KANISA GEORGE
I have always loved romantic movies. As a young girl, I would relish the thought of adult romance and finding my happily ever after. And just like me, thousands of women do too. After all, who doesn't want to feel like Cinderella being handpicked to dance with the prince, (it's perfectly fine if you don't).
If there is one thing Ali and Noah's relationship in The Notebook taught us, most women want to replicate that transcendental on-screen romance that, after almost 20 years, still gives me goosebumps.
What I love most about romance on the big screen is the whimsical characterisation of relationships that acts as a happy pill for my brain. But if I am honest with myself and the shared sentiments of my female cohorts, the truth is, what I despise most about romantic movies is the unrealistic, untruthful and sometimes misleading glamorisation of the female sexual experience.
One would think that after struggling for centuries and continuing to struggle for our equal place in society, women would be more vocal about the issues they face, especially issues that impact their sexual well-being.
Some women tiptoe around discussing bedroom hiccups and instead gallantly proclaim that they are having the best sex of their lives while resenting their sexual experience. Very few have open and candid discussions about the journey to pleasurable sex or roadblocks that might prevent sexual satisfaction. Worst of all, their partners have little to no knowledge about their experience.
We don't need research to tell us that couples who have open conversations about sexual issues are more satisfied with their relationships. So it's surprising that so many women would instead put up with an unhappy sex life than have what they perceive to be a dreaded conversation.
Women don't talk about the pain they sometimes experience during sexual encounters, which according to one writer, is an experience rarely discussed but shockingly common.
Shockingly common?
Painful sex experience by women has been a problem for centuries, and solutions have long been overlooked. But, according to one writer, engrained centuries-old views that informed how we perceive sex might provide an explanation for this quandary.
Attitudes towards sex, until quite recently made no fuss about the experience of the receiving partner during sex. Author of Sex: Vice and Love from Antiquity to Modernity, Alastair Blanshard, believes that this is because the focus of the act of penetration is almost exclusively on the penetrator.
As progressive and open-minded as we have become, systematic neglect in the medical world and the adult industry has forced many receptive partners to grit their teeth and push through painful sex for decades, says columnist Mark Hay.
Of the women who experience painful sexual intercourse, one study found that the vast majority reported that they felt ashamed, undesirable and the topic far too taboo to talk about, even with their partner or closest female friends.
Sadly, and not in the least bit surprising
