“Have you ever thought about just not having sex?” The Dairy of my Broken Vagina by Fran Bushe

Written by Fran Bushe 

“Have you ever thought about just not having sex?”

These words were said to me by a doctor a few weeks before I turned 30. I’d been sexually active for 14 years and the truth is that I just didn’t ‘get’ sex.  I wanted to want sex, but for the most part, I participated (giving appropriate “ooh” and “aah” noises at what felt like reasonable intervals) and hoped that the next time would be better. Mostly, it hurt. 

It had been this way since I was 16, and it was impossible to know if it hurt because I wasn’t turned on enough, or I wasn’t turned on enough because I was always worrying it was going to hurt. This became a vicious cycle and the thought of actually enjoying sex became a distant dream.

At 30 I’d decided that enough was enough. I was tired of feeling underwhelmed and wanted to become a multi-orgasmic-tantric-come-with-ease-never-painful-sexual-goddess. Or, at least, learn to enjoy — a bit — the sex I was having. That year Viagra had been made available over the counter without prescription (in the UK), and I felt angry that sexual problems for people with vaginas were not being treated with the same attention, care or empathy. I had endured too much sitting in front of Doctors, who didn't meet my eye as they embarrassedly shuffled their papers. They made me feel  like asking to enjoy sex was self indulgent, unreasonable and greedy.  Feeling unheard and isolated I ended up writing about my experiences instead. 

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I didn’t think anyone would be interested in hearing about my vagina. All I could picture was people rolling their eyes thinking, “oh my goodness, it’s going to be a woman on stage shouting at me about her vagina for 55 minutes”. I was wrong, turns out people are very invested in my vagina. Let's hear it for my vagina!

First I wrote my stage show Ad Libido, which had sell out runs across the United Kingdom. Now I am writing a book and have just released a tv pilot based on my own diaries The Diary of my Broken Vagina. For me talking about it is scary, as it means admitting openly I feel intimately broken at my very core, but it has also encouraged me to communicate and not feel like this is something I have to deal with on my own.