Painful sex and mental health have a surprising relationship

Sealed Lips is Mashable’s series on pelvic pain, an experience rarely discussed but shockingly common.

No one ever told me painful sex was a problem. 

While consistently experiencing vaginal pain with practically every new partner that'd leave me sore for days — before usually going away over time if we did it more often — I never said anything. Not to those partners, not to my friends, and certainly not to any doctor. One day though, after mentioning it to a group of girlfriends in college, everyone shared their own similar yet varied experiences of pain during sex. As we swapped horror stories (more than once the pain led me to cry silently while partners rarely noticed and carried on), we laughed it off. I went as far as admitting to taking a little pride in it, some twisted pleasure in the pain because I thought it meant I was "tight." Read more...