Dear Betty,

I was extremely involved in a very, very legalistic religious group for 10 years, age 15 to 25, the age that I would 'normally' have been exploring and discovering myself sexually. I was fanatical about being as 'perfect' as possible in this religion that was extreme protestant non-denominationalism, so I took it to the extreme. 1) NEVER MASTURBATE. 2) NEVER HAVE SEX. 3) NEVER FANTASIZE. As a result when I did have sex with my husband (both of us aged 20) for the first time on my wedding night, it was an unbelievably miserable experience. Still to this day, I cannot get over how horrifyingly, painful, frightening, excruciating, and just down right miserable it was. I literally wanted to scream, "I HATE SEX!" I'd spent almost 7 years of my life, at this point, training myself to NOT FEEL, not to feel anything sexual at all, and to think that everything involved with sex was bad and sinful. How do you undo that kind of 'brainwashing' in one afternoon, from the wedding ceremony to the hotel that night?

To make matters worse, I think my husband (ex husband now) must be one of those men who literally hates vulvas. He hates the way they smell, look, taste and feel. He literally never even fingered me more than a total of 15 min during the entire 4 years of our marriage. He may have gone down on me for a total of 7 min during that time. We had sex, on average, around 5 times a week, and it usually lasted about 5 min, including all the foreplay. I worked very, very hard not to HATE SEX with him! But it was painful, his penis was rather large, and now I feel angry because my inner lips are very stretched and saggy. They look ugly to me now. Ruined. They used to be soft and supple and pliable and now they look worn and tired and old and wrinkly, and it makes me angry.

I know that I'll have to learn to love my vagina, but this whole thing is a new slow process for me. I have been divorced for 3 years and it took me a whole year of separation and a whole year of divorce before I had my first enjoyable sexual experience (WITHOUT GUILT), at the age of 26!

I've been living in France for the past year and I'am enjoying being in a 'libertine' environment, instead of the bible belt where I grew up in Louisiana. I have finally let go of the images of 'slut' that are so frequently tossed around in my home state and have given myself permission to explore whichever partners I choose, WITHOUT GUILT. However, I have still not been able to start masturbating. I have tried a few times but I'm always unbelievably dry!

I've read lots of the articles on your site tonight (I got turned on to your site from The Vagina Monologues), and I have ordered your book, Sex For One. I plan to order your video, Celebrating Orgasms, and would love to order the Hitachi Magic Wand, but (here's where my question finally comes in) I saw the notice that I can not order with an address outside of North America. No problem, I can have it shipped to my sister's address, but the problem is the voltage. Many products made to work in America (I think it's 120 volts) blow up in Europe, because the current here is 220. I have tried to buy some kind of sex toy many, many times, now for the past two years, and I just get overwhelmed. I like the idea of just buying the one you think works so great. Any suggestions?

Robin