For privacy reasons, some respondents’ last names have been withheld or a pseudonym has been used. Interviews have been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
“I didn’t want anyone to know about my sexless marriage so I hid behind a smiling facade. Inside, I was drowning in a maelstrom of emotions: shame over experiencing pain from intercourse (instead of orgasms), then not wanting sex altogether. Fear that the pain was serious, my body damaged, defective. Disappointment in myself that I was not the sexual woman I’d imagined myself to be when I married the man of my dreams. Anger that this was not how it’s supposed to be — this was not the dream. Confusion over why I didn’t want sex with the man I loved. And powerlessness — over everything.
