I had been dating Mikesh for almost a year before we first slept together. It was the first time for both of us and I remember thinking how over-rated sex was. I mean, it was nice but it wasn’t anything mind-blowing – at least, not the first time.
Things did get better for us physically once we started trying new things and making the experience more romantic (poor guy had to buy me tons of chocolates before every sex session). Then, after a few months of having sex, I started feeling a weird kind of pain during sex – every time we got down to it. I felt uneasy and would feel repulsion more than pleasure. I didn’t tell him anything, I thought the feeling would pass. Maybe I just wasn’t turned on enough, maybe I could try a little harder…
But things didn’t get better. The pain remained as it was and it started to annoy both him and me. Sometimes I would just refuse to have sex or, on other days, I would just want to get done with it as soon as possible. He could obviously sense there was something wrong with me but I still didn’t tell him anything. Maybe I found it embarrassing… I started over thinking whether this was because I didn’t really feel anything for him and so I was just dry down there every time we had sex. That was the only plausible explanation I could come up with.
I am generally a shy person, even more when it comes to my personal life, so I could not think of anyone to discuss this with. Eventually, I approached a friend of mine. I told her what had been happening and asked her what could be wrong with me. After spending hours on google and looking up the symptoms, she sent me a long message explaining that it could be bacterial or fungal infection.
It scared me, to be honest. I hadn’t realized that by having sex there are other things that come into play and you need to careful about them, even when you are using protection. But an infection? I had never had any kind of vaginal infection and the thought that now I might just have one brought me to tears. I could not tell my parents and since this was the first time something like this was happening to me, it left me really worried. What if it turned out to be something worse than an infection?
It was after an hour long phone call with my friend that I finally calmed down. She convinced me to visit a gynaecologist with her and that I needed to stop making it sound more dramatic than it was. The next day, we bunked college and went to the doctor.
By this time, I had also told my boyfriend what had been happening. He was worried and even offered to come with me to the doctor, but I thought it would be better with a friend, in case there were any awkward questions or some bad news.
The check-up was super embarrassing but it got over sooner than I thought. The doctor told me that it was a yeast infection and that it really wasn’t something I needed to worry about but something that I needed to be more careful about. I was given medicines and an ointment and told to clean up properly every time I had sexual intercourse.
I was relieved, to say the least, and felt a little stupid for blowing the situation out of proportion. If only I had made this visit a month ago, I wouldn’t have been worried sick and fighting with my boyfriend all this time. We refrained from having sex for about a month, in which time my infection was almost gone. Luckily, it never returned and our sex life has seen an upward graph from that day onwards.
*Names changed to protect privacy.
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