shade in the area(s) that you perceive as painful. Make the shaded area(s) as small or as large as you perceive it.

  Now you’re going to do a genital caress, using this drawing as a map to guide you. Lie down on your back and put plenty of lubrication on one hand and on your vagina. Hold your drawing with one hand so you can see it. Insert a finger and caress any parts of the inside of your vagina that don’t hurt. Look at the drawing while you do this. As you touch the inside of your vagina, picture what it looks like based on your drawing, and imagine yourself avoiding the shaded area. Make sure you stop just short of experiencing any pain.

  Now file that drawing away. A couple of days later, make another drawing without looking at the previous one. Repeat the genital caress exercise using the new drawing. Then repeat this exercise a couple of times a week. After a couple of weeks, take all of your drawings out and look at them. What you will notice after several drawings and caressing exercises is the shaded area growing progressively smaller in each drawing. Keep repeating this exercise until your drawing shows no shaded area.

  You can also do the whole progression of exercises using a small dildo instead of your finger. Use a small, rubbery, flesh-colored one. Keep redoing your drawing, and use it as a guide when you insert the dildo into your vagina and caress yourself with it. Make ink marks on the dildo to show how far you are able to insert it.

  Once you are able to caress the inside of your vagina with your finger and/or a dildo without experiencing any pain, you can start to work with your partner. You can do a whole progression of partner exercises similar to the ones outlined in Chapter 30. Use the “baby-steps” principles I described in the chapters on treating anxiety and vaginismus. Do each of these activities as a full sensate-focus exercise, with spoon breathing, focusing caresses, and partner feedback.

  The following is one example of a possible progression. Remember, each of these larger steps can be broken down into several smaller baby steps.

  1. Progressively insert each of your partner’s fingers one by one, from smallest to largest, and just let each finger relax in your vagina without moving.

  2. Have your partner caress the inside of your vagina with each of his fingers.

  3. Have your partner caress the inside of your vagina with a dildo.

  4. Using a lot of lubrication, insert your partner’s flaccid penis into your vagina in the side-to-side scissors position. This is a good position for you because you can adjust it so penetration isn’t very deep. Just relax and let his penis sit inside you without moving.

  5. Stimulate your partner so that he has an erection, and insert his penis into your vagina in the side-to-side scissors position.

  6. Now try the flaccid insertion or quiet vagina exercise in any other positio
n that is comfortable.

  7. Stimulate your partner so that he has an erection. Now climb on top of him and try intercourse in the female-superior position. You control all of the thrusting. He doesn’t move.

  8. Have your partner enter you in any comfortable position. This time, he does all of the moving.

  You can do any or all of the above activities that you are comfortable with, as long as you remember the following caveat: Don’t do any activity that causes you pain. If you experience pain, return to an exercise or part of an exercise with which you were comfortable.

  Also, if you find that you are having trouble with a certain activity or position (you find that you start to tense up, or you are afraid it will cause you pain), remember that you can do any of the above activities using the drawing technique. You can make a drawing of your vagina and put it where you and your partner can see it while you insert his penis into your vagina.

  Dealing with sexual pain can be frustrating and can take a long time. Be sure to regularly remind yourself that this healing process will work, and that you deserve to have intercourse that is not only pain-free but is intimate, enjoyable, and ecstatic.

  Part V

  ADVANCED SEXUAL HEALING

  In this final section, you’ll find chapters on using lovemaking to heal physical and emotional problems and relationship issues. I also provide many exercises for using intercourse for sexual healing and for combining sexuality and spirituality.

  chapter 32

  Lovemaking to Heal Physical Problems

  The area in which I received my doctorate is called health psychology. When I was a graduate student, health psychology was a relatively new area of psychology, but now it is very well established. Health psychologists study the ways in which our bodies (our physical selves) and our minds (our psychological selves) interact and affect each other. This chapter will give you some information about physical and psychological aspects of sexuality that will help you set the stage for using sexuality to heal your physical and emotional problems.

  The Unity of Mind and Body

  Historically, psychologists have focused their study on the mind rather than the body. However, recent advances in both psychology and medicine have shown the importance of considering the body and the mind as a single unit, a whole. The mind and the body function together, but they interact in ways that make them seem separate. In other words, it is possible for us to be more aware of one or the other at a given time. What is the importance of these concepts for our sexuality? Sexuality and sexual activity are areas in which the mind and the body interact closely. Whether we experience sexual issues as mental or physical, research shows that we need to work with both the body and the mind to enhance our sexual awareness, overcome sexual problems, and possibly heal our bodies.

  A basic concept in health psychology is the idea that all physical problems have psychological aspects, and that many (if not all) psychological problems have physical aspects. This idea is the foundation for the program described in this book. At times we have focused more on the body, and at other times we have turned our attention to the mind, but hopefully so far the result has been that you have learned to experience both the mental and physical aspects of sexual arousal and enjoyment. Now, in this final section of the book, we turn our attention to sexual healing of physical problems, emotional problems, relationship problems, and spiritual issues.

  In previous chapters, I outlined some of the ways in which breathing, touch, and deep muscle relaxation can have a positive effect on your health, both mental and physical. As we have seen, there is a long tradition in psychology linking mental and physical health. Anxiety is a health destroyer. In the sexual healing program, you learned to recognize anxiety and deal with it. You also learned to slow your body down and to promote the action of your parasympathetic nervous system (the relaxation response), which can also benefit your health. Stress is another health destroyer. The relaxing sexual activity that you have learned to experience with your partner can provide an antidote to any bodily tension that has built up from stress over the day or week.

  Perhaps most importantly, sexual expression can provide a “natural high.” Sexual activity, beginning from a relaxed state, allows your brain to produce endorphins, the body’s natural painkillers. Instead of numbing yourself with alcohol and drugs and getting sex “over with,” you can now use relaxing sexual activity to promote your physical health. To my knowledge, no psychologist has studied exactly what kind of sexual activity releases endorphins. But I know from experience that the peaking process seems to train the brain to systematically release these chemicals. Exercises that involve mutual peaking at high levels of arousal seem to be best for simply making you feel good, physically and mentally.

  Do you have physical problems that need healing? Or perhaps you suffer from mild anxiety, depression, or other negative emotions. Maybe you are physically and emotionally fit but feel a vague spiritual unease, a yearning for meaning in your life. Better yet, you are happy with yourself and satisfied in your relationship, and you believe that life can be even better. If any of these descriptions fit you, you could benefit from advanced sexual healing.

  What do these issues have to do with making love, you may ask. Believe it or not, making love can heal many aspects of your life. Sex is often put down, taken for granted, described as just a physical release or something that animals do, or even regarded as basically sinful. Of course, sex is much more than any of these things. Making love is an expression, an exchange, an involvement that connects you—whether you like it or not—not only sexually and physically, but also mentally, emotionally, and even spiritually with another person. Because lovemaking involves you so completely, it can affect you and your partner in any or all of these areas. In this chapter and the ones that follow, I will explore the vast healing potential that lovemaking holds and how it is powered by your mind, body, and soul.

  How can sexual healing help if you’re well to begin with? The power of sexuality is generally positive and healthful. When channeled toward a specific ailment, it has curative effects. When embraced by a healthy person, it brings about greater strength, vitality, and well-being.

  As you read about the various aspects of sexual healing, consider which will benefit you most and decide how you would like to begin bringing these benefits into your life. The mind and the body affect each other, working together as a system. As a result, you can tap into any aspect of the system—that is, you can work to heal physical, emotional, sexual, or spiritual problems—and every part of you will feel the benefits.

  The Physical Benefits of Lovemaking

  Do you complain about any of the following: ulcers, migraines, asthma, chronic pain, circulation problems, skin problems, general malaise, or a general lack of physical fitness? Complain no longer, for I have seen lovemaking work wonders on these conditions. When I worked as a surrogate partner, many of my clients had physical conditions such as asthma, ulcers, or other gastrointestinal problems. When they realized healing in sexual areas, their physical condition improved as well. Making love generally produces great overall physical benefits.

  Lovemaking offers so many healthful perks that it is hard to know where to start describing them. The act of making love is a physical process that involves the interplay of many bodily systems, especially respiration and circulation (blood flow). Since making love stimulates breathing and increases oxygen intake, it can increase lung capacity. When you breathe, oxygen is drawn into your lungs and then is absorbed into your bloodstream. Sex deepens your breathing, increases the oxygen you take in, and helps get your blood pumping, which moves that oxygen through your body. When you make love, a great deal of blood flows to your genitals to cause arousal, erection, and lubrication. When you become highly aroused to the point of orgasm, circulation increases in all areas of your body, especially in your skin and the muscles of your arms and legs.

  Lovemaking is also a well-known analgesic: It relieves pain. When we exper
ience significant arousal or engage in strenuous physical activity, our brain releases chemicals called endorphins. Endorphins have been likened to opiates such as morphine or heroin and have painkilling properties and are responsible for altered states of consciousness, such as “runner’s high.”

  I have found that the best way to get the body to produce these fabulous endorphins is to allow one’s sexual arousal to climb in predictable patterns (like the peaking process, described in several chapters of this book). Then, orgasm triggers a tremendous release of endorphins, which can stop pain for up to several hours. Can you think of a better way to find pain relief? That standard cliché, “Not tonight, dear, I have a headache,” should really be the opposite: “Let’s make love tonight, honey—I have a headache!” The pain-relieving endorphin effect can work to alleviate both short-term, acute pain, such as that produced by a migraine, and chronic pain, such as the pain of arthritis.

  The release of endorphins offers an added benefit aside from pain relief: It boosts the immune system in both the short and long term. The endorphin release produced by arousal and lovemaking encourages relaxation in much the same way as meditation, exercise, and yoga do, and this strengthens your immune response. People who have more reliable releases of endorphins tend to report fewer symptoms and to get sick less often. This means that sexual touch, arousal, and lovemaking can be a delightful way to help dispense with some of the pain that comes with immune-related conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis.

  Lovemaking can also be very good for relieving physical problems related to the reproductive system. As many women have discovered, often by accident, making love is especially effective for menstrual difficulties, including painful periods and premenstrual syndrome. Many men with prostate problems experience relief by using the sexual healing techniques for arousal and ejaculation.