Suffering in Silence: Examining U.S. College Students’ Painful Sexual Experiences and Their Relationship to Gender Roles

Objectives: Pain during sexual activity is a common, yet understudied experience. This research used a non-clinical sample and included women, men, and non-cisgender participants (in some of the analyses) in an attempt to understand more about the prevalence of and potential reasons for common painful sexual experiences (including non-penetrative, penile-vaginal, and anal sex) and their connection with traditional gender roles. Methods: For this study, 263 U.S. college students were asked about how common they believed painful sex to be, reported their own painful sexual experiences, provided potential explanations for pain during sexual activity and continuing that painful activity, and responded to a measure of hypergender beliefs. Data were collected online between 2022 and 2023. Results: Women were almost twice as likely as men to report pain during penile-vaginal intercourse. Of those participants who experienced pain during vaginal-penile sex, women were twice as likely as men to tell their partners about it and four times more likely to stop the activity compared to men. Participants higher in hypergender beliefs were less likely to report painful penile-vaginal intercourse to their partners. A thematic analysis yielded nine themes for why women and men might feel pain during sexual activity and six themes for why they might continue painful sexual activity. Hypergender attitudes were related to several of these themes. Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that pain during sexual activity is gendered in that it is more common for women and is related to beliefs in traditional gender roles. However, men also reported pain during sexual activity and failed to inform their partners for similar gendered reasons. People of all genders should be informed that pain during sexual activity, while common, is not inevitable and that better partner communication could diminish their discomfort.