I read a story once about a woman who overcame her vaginismus by drugging herself several times a week, and allowing her husband to have sex with her unconscious body. R and I agreed that we did not want that. He loved me. He never blamed me, shamed me, or even expressed anger at my situation. No matter how upset I was, he could always bring me back with a silly joke or face.

Once, after a particularly painful attempt to have sex, I ran into the bathroom to pee and weep. And then suddenly he was in the bathroom with me, holding my face and kissing my forehead. "We'll get through this together," he said. "You're not alone."

"But... but I'm peeing," I said, scrambling to cover my lap. "This is gross."

"I know," he said. "But together."

The absurdity cracked us both up.

Unfortunately, he felt bad all the time too. "I want to be able to give you pleasure," he'd say sadly. "I want to be your lover, not your source of pain." To our mutual delight, I discovered that I loved blowing R, and many good days and nights were had. But R couldn't reciprocate at all. An entire year went by, and despite all our attempts, we hadn't managed any penetration. When he'd reach for me, I'd have a Pavlovian response. Sometimes he didn't even need to touch me, and my muscles would spasm. On a good day, I'd fall asleep in his arms wiping away tears of frustration.

Finally, I contacted a physical therapist who specialized in pelvic-floor pain. I'd known that such physical therapists existed, but I'd never been brave enough to book an appointment. In my head, I pictured a prudish therapist and a nun lying in wait to yell, "Gotcha! You're just a freak, and there's nothing you can do about it. Use some lube, and get over it." But R had awakened something in me. I found myself thinking, "This relationship is worth taking a risk, and I am worth taking a risk."

And in fact, contacting a physical therapist turned out to be the best thing I could have done for myself. Her demeanor was professional, kind, and encouraging. I felt safe in her hands. She started by working on my legs and hips, getting at the source of the muscle spasms. Within three sessions, she was able to rest her thumb at my vaginal entrance without my body erupting in pain. Furthermore, I was able to insert a vaginal dilator (granted, a very small one) inside myself. Gaining the tolerance for a dilator was enormously difficult, and took hours, days, weeks, of painful practice. Nonetheless, I was making progress.

R and I found each other on an online dating site, and met in person at a café in Boston. As we chatted, he seemed calm, laid back, confident — the reliable sort of guy people ask to feed their pets when they go on vacation. Then, not twenty minutes into our first meeting, R leaned close and said in a low voice, "I already know that I want to see you again. Do you feel the same?"

Like steam pushing the lid off a pot, R's true self radiated across the table: pure sex and libido. I realized that the person sitting before me hid a passionate disposition behind his calm, cool front.

This should have been a happy, thrilling moment; even if the meeting hadn't been going well, it should have been awkwardly flattering, at least. Instead, all I felt was panic. So what if I met a handsome, funny, exciting man with a sexual appetite as great as my own? Inevitably, we'd reach a point where I would let us both down.

I said yes anyway.