What You Can Do If Your Vagina Feels Numb During Sex (Plus, Why That Might Be Happening)
Table of Contents
- Possible Causes of Vaginal Numbness
- Potential Steps to Overcome a Numb Vagina
- What to Do When Your Vagina Feels Numb
Up to 90% of women orgasm from one form of sexual stimulation or another.
For women with vulvar numbness, though, the very notion of orgasming can seem like a pipe dream.
Instead of the typical sense of arousal and stimulation, their vagina feels numb during sex. It’s as if they’ve been administered a local anesthetic, and it’s surprisingly common.
Needless to say, a numb vagina can be a cause of deep concern, anxiety, and frustration. After all, everybody wants to experience the joy of sexual pleasure. To feel zero sensation in your vagina can be deeply unsettling.
The good news is that it doesn’t have to be permanent.
With the right insight and approach, you can regain sensation and start enjoying sexual intercourse once again. Are you looking for explanations and solutions to the numbness in your vagina?
Let us help.
Read on to learn the causes and possible treatments for a numb vagina during intercourse.
Possible Causes of Vaginal Numbness
Understanding the issue is an important first step to overcoming it.
Let’s start by going through three potential causes of vulvar numbness. From there, we’ll move onto a selection of ideas to help restore sensation in your vagina.
1. Physical Health Issues
The cause of your numbness might be physiological in nature.
Everything from a hormonal imbalance and the menopause to stress and obesity can play a part. Likewise, the abuse of drugs and alcohol can also be a factor.
You might find this strangely reassuring. After all, it means you can resolve the numbness by treating the underlying physical issues. In effect, you kill two birds with one stone.
2. Trauma
Vaginal numbness may also be the result of historic sexual trauma.
Some women might have engaged in sexual intercourse before they felt ready. Others might have suffered a sexual assault. Regardless of the specific trauma involved, the outcomes can be similar:
Something akin to post-traumatic stress manifests itself in feelings of physical numbness. Perhaps you associated the act of penetration with fear, stress, and discomfort. Sexual intercourse, and the pleasure it promises, becomes linked with pain instead.
Traumatic sexual encounters understandably cause the vagina to tense-up during penetration. If the same tension builds in future sexual encounters, then that can eventually lead to the total loss of sensation.
3. Over-stimulation
In some cases, vaginal numbness is simply to do with overuse.
Indeed, it isn’t uncommon to experience a loss of feeling if you’ve engaged in excessive masturbation- especially when a vibrator is the go-to source of clitoral stimulation.
In these cases, taking a break for a few days should resolve the issue.
Potential Steps to Overcome a Numb Vagina
Let’s turn to 5 steps you could take to regain sensation in your vagina.
1. Go to the Doctor
One of the first steps you should consider is visiting your ob-gyn.
Remember, there might be underlying physical health issues causing the problem. A visit to the doctor can help you discover (or, indeed, rule out) any physiological factors in play and work out solutions to them.
They might prescribe medication that facilitates sexual pleasure or recommend dietary and lifestyle changes that could make a difference. The might also be able to signpost you to alternative options for support.
2. Consider Therapy
Could the numbness in your vagina be the result of trauma?
If so, then accessing counseling or therapy services might hold the solution.
A mental health professional will work with you to identify and understand the trauma you experienced. In a safe and confidential space, you’ll be able to explore the events and your reaction to them. From there, the therapist may offer specific tools and techniques to help you overcome the issue.
3. Map Your Vagina
The numbness in your vagina may not be absolute.
In other words, you might still have feeling in certain places. By ‘mapping’ your vagina, you’re trying to find out which areas have sensation and which don’t.
Of course, there’s a chance that you’ll have no feeling whatsoever. But you don’t know until you try! Alone, or with your partner for help, use your fingers (or a sex toy) to explore each point of your vagina.
This helps in two ways. Firstly, you’ll build up a more realistic understanding of your sexual experience. In the mapping process, though, you’ll also stimulate the nerves in your vagina. That in itself may facilitate a reduction in numbness.
4. Patience and Practice
Exercising patience and self-compassion is vital as well.
After all, having no feeling during sex can be deeply distressing. It’s challenging, unfair, and exasperating. Yet trying to force the issue won’t help. You’re more likely to lose hope, feel even tenser during sex, and give up.
Having patience with yourself and the healing process will allow you to relax.
You’ll feel less pressure to perform, which is inevitably more enjoyable. As you rediscover the enjoyment of being intimate with someone, you might even find that whatever barriers to sensation were in place begin to lift.
5. Find a Caring Partner
Your partner has a role to play here as well.
The last thing you need is to be with someone who’s selfish, impatient, and uncaring. That’ll only exacerbate any feelings you have of shame and negativity.
Try to find a partner who’s caring, considerate, and understanding instead.
It becomes a team effort whenever the person you’re intimate with is compassionate and willing to explore the issue. There’s less pressure on your shoulders. You feel validated, supported, and empowered to find a solution.
What to Do When Your Vagina Feels Numb
Countless women struggle with vagina numbness during sexual intercourse.
It’s disconcerting, frustrating, and, frankly, unfair. Thankfully, there are numerous ways to overcome the issue and restore sensation during sex.
Hopefully, this post has provided useful insight into why your vagina feels numb and what you can do about it.
Are you interested in seeing a medical professional for help restoring sensation? Contact us today to see how we can help.
