Women in pain: a cultural biography of vaginismus in trans-Atlantic perspective (1950s-present)

Despite its high prevalence, vaginismus remains an under-researched condition up until the present day. This is not only true for the medical sciences, but also for history. Apart from a few articles about the medical discovery of the condition by Marion Sims in 1861, the history of vaginismus has never been explored. By illuminating how healthcare practitioners, women’s movements and sufferers have engaged with the issue since the 1950s, this research project will enrich the historiography of science and sexuality, women’s health, and sexual pain. Focusing on the aforementioned actors, I will examine the changing medical understandings and treatments of vaginismus, the educative and knowledge-making role of women’s health activists and the experience of sexual pain. I will do so through a comparative transatlantic lens in order to elucidate in what ways and to what extent healthcare providers, activists and sufferers have exchanged ideas and information about vaginismus overseas. Drawing on a variety of archival, published and oral sources this research project will produce the very first cultural biography of vaginismus in the postwar era.