Unusually Tight

By Molly O’Shea

I lost my virginity in LA to a boy with a leopard print mohawk. I was a teenager so I felt like I’d just found cheat codes to a much cooler life.

However the following is also true: I lost my virginity to a boy with a Pikachu tattoo whose mum liked me more than he did.

I was relieved to have done it, it was painful but the 19th Century literature i’d read had prepared me for that. Ten years later he’s still one of my most cherished friends, but his mum definitely still likes me more than he does.

I’m pretty bad at spacial awareness. Tetris is stressful and I never know if I can walk through the space between parked cars. So I assumed that was the trouble when I couldn’t use a tampon. When I was old enough to have forged friendships that wouldn’t judge me I confided in them that I couldn’t figure it out. The unanimous response was “You’re just not pushing it up high enough”.

The next few times I had sex it was still painful. In fact it was getting worse. I was obviously bad at sex.

When I was 19 whilst sitting in a Sainsbury’s parking lot I broke down in tears and told my mum.

“Oh darling… Could it be an issue of dryness?”

I once got trapped in three of the four compartments of a revolving glass door on my second day in my first job for the BBC. It was nowhere near as embarrassing as hearing my mother discuss the wetness of my vagina.

Mum arranged a gynaecologist appointment and the nurse who weighed me was called Fanny. Mum and I couldn’t make eye contact for the next hour without erupting in laughter. My abdomen hurt from holding in the giggles.

The old man doctor asked if it was fine to have junior doctors observe and I didn’t know how to say no. In the space of five minutes the amount of men who’d seen my vagina had tripled. He investigated and I nearly passed out from the pain. He removed whatever tool he was using and said “Unusually tight”.

They thought I had endometriosis but they could only tell by operating. So operate they did. When I came round mum was waiting for me. As I was wheeled into the recovery ward I implored her to please bring me the film Anchorman. She returned within the hour with my laptop and Anchorman on DVD.

I didn’t have endometriosis. They had no idea what was wrong with me. The doctor said he was referring me to a sex psychologist because I’d probably been abused. I tried to tell him I knew about repression and I really hadn’t. You can release your jaws I promise this story doesn’t end with me realising i’ve been abused.

I had an appointment with the sex psychologist the week after mum was diagnosed with the cancer that would eventually kill her. I didn’t go.

I got busy trying to keep mum alive, then I got busy being dangerously sad whilst trying to keep myself alive. I didn’t forget about sex I just thought it was something I wasn’t allowed. I felt so bad about myself the idea that someone could be attracted to me felt implausible.

Even though it was painful I’d liked sex. In return for making me feel wanted, men got to come. That seemed like a fair exchange (It isn’t). My friend Rose and I had a thing we called the sex clock, and it would be reset every time we engaged in sexual activity with another person. The sex clock basically marked the last time we could prove we were fuckable. If you have a vagina and are not an object of desire, you might as well not exist. The longer the clock ticked, the more certain I became I was worthless.

I was so convinced I was repulsive that if I saw a cute guy on the tube platform I’d get on a different carriage to make sure I never had to know he didn’t look at me. I was the least attractive woman in the world. I had a panic attack walking down Regents St because I saw my reflection and was so horrified I stopped breathing.

My mum was a powerful, unconventional, talented weirdo. The Female Eunuch changed her life and she spent a couple of years in what people now call “The green period” where she would dress exclusively in green, with green lipstick and green hair. I thought she was above the male gaze; evolved. She was ludicrously cool. But she also used to stare at herself in the mirror and say things that are honestly too painful for me to repeat. She once told me that for two years she only ate food she didn’t like as a way of keeping her weight down.

When I was about six I remember standing with my t- shirt pulled up to reveal my tummy and repeatedly asking my Granny if it looked like I was pushing it out. She kept saying no and I kept asking till she said yes. That was the first time I had “proof” that I was fat.

I could tell that when mum’s weight went up her self esteem went down. We watched black and white movies every Sunday and I idolised Katharine Hepburn and Bette Davis. They were strong, beautiful women with tiny waists. Obviously in order to be the leading lady in your own life you had to have a tiny waist, otherwise you were just a supporting character.

A couple of years ago I started to hate myself less. I put it down to having supportive friends and reading fat liberationist literature. The less space you take up as a woman the more valuable you are. My sadness turned into rage which was actually quite empowering, largely thanks to Lindy West.

I decided that I should be allowed to want sex. So I went to my GP and explained the situation. She referred me to a gynaecological physiotherapist who basically fingered me while we talked about The Handmaid’s Tale. Her name was Cassia and she changed my life.

I’m a perpetually embarrassed person so waking up the day of my first appointment with Cassia to discover I was on my period was a cruel joke. I explained to her we couldn’t do anything. She did the medical equivalent of assuring me she didn’t mind putting a towel down. My conflict avoidance overpowered my embarrassment and she became my bloody valentine. God bless the NHS.

Thanks to vaginal dilators and Cassia things had improved, but i’d still told no one. I’m an intersectional feminist, I believe how you identify is what’s relevant, not your genitalia. So why did I feel like I was a failure as a woman? I was was so ashamed that my vagina couldn’t withstand a man because on some level I believed that was my primary function; to please men. I was a pencil with no lead.

After about a year of medical fingering I thought I’d like to try using a tampon. I was nowhere near human male dick capacity but I was hopeful a tampon might be possible. I was wrong. I screamed and none of my flatmates who are cats cared.

Cassia decided we should do an ultrasound of my vagina to see what was happening. It was clear my pelvic floor was too engaged. Like the rest of me, it didn’t know how to relax. The ultra sound revealed my pelvic floor was so tight my vagina was 1cm wide.

For reference things that are the width of my vagina include: A pencil.

I went home and cried into my computer. I wanted to tell someone but the only person I wasn’t embarrassed to tell was dead. Cassia had said the next step was surgical. I would agree to go under general anaesthetic but this time there would be no one to bring me Anchorman.

Cassia explained that my condition was often caused by sexual trauma, the muscles contract the way everything does when you’re afraid. I got her to show me what she meant. She tensed her abdomen and as I worked out the movement I said “Oh yeah, tucking your tummy in”.

The move was very familiar to me, I’d been doing it since I first noticed my stomach wasn’t concave. Since I trapped my Granny into confirming I was rotund. I’d been doing kegals since I was six.

The systemic oppression of people who aren’t thin, fat shamed my vagina into having Gandalf scream “None shall Pass!” every time anything wider that a pinky tried to enter it.

The male gaze fucked me so bad it couldn’t fuck me.

The surgical solution was appropriately comedic. I had Botox injected into my pelvic floor.

Somewhere along the way I stopped being ashamed and started telling people about my inconveniently tight cunt. It became funnier than it was shameful then it just stopped being shameful. I now relish the occasions when I hear someone announce they’d never get botox, I tell them i’ve already had it in my vagina and it silences a room I’m no longer afraid to take up space in.

I can’t lie, I haven’t tested it on a human dick, but I have tested it on a tampon. I wanted to tell my mum, which is probably why I wrote this. I cried with joy. It was the most liberating moment of my life and it had nothing to do with being fuckable.