| dc.description.abstract | The significant impact of vulvodynia on women has been acknowledged increasingly within research. However, the role of gendered and sexual cultural discourses shaping construction and embodied experience of sexuality in mixed sex couples’ coping vulvodynia has received minimal attention. This research investigated the lived experience of couples with vulvodynia, their navigation of gendered and hetero- normative discourse, and relational and sexual adjustment. The aim was to identify what, if any, changes and renegotiations took place whereby women with vulvodynia and their partners could find alternative ways of relational and sexual expression and diversity of pleasures. The research was undertaken with 14 participants, in 7 heterosexual couples using a qualitative methodology: interpretative phenomenological analysis underpinned with a feminist phenomenology episteme. Four overlapping superordinate themes emerged (1) Gendered Identity (2) The Relational (3) The Sexual (4) Burden. Women did not report vulval pain as being the central issue, rather they felt the idiopathic condition of vulvodynia affected their sense of self, body and gendered identity, which was perceived in many ways as analogous to loss of self, sexual identity and sexual pleasure. Men however, reported that the vulval pain experienced by their partner was a central issue, because it affected their own sense of self and for some, loss of sexual function and maleness. The research shows that adjustment is often avoided and defended against in repetition due to difficulties in developing the capacity for adjustment confounded by socio-cultural norms and beliefs. The analysis identifies, and uniquely explains with feminist phenomenology concepts and hermeneutic circles of understanding, the effects of cultural norms of gender, sex and sexuality in couples with vulvodynia, invoking repetition, which threatens; yet can open up possibilities for adjustment. The analysis from the study indicates a need for healthcare professionals and psychosexual therapists to acknowledge socio-cultural discourses of gender and sex that shape the possibilities and constraints for women with vulvodynia, and their partners in the couple sexual relationship. Moreover, the analysis indicates an importance of changing the experience of women with vulvodynia of their own bodies and pleasures; and the experience of couples to re-negotiate their unique sexual relationship with attunement and re-embodied desire to develop the coherence needed for the emancipation of the imprisoned body and mind. This research gives emphasis to healthcare professionals and psychosexual therapists working with sexualities: bodies, desires and imagination; in clinical practice to support couples to re-negotiate their unique sexual relationship and adjustment to vulvodynia. | en_GB |
