Meghan Trainor's NSFW Confession Was A Health PSA, Not An Attention-Grab
Grammy award-winning singer, Meghan Trainor, doesn't generally shy away from revealing NSFW stories involving her husband, "Spy Kids" star Daryl Sabara. But for her critics, even those paled in comparison when she decided to open up and talk about her "painful sex" experience with Sabara, who she called a "big boy" in her podcast "Workin' On Motherhood." "[It's] to the point where I'm like, 'Is it all in?' and he's like, 'Just the tip ... And I'm like, 'I can't do anymore.' I don't know how to fix that," she said.
While that wasn't all the singer said, her comments were taken out of context, leading social media users to call out Trainor over what they thought were inappropriate comments. One tweeted: "Omg what we supposed to do with this," another said "So y'all don't have enjoyable sex together and why do we need to know this," while a third remarked: "This is ridiculous. Do you have to share this with everyone? We really don't want to know this."
But Trainor's comments weren't meant to offend — they were meant to inform. In the same podcast, she opened up about being diagnosed with a medical condition known as vaginismus, which the Cleveland Clinic describes as "an involuntary tensing of the vagina". That tightening isn't just experienced before penetrative sex; It can also happen before a medical examination, or before a tampon is inserted.
Trainor's condition prevents her from having a normal sex life
Social media's negative reaction to Trainor's comment makes it easy to understand why people continue to suffer from conditions like vaginismus. The condition is thought to affect anywhere between 1-6% of people with vaginas — but because few talk about it, as a result, the actual percentage could be higher. Medical journals like BJOG say as a whole, painful sex is a common health problem, albeit a neglected one. The condition is described as being difficult to treat, and its causes are neither well-known nor understood. Because of this, sexual pain is either ignored or mishandled.
That doesn't help people like Trainor for whom the pain is real. During the podcast, Trainor described the pain she encounters during sex, describing it as "stingy burning." Even during her efforts to get pregnant, she said it had gotten "to the point when I was making this baby ... I had to ice myself after." She added, "I thought that every [person] walking around was always in pain during and after sex. I was like, 'Doc, are you telling me that I could have sex and not feel a single bit of pain?'"
And as other people who might have experienced vaginismus before, Trainor said she had tried to convince herself that the pain was pleasant, she added that "the aftermath sucks" and that one doctor had told her that it wouldn't be an easy recovery.
Reaction to Trainor's revelation about pain is not unique
That vaginismus is underdiagnosed in society as a whole should not come as a surprise, since research shows women's physical complaints involving pain are routinely ignored. One study reported by the Journal of the American Heart Association showed that women and femme people with chest pain who had gone to hospital emergency rooms had to wait 29% longer than men before they were examined, while women of color had to wait even longer than that.
Women have also complained about the treatment they get when they complain about reproductive health problems. As Anushay Hossain, author of The Pain Gap tells The Washington Post, "There's a pain gap, but there's also a credibility gap. Women are not believed about their bodies — period."
While medical researchers insist that society has made some progress, social media's attitude toward Meghan Trainor's revelations involving her vaginismus diagnosis shows we still have a very long way to go. As Johns Hopkins Hospital Urologist Karen Boyle told ABC News: "There's still this perception that these problems are psychogenic, that if a woman gets more rest, takes a bubble bath, focuses on romance, her problems will go away. I think romance is important, but if you have underlying sexual dysfunction, it's not going to matter how romantic you are."