It was yesterday during foreplay with my fiancé, that a particular memory pulled all sensations to a sharp point. The memory itself is so hazy that mostly only its emotional permeation remains: I am exposed, my chest is exposed, and I am acutely aware of being female amidst males. Immediately all sexual charge I had with my fiancé is washed away.
The reason this is so interesting, is because this memory has arisen at various points over the years, since I was a young girl (maybe 7 or so; I’m 25 now). If I listen to the memory closely, i think I am aware of being exposed in front of my brothers and father, and feeling wrong.
Then other things come to mind. As a girl/budding teenager, I simultaneously felt it shameful to be a woman, and wrestled with deep anger towards men. I would say on account of the way my father spoke about women and treated my mother. I remember trying to prove to myself and others that I was as tough as a man, that I wasn’t womanly. Around the age of 15 or so I began growing a bit too much hair on my throat, though it wasn’t yet hirsutism. My breasts never developed past a shallow A-cup, in spite of exclusively busty women on both sides of my family. My hips also remained narrow and my torso straight, with little indication of a feminine waist.
In my early twenties, when I began engaging with men sexually, I discovered to my deep shame and with excruciating pain, that I had what is called “vaginismus”: my vaginal muscles wouldn’t loosen enough to let a man inside. They refused to budge no matter the position, coaxing, lubricant, setting, no matter how wet or horny I was - something said “NO”.
Now, I got through vaginismus. It was not trivial. I had to face it bare-faced and with a burning courage. But I faced it. And I made it not just my problem, but the issue of my partner and friends. Because, “only you can do it, and you can’t do it alone.”
Maybe I still have some digging to do. To figure out if some part of my psyche is obstructing my breast development.
Do you think our psyche might have a much bigger influence on our production of hormones than we’re accounting for? Might I ask those who are willing to describe their own psychological nuances insofar as they see them relating to breast/female development? Relevant childhood experiences, current self-image?