For some, the issue extends beyond emotional blocks to physical ones. Some females experience what is called vaginismus—an involuntary physical tightening of the vagina that makes sex painful and sometimes even impossible. According to a sex therapist and an obstetrician/gynecologist interviewed by The Sydney Morning Herald, vaginismus is “more common among women who are saving themselves for marriage” and “women, who due to religious or cultural reasons, have developed an overriding fear of penetrative sex,” though it is also experienced by sexual abuse survivors and those with a fear of
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