Painful Sexual Intercourse

The pain can be present at various moments of the love play and often feels burning, cutting or stinging. This problem occurs more often in women. There are two sorts of pain in women: superficial and deep pain. When there is superficial pain in the sexual contact there is pain in the outer or inner labia or at the entrance to the vagina. For some women the pain is so strong that they also experience pain at every touch in this area, e.g when inserting and removing tampons, in gynaecological investigations, when riding a bicycle or when sitting on a hard surface. The gynaecologist can sometimes induce the pain by touching the area with a wet cotton stick. The pain then feels the same as when making love.

With deep pain the woman has a painful feeling deeper in the abdomen when making love, sometimes described as 'at the bladder' or 'at the ovaries'. The pain is often experienced as dull, stinging or pressing. However, the superficial pain occurs more often and has a physical cause less often.

Men can also have pain while making love.

Also read the articles about vestibulitis and vaginismus linked below.