Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - Do You Just Need to “Relax” or is Something Else Making Sex Hurt?

Episode Date: November 13, 2024

That’s one of the questions we explore in this Language of Love Session, as I dive into a letter from a listener, Veera, who’s grappling with some common and tricky troubles with intimacy, body image, and self-worth. Veera’s been feeling discomfort and even bleeding during sex with her new partner. She’s wondering, “Is this just because I’m getting older, or are we not a good match?” Veera’s partner suggests she should “relax” through intoxication, which is definitely not the best approach. If you’ve ever questioned whether you’re worthy of love (You absolutely are), you’ll want to stick around and hear my advice. We cover it all: What’s going on with your body when estrogen levels dip Simple fixes for dryness and discomfort during sex How to have honest, healthy conversations about intimacy Why mindfulness during sex beats numbing out How self-deprecating humor can reveal what we really think about ourselves And as always, if you have any questions, send them to [e-mail], or visit my website to join the conversation. I'd love to have you on the show! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, I'm sex, love, and relationship therapist, Dr. Laura Berman, and for the last 30 years, I've been helping people learn to love and be loved better. Welcome to the Language of Love Sessions. This is where I get to work with you one-on-one, on air. You, my listeners, my goal in these sessions is to empower you to enjoy better relationships, both with others and with yourself, and to help you embrace how precious and sacred your body, your love life, and your sexuality really is. It's time we all become fluent in the language of love. Welcome to the language of love. This is language of love session. Some of my favorites. This is

when I get to answer all of your calls and questions that you write in or that you call in about love, relationships, sex, whatever's on your mind. You know me, I'm always here helping you learn to love and be loved better. So this is a question from Vera. I'm going to read it to you. She says, hello, Dr. Berman. Thank you for all the content that you made available. I left you a message, but it's hard to understand. So I decided to email. Here's the problem. I started dating someone new about a month ago. Who's a little on the short side. I think she's talking about his penis and a little wide. And Oh no, she says, she says, I started dating someone new about a month ago. Who's a little on the short side and also a little wide. And as it turned

out, it's the same with his penis. Sorry. I don't mean to laugh, but that is a funny sentence that you don't hear every day. She says we attempted to have sex, but unfortunately I've experienced some discomfort and bleeding during our attempts at first, it wouldn't go in. And finally he put my legs on his chest and pushed into me with a weird look on his face, which caused a bit of bleeding and lasted a few hours. Here are my questions. Do you think it's offensive that he asked me if I'm a virgin? I've never had bleeding like that before. And with a lube, I didn't have problems previously, which was a while ago. Second, since I'm 47, this could be due to the fact that I'm old and dry or could it be we're incompatible? And then she says he also suggested that I need

to relax like getting drunk or high. That's not my cup of tea. I would like to be present and conscious. Is this a red flag? And then she says I'm also in between jobs. Afterwards, I joke that I'm unemployable. And so is my vagina. Would that joke indicate low self-esteem or is that being vulnerable with someone? Boy, these are good questions. Let's just answer them one by one. do you think it's offensive that he asked me if I'm a virgin? No. I mean, he was saying you're pretty tight. I don't know that I would take offense at that. Some of the other things he's talked about, I might take offense at. I think the answer to that question, because I'm assuming you use lubricants, the answer to that question is in your second question. Since I'm 47,

could this be due to the fact that I'm old and dry? Okay. You are not old at 47. All right. Stop saying that we got to change that paradigm around. But at 47, really starting as early as 38, our estrogen levels start to lower. And as our estrogen lowers, so does lubrication. And so does the thickness and the health of the vaginal tissue. It becomes thinner and more brittle. So there's a couple of things, and that may be why, because it kind of tightens up the vagina, It makes it harder and less flexible and it makes it more painful and it can cause little fissures, little teeny cuts during penetration, especially with a wide penis or a large penis that you're not used to.

And so there is something to be said for the use it or lose it phenomenon that the more sex you have, the more supple the vaginal tissue stays, but also without estrogen, it does start to get drier and brittle. So there's a couple of things you can do about it. First of all, you can explore with your doctor systemic estrogen, meaning oral or patch or something else, implant in some cases, estrogen replacement. You definitely want to talk to your doctor about it. The good news is that we now finally, I've been shouting this from the rooftops for 20 years, that this dumb women's health initiative study that came out 20 years ago saying that estrogen causes breast cancer unequivocally had so many flaws in it, but the whole world went crazy.

And women everywhere were ripped off their hormones, left with hot flashes and skeletal muscular problems and mood problems and dryness and thinning of the vaginal walls and just left to their own devices and told to suck it because it would cause breast cancer and no doctor wanted to take that risk. Now, finally, it's coming out in the peer-reviewed journals that that isn't the case. And in fact, estrogen in many cases may be protective against breast cancer. Now, I'm not an MD, so I'm not giving you medical advice. I'm speaking to you as a PhD doctor, not an MD doctor, And you do want to talk to a physician about this, but you may want to consider systemic estrogen, which will help with a lot of things if your levels are low, including this vaginal

issue. Or if not, you can use a locally delivered estrogen, either in a cream or a suppository, or there's a ring, an estrogen impregnated ring that's called Estring or Vagifem is the prescription for the little pellets that are, that kind of adhere inside the vagina to the walls and dissolve there. It doesn't change the blood hormone levels at all, has very little impact on the rest of the physical system. It's just locally delivered to the vagina. And that really helps with the health of the vaginal tissue and the dryness. So it does seem like you're at the aging stage and have the symptoms that that may be part of it.

Hey, it's Dr. Laura Berman. I've been a sex, love, and relationship therapist for over 30 years. And the main question I always get asked is how the heck do we spice it up in a long-term monogamous relationship? Well, if you want to take your love life, your sex life to the next level, whether you're in a relationship or not, check out my free course on quantum sex. It's going to teach you how to take your sexual response to the next level, capable of full body orgasms, how to use sex magic to manifest your dreams, and how to connect on an even deeper level sexually with your partner. Just go to drlauraberman.com and you'll find it right there on the homepage, the Quantum Sex Free course. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Saying that you needed to relax, I mean, he was probably self-conscious and uncomfortable, And listen, when you start to have pain, this is a normal human physiologic response in response to pain. We clench. So the more pain you have, the more you're going to clench and tighten in response to the pain and then the more pain there's going to be. So that may have been part of what was happening. And he was saying, hey, you know, if you get drunk or high, you'll relax and maybe you won't feel the pain. Well, screw that. I mean, listen, if you want to get drunk or high, go ahead. I don't care. You know, lots of people enjoy that. I'm not down on any substances within reason, assuming there's not an addiction at play. But I certainly don't think that I think you're right. The more conscious you can be in sexual scenarios, the better it's going to be for everyone. And you don't need to be drunk or high to enjoy a sexual scenario. and I don't really like the fact that he's like encouraging you to like you just need to loosen

up when technically this is probably a physiologic issue which leads me to your final question that you joke that you're unemployable and so is your vagina I mean that is a self what we would call a self-deprecating joke and it's kind of funny it's not true just because you're unemployed it doesn't mean that you're unemployable and your vagina is certainly not unemployable she just needs a little support, which every vagina at age 47 needs a little support. I don't know a vagina on the planet that is 47 or older that doesn't need a little support. But the fact that you are considering staying with and being with a guy who is criticizing you and telling you you need to relax and kind of taking offense that he hurt you and that you're still interested. I'm reading or

sensing that you're still interested in being with him. That is a sign of low self-worth. And my guess is just the fact that you asked the question, you know, you don't need me to tell you what your self-worth is. You know that you maybe don't feel the confidence in yourself and the worthiness of love that you could and should feel. So I definitely would explore that with a counselor, a therapist, or even on your own journey. Teal Swan has a beautiful course on building self-love. I do a lot of work around that. I've done a lot of podcasts around that. So it is a really worthy exploration, no pun intended, and a really important one because you absolutely, just by virtue of the fact that you are here in human form, you are a miracle

and you deserve all the love in the world. You don't have to do anything or be anything to deserve healthy, abundant love. You are worthy simply because you exist. We have to understand the difference between self-esteem and self-worth. Self-esteem is I love and celebrate myself because I'm good at sports or I have a hot body or my vagina isn't dry or whatever story we're making up that gives us self-esteem. Self-worth, you don't have to do anything, be anything, have anything. Just simply because you are here, the divine being that you are, it is a miracle that you are here, that any one of us are here alive in human form, that that sperm and that egg came together and divided and grew into a baby and that baby was born and you survived

your life till now. That is a miracle. The chances of that are like one in a billion. You deserve all the love in the world simply because you exist. So do not stand for anything less. If you have a question that you want me to tackle, you can always send it to languageoflovepod at gmail.com. And if you'd like to come on the show, email us there too, and or follow me on social media at Dr. Laura Berman and let us know you want to come on because I love talking to you live as well. I'll see you next time on the Language of Love.

Thank you.