I Got the “All Clear” for Sex After Giving Birth. But Something Wasn’t Right.

How to Do It Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Olga Shefer/Getty Images Plus. Our advice columnists have heard it all over the years—so we’re diving into the How to Do It archives to share classic letters with our readers. Have a question? Send it to Stoya and Rich here. (It’s anonymous!) Dear How to Do It, I had my third baby six weeks ago and finally got the OK by the doctor to have sex. It’s been a very long six weeks, and I was more than ready. But then my husband and I tried. I was so dry and it was so painful. I was really surprised since I was very turned on. My husband took his time to make sure I was ready, but nothing was helping. So we used lube, but it was still so painful. This never happened with the first two pregnancies. Is there anything I can do? We spend a lot of time on foreplay, and I really enjoy that. But I want to be able to have PIV sex. Maybe there’s a specific kind of lube I could try? I’m nursing, so I don’t think the problem will go away anytime soon. —Like the Desert Misses the Rain Dear Rain, Congratulations on your third child. Vaginal dryness six weeks after delivery, especially when you’re nursing, is a pretty common postpartum experience. It may be related to lower estrogen levels after the delivery. Your instinct to use lube seems wise. If you’re using condoms, go for water based or silicone lubricant. Stay away from anything warming, scented, tingling, and especially numbing. I’m a fan of Pjur’s Eros for silicone. You want to be able to feel what’s happening with your body. Try a finger first. Fingers might be too bony, in which case you’ll want to start with incredibly slow penetration with your husband’s penis. If fingers are OK, spend some time adjusting to that girth first. The key here is to proceed slowly and gently, paying attention to sensations, and see what’s possible right now. If you aren’t using condoms—and remember, you can get pregnant again even after a few weeks—you have oils like coconut as an option for both moisturizing and lubricant. It’s worth speaking with your OB/GYN about possible treatments. A vaginal estrogen cream is a common option, and seems to work well for many. Your hormones are likely to balance back out when you’re finished with breastfeeding, so this probably isn’t a lifelong problem. —Jessica Stoya From: I Told My Ex the Truth About Our Sex Life—and He’s Livid. (May 6th, 2021). Please keep questions short (<150 words), and don‘t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication. Dear How to Do It, My partner and I are consensually nonmonogamous and pressed for time. The joke about Google calendars for CNM people is real, but we still find ourselves overwhelmed with other life events and obligations. We’re graduate students and experience booms and busts in our free time. So nonmonogamy lately has shaken out as a few casual friends we met on apps that we see very inconsistently—maybe once a month each?—sometimes to hook up or just hang out. It’s been great for exploring specific kinks, but for me at least, the kink play I want to engage in still takes a good amount of executive functioning and logistical planning that I sometimes just don’t have in me, even when I’m not also getting drinks or staying for dinner. Even this, though, has begun to feel unsustainable with the holidays, finals, family medical emergencies, etc., and one kind friend pointed out I seem to be very much at capacity, even when expectations for engagement are very low. They’re right. I feel it, and I’m not kidding anyone. My partner is at a similar place, and has canceled plans a few times in the past few weeks. Right now, we’re hoping in the winter break we’ll have some more time, but I’m not sure what I want. Part of me is looking at winter break like the chance to schedule the sexy hangouts I didn’t have time for before. Another part, though, wants a reset, akin to one date a week or less, maybe once every two weeks even. But I’m not sure how to communicate this to everyone—I would feel very jealous and lots of FOMO if my partner was still going out multiple times a week while I’m languishing at home, desperately scrounging up serotonin. We’ve set agreed caps in the past on the amount of dates in a week or month, and have even closed our relationship for big life events/emergencies before, so I can ask if that is what I need. But I’m not sure, and have no clue how to frame it or if they’ll agree after they’ve also been waiting for winter break. Also, how would I communicate this to my friends or potential hook-ups? Some friends seem to get it or are in a similar boat, but I still want to have a clear conversation so they can make their own decisions about continuing to engage. I’m sure for some, it can feel crappy and not worth it if a sex partner can only hang out once every two months. Do you have any suggestions for how to make a decision and start these conversations? —Spent Dear Spent, I’m in New York City, and as I’m writing this it feels like half of everyone I know has COVID or has just been exposed. In the short term, I encourage you to be extra cautious with the amount of people you’re sharing air with, much less panting heavily with and kissing on the mouth. For now, I think it’s reasonable to tell your partners that you’re closing the pod for the indefinite future. Long term, because even after you graduate you’ll have unforeseen life events that randomly upend your schedule, be precise with your main partner and potential other partners about what your availability is and what your time priorities will be in a crisis. Institute giving—and getting—a weather report of sorts. A regular conversation (maybe every three months?) about where you’re at and what’s expected to come up in the next several weeks. Someone in your extended might feel crappy. Sometimes we feel bad when we don’t get what we were hoping for. Sometimes we feel loss when something we enjoyed ends or becomes less often. Sometimes we feel rejected when we’re, well, kind of rejected. It hurts to hurt people, but we can’t live our lives according to the desires of others, especially not at the scale of nonmonogamy. You might consider that feeling crappy now in response to a directly expressed change in boundaries is preferable to feeling crappy over the course of a couple of months as they wonder why they aren’t seeing you. You also might feel crappy if someone tells you that seeing you once every two months isn’t worth it. Love is not a starvation economy, but time is. Your heart may be boundless, but the clock moves at the same speed for all of us. Be kind and forthright, and I think you’ll be OK. —J.S. From: I Really Have to Tell My Boyfriend the Embarrassing Truth About Our Sex Life. (December 28th, 2021). Dear How to Do It, I’m a 50-year-old cisgender female with a long history of sexual abuse. I was molested from an early age, and later, I ended up in an extremely abusive situation with a man that would make Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs look like a good guy.* I was raped and tortured for 20 months by him. I was able to get away and eventually married and had kids. I never discussed any of this with anyone because of the profound shame I felt. I later divorced, and during a subsequent unhealthy relationship, I was in such emotional and mental pain I started masturbating thinking about some of the things that happened during those 20 months because the thought of physical pain was a release from all the mental pain I was feeling. It’s now the only way I can orgasm. I have eschewed sex with another person because being in my head and using my hand were the only times I felt safe. One therapist said it is a way for me to process what happened and to control it, since I obviously didn’t have any control then. Now I am at a point where I miss being touched, held, kissed, and generally the intimacy of having another human being around me. But what I’m having a hard time finding is someone, anyone, that wants to get to know me first and isn’t just some porn-obsessed horn dog. All the men in my age group seem to just want to fornicate, and I’m not in a place mentally or emotionally to just hook up. Ideally, I’d like to find someone to help me act out some of the things I experienced, but with aftercare that is nurturing and loving. I feel stuck and in need of love and orgasms that aren’t self-induced. Where do I go from here? Please don’t suggest dating apps. They are their own special hell. And none of the local sex clubs offer much in terms of the type of man I am looking for. The specialist websites seem to have a lot of tourists who read Fifty Shades and think they understand how it goes down, but they don’t understand respect, boundaries, and consent. —My Arm Hurts Dear M.A.H., I’m sorry to read about the horrific abuse you have endured and I’m glad you have received counseling for it. I hope that you are continuing to work through the considerable trauma that was inflicted on you through no fault of your own. What your therapist told you about replaying your abuse via fantasies as a matter of controlling it seems like a fair assessment. (Demi Lovato recently shared her own experience with similar catharsis in her YouTube documentary Dancing With the Devil.) What I think you could do to pursue a partner for your needs is to look into a local BDSM group and attend a munch. A munch is a social gathering often in a public space with emphasis on socializing and not play. Such a meeting tends to attract people who are embedded in the scene (of course, munches are often open to first-timers as well). You, like your hetero-flexible letter-writing colleague above are seeking something extremely specific, which means that you will have to be patient. It means you might be frustrated a lot in the process. But it will make finding someone that much more rewarding. Good luck. —Rich Juzwiak From: I Told My Ex the Truth About Our Sex Life—and He’s Livid. (May 6th, 2021). More Sex Advice From Slate I’ve been dating this guy, Carl, for a bit over six months. It’s been nice, but lately, I’ve run into a problem. Carl has a thing for women’s arms. I’m not quite sure if it would more properly qualify as a kink or a fetish, but at a certain point, it’s academic. He loves looking out and touching my arms, especially between the elbow and shoulder. And sometimes he’ll just idly brush my biceps and have this almost contented glazed look on his face. Never miss new Slate Advice columns Get the latest from Prudie and our columnists in your inbox each weekday, plus special bonus letters on Saturdays. Advice Dating and Relationships Family Sex