AlgART / Articles and Books / Tikkun ha-Berit

“I feel nothing!”

While marital relations are good, the husband doesn't dare say such a thing to his wife. The wife thinks, “He came. So, he is happy.” The husband thinks, “Is it really her fault? With age everything is stretched out down there. After childbirth the vagina cannot become as tight and resilient as it was before. This cannot be corrected. And if so, why tell her about this? Why offend her?” Thus, false modesty and the false opinion that there is nothing that can be done, creates a negative tension even in a lot of problem-free families. And some men are incited by this situation to find young, slim, virgin women hoping to obtain the desired delight. One person goes further, and so the demand for child prostitution appears. Someone drops even lower, and he already takes an interest not only in girls, but also in boys. Destinies are broken this way. This goes on for millennia. The struggle against such phenomena by police forces just raises the prices of services on the black market. And, anyway, struggling against the supply alone is ineffective: something must be done with the demand. Raising the level of public morality is, of course, a necessity. (The Torah offers an interesting educational method. It says, “Do not prostitute thy daughter, to cause her to be a whore” (Leviticus 19:29). It is incredible that there could be a man, ready to send his own daughter to lechery! Many of those, who don't care if they have lechery with some girl will shudder to think that this could be done with their child. The Torah appeals namely to such people to awaken in them the pity for someone else's daughter, because their own could be in her place! Such an approach can itself stop many people.) But you have to admit that the problem cannot be resolved using this moral alone. It's like struggling with the external symptoms of an illness, while ignoring the cause. And it is well-known that the best treatment is prevention. And then we're back into the family.

I would not have started talking about the problem if I did not have way to solve it. Meanwhile, the solution is very simple: by strengthening the woman's pelvic floor muscles. The tone of pelvic floor muscles is very high in childhood and youth. It can be seen from the intensity of a girl's urine stream. Certain muscles lose their tone, partly because of the natural aging processes, which usually begin earlier than generally thought, partly because of improper intimate relationship (it's necessary to teach to proper ones!), and also partly due to childbirth. It is crucially important for intimacy, especially for a man. There are a lot of nerve endings on the head of the penis. Information, sent from them to the brain, is one of the most important links in the physiological process of sexual intercourse (over-physiological phenomena will be discussed later). Ejaculation (sperm emission) can occur without these sensations, for example, due to strong common arousal of a man (say, due to his imagination) or vibrations from a strong rhythmic friction with the pubic bones during the coitus. Ejaculation occurred, the husband “calmed down,” but the organism felt that it was deceived. All these nerve endings are needed for something. aren't they?! There has to be tightness in the woman"s vagina in order for a man to feel something. If everything is loose there, the man just will not feel proper contact. What is soft is able to feel better contact with the hardness of the partner, but the partner's hardness won't be able to feel (at least not as much as it needed) contact with the other partner's softness.

The keenness of a man's physical sensations during intimacy affects, in the end, the whole complex of relations between a husband and wife. A conflict on that ground can arise not only after many years of family life, but immediately after the wedding. The Torah considers that situation. “If any man take a wife, and go in unto her, and hate her...” (Deuteronomy 22:13) If a man has married a girl, doesn't it mean that he likes her? For what reason would a husband have hated his wife after the wedding night? The Torah puts the fact that he hated her in direct dependence on the fact that he goes in unto her. Is further explanation really needed?

I recommend the following exercises.

Exercise 1. “Scissors.” Lie on your back on a hard flat surface. Lift your legs without bending the knees at 30–45° from the ground. Move your legs to the sides as far as they will go, and then cross them in the air 15–20 times.

Exercise 2. While lying on your stomach, spread your buttocks to the sides with your hands. While using your hands to create resistance, return the buttocks to the starting position using the buttocks muscles, . (10–20 times)

These exercises are simple, effective and accessible to all. Their purpose is to strengthen the muscles of the underbelly, which is important for both preserving a woman's health and for strengthening relations with her husband. These exercises are also recommended for young women before marriage.

For young women, who might consider the exercises above inadequate, we can recommend the exercise with a stone egg, which, according to a legend, was learned by wives of the emperors of China.