Way back in my early thirties, I was visiting my mom. I was helping wrap Christmas presents, and I cut my finger on the tape dispenser. I went into my parent’s bathroom in search of a Band-Aid. I’d been in this room a thousand times. The layout was familiar.

I forgot my bleeding finger when I saw a big-ass bottle labeled “personal lubricant” on the vanity. Huh, I didn’t know that came in economy size. My parents always did believe in buying in bulk… apparently that extended to lube.

My next thought was don’t people put that sort of thing in their nightstand drawer? My experience with lubricants was limited, but it surprised me to see it just out there.

My third thought was Good for them. They’re still getting their freak on. I’m not sure why it surprised me, but it did. We’d always been a fairly close-mouthed family when it came to sex talk. The bedroom adventures of my sixty-something parents wasn’t something I’d ever stopped to ponder.

My mom poked her head in. “Did you find the Band-Aids?”

Me: “That’s a really big bottle of…um…you know.” I have no idea why I chose to point out the elephant in the room, but I was standing there ogling this jug of joy jelly, not a Band-Aid in sight.

“Well honey, when you’re my age, vaginal dryness is sometimes an issue,” my mom replied. She reached around me to open a drawer. “Here.” She handed me the Band-Aids, not the least bit uncomfortable about her hoo hah lube juice.

It was awkward for me. Although my mom was clearly comfortable chatting about her dry vagina, I wasn’t cool with any sort of sharing on the subject of sex that involved my parents doing the do. Fortunately, mom picked up on my nonverbals. I cleaned up my finger. We went back to wrapping presents and I stayed the hell away from my parent’s bathroom after that.



Fast forward fifteen years. The giant lube vat memory had dimmed, but I remembered the well, at my age comment after one of my own incidents of particularly unsatisfying and embarrassing moment between the sheets.

I wanted to have sex. My mind and heart were on board. I was feeling loving toward my man—he’d loaded the dishwasher and told me my hair looked great both without a prompt. He was doing all the right things and pushing all the right buttons, both literally and metaphorically.

I couldn’t get wet. I knew my Garden of Eden wasn’t ready for the snake, but I forged ahead. Maybe I thought I’d get with the program and things would wake up down there, but that isn’t what happened. Maybe I just wanted to get it over with because I knew he wanted it. My lady bits were as dry as the Sahara. If you imagine a broom handle encased in sandpaper… well, that doesn’t sound sexy in the least, does it? In fact, it sounds pretty freaking painful.

And it was.

My husband was into it. I tried not to let on that I wasn’t, but it became pretty obvious I wasn’t having a good time. The pain grimace gave me away, and because my man isn’t an asshole, he stopped. I felt deflated. And, I wasn’t the only one. Up until then, sex had pretty much followed the scenario of “hey, you wanna? Yes please,” and then the hommana-hommana meow-meow followed by the obligatory cuddle.  

I wrote it off as a one-time thing, but it kept happening. I’d emit all the signals and give the nooky green light but when push came to shove (ahem), things just weren’t happening downtown.

It’s frustrating when all the physical parts of sexual arousal are coming out to play—tingling, aching, I want you right now and all that—and your body doesn’t cooperate to pave the road to nookyland.

After a few unsatisfying encounters (coupled with mood swings and hot flashes) I talked to my doctor, who assured me that the vajayjay drought, along with all the other stuff, was normal. I’d thought of menopause as the time when that annoying monthly visitor stopped showing up, but there was so much more to look forward to. Vaginal dryness is just part of the deal.

I thought telling my husband “hey, we need to buy some lubricants” would be uncomfortable, but let me tell you, it was anything but. Telling your partner to buy stuff that makes you wet, so that you can have better (and possibly more) sexy time, is not a bad talk, people.

My dearly beloved took the lube chat to heart. He came home with a bag of goodies from our local drugstore. I might have been embarrassed to walk up to the cashier with six different varieties of lubricating goodness but not my man. Some of this stuff worked. Some of it was gross, cold, and sticky. But we had fun trying and found our favorite. And we had sex. Lots of it, actually.  

Sometimes it bothers me that my brain is sending my body the signal to get jiggy with it and my anatomy won’t cooperate. It makes me feel depressed, old and dried up—no pun intended. But, this is a normal side effect of menopause, and I shake it off and lube it up. Vaginal dryness can happen when a woman is stressed or dehydrated, and probably for other reasons I don’t know about.

There are certain things that are better when dry such as a good glass of Cabernet. A sense of humor. Your underarms. Your vagina during sex should never be in this category. And it doesn’t have to be.

This BluntMom Cadre writer has chosen to share her dusty vag story anonymously. 

Author

An amazing collection of bright women who somehow manage to work, play, parent and survive and write blog posts all at the same time. We are the BLUNTmoms, always honest, always direct and surprising hilarious.

4 Comments

  1. This was so well written– I was in your parent’s bathroom with you and I don’t want to go back either! So I can already say that when I develop this particular symptom, first I’m going to try to drink jugs of water in case it’s dehydration, then I’ll move on to getting massages, in case it’s stress related. Hopefully one of those will do the trick because something about lube scares me. It could be that the place I bring my car in for oil changes is called Jiffy Lube. Ha! Nice job here.

  2. There’s no shame in your game. Dry Vag is a rite of passage! My vagina totally smacks when I walk, so consider yourself lucky that “dry” isn’t “loud”. Great piece!

Write A Comment

Pin It