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‘You’re allergic to my what?’ exclaimed my husband, when I first floated this theory to him. My vaginal problems, which began the first time we had intercourse, had become an oft discussed topic between us over the years.
Most women have a painful experience the first time they have sex, I did too. But it continued to pain, the second time, third time, fourth time. Two months later, the pain still continued and my vagina had become painfully inflamed.
To be fair to my husband, he was quite gentle. In fact, each time the inflammation subsided and we decided to have sex, he got even more gentle. But the inflammation would come back soon. We couldn’t figure out what had happened. Also I had decided that I wasn’t all that keen on sex.
I quite enjoyed foreplay though, thanks to my husband. Sensing my reluctance, he would coax me into the act each time, but after a point we somehow fell into this pattern of breaking off after foreplay. The No-Intercourse period was awkward yet comfy for me, because my insides had stopped feeling inflamed. It also made me wonder whether it was really my body or something else which was causing this.
Eventually I got over my awkwardness to consult a gynaecologist. To my horror she told me that it was a sexually transmitted disease and prescribed antibiotics. Since my husband was the only person I had slept with, I disregarded this suggestion entirely and decided to consult somebody else.
All the gynaecs told me the same thing, that it was STD. They dismissed my concern that I was allergic to sex and said my husband must have been unfaithful to me. This did not improve matters much at home. Although both of us felt offended at the suggestion, my husband felt compelled to defend himself. My reassurances didn’t help. Possibly it was a bit of the Indian patriarchy that was surfacing in him, but he even bristled at the suggestion that I was allergic to sex.
“Nonsense!” he snapped. “There is nothing wrong with me! How do you know that it’s not you!”
It didn’t help that both of us were, at that time, facing considerable pressure from both sides of the family to quickly have a baby, having married late. Given our sexual problems I was in a quandary and I certainly couldn’t tell any one of our parents about it! The issue lay simmering, while the in-laws wondered why this woman is still unable to produce a grandchild for them (bah!).
One day, my husband suddenly came to me and said, “Come, we are going for tests.” Deciding to put the issue to rest once and for all, both of us decided to test for STDs, something which we should have done long ago. The test results came clean for both of us. Relieved that it was not STD, we decided to go ahead and try for a baby, although I was already dreading it, I was also secretly hoping that the problem may go away with pregnancy. It didn’t.
Getting pregnant was a pain, literally, considering my inflamed insides. Post pregnancy, as our sex lives resumed normalcy the inflammation began again. By now, I was convinced that it was allergies.
I looked it up online and found allergy to semen, not sex, was shockingly common and the symptoms similar to sexually transmitted infections. This time I decided to consult a sex expert to confirm my suspicions.
And it turned out that I was right all along. “It actually happens to a lot of women, especially women who tend to have extremely painful periods,” he said and referred me to an immunologist for treatment. Although it’s emerging as fairly common, there is still very little research on this subject, the immunologist told me. “Even some men are allergic to their own semen,” she said.
Now I was suddenly faced with the prospect of a lifetime of abstinence, given my allergy to semen. “So what now? No sex ever?,” I asked her. “No…no….it’s really simple actually. Just use a condom each time!” she said with a smile. And that was it, so simple. I was a fool for not thinking of this earlier.
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