The week the pandemic shut down all the schools, I went to the gynecologist. Over the past six months, I had been plagued by non-stop yeast infections, and I had tried every home remedy under the sun to cure myself. Then the gynecologist told me I actually had chlamydia.

The diagnosis started me on a path to recovery that would span years. The chlamydia itself cleared up within a week, but the psychological damage of enduring painful sex for so long remained. My partner at the time was abusive, and did not care about my pleasure, or my pain. Sex had been painful, every single time, for six months straight. 

I was ashamed, firstly, when I realized I couldn’t use so much as a menstrual cup without experiencing immense, lasting pain, like a cold, persistent ache.

Recalling my lessons from Family Life courses in middle school that taught me to seek out a doctor if I experienced pain using menstrual products, I booked several more appointments with gynecologists, hoping that the next one would find something wrong with me, or tell me some way forward. Each one only had a vague answer, finding nothing and asking for a followup if the pain continued (it always did). I was sure something was wrong down there, to the point where I asked the gynecologist doing my pap smear to look for scarring. There wasn’t any, and she reassured me that any past trauma I had was unlikely to do permanent damage—after all, vaginas are built to push out babies and heal from them. 

My paranoia began to eat me alive. Despite the placations, I was still experiencing pain. To top it off, every time I felt an itch I feared it was a yeast infection, or that I had somehow re-infected myself. I asked the nurse to test me for every STI, just in case they had missed it before. They told me it wasn’t necessary to test again if I had no symptoms, but still, I needed to know for sure that I was in the clear.

I was. But the pain continued.

Over and over I had been dismissed, largely because I didn’t have a sexual partner. It seemed as though the nurses and doctors that attended me didn’t see an issue with my pain because they saw my vagina as a sexual vehicle through which sex or birth is performed. Since neither was happening, I was relegated to the margins, told to come back if the pain persisted with a partner. So, the next time I saw a doctor, I lied.

This time she listened to my concerns, and asked me more specific questions: Did the pain persist in all positions, or were some easier than others? Had I tried using pillows to prop my hips up in a comfortable position? Was I using lube? Maybe my cervix was closer to the entrance than most cervixes (the cervix, she informed me, changes positions throughout the menstrual cycle, and canal length varies between bodies). She did a full exam, providing the kind of care I was used to receiving from a doctor when I came in with an issue.

But at the end of the exam, she came up empty. The best advice she had for me was to experiment with positions and keep trying. 

The last doctor visit was both the most helpful and simultaneously the least encouraging. I tried a different tactic with this doctor, being extremely honest and upfront about why I was there. I relayed to her all my past experiences and told her the immense pain that had brought me there. After deciding for me that an internal exam wasn’t in my best interest, she leaned forward and whispered, “Do you need to speak to someone?”

Looking back, I am almost certain she asked with good intentions, but at the time, it felt condescending. It felt like she was invalidating my pain, insinuating it was all psychological. Despite having had years of therapy under my belt, I instantly declined the offer, insisting I would just like to figure out what was wrong with me. I was certain it was physical.

The doctor, who was really a nurse practitioner, offered to go and get the head doctor of the practice. She said he could examine me and, with his decades of experience, hopefully give me an idea of what was going on. “But,” she added hesitantly, “he is male. Is that alright?”

It wasn’t alright. I didn’t want a man anywhere near me, especially not when I was so vulnerable. But more than that, I wanted this over. So I agreed. And I waited. And waited.

The head doctor never came. He was busy and wouldn’t be able to make time. It had taken over an hour for them to relay this to me. The nurse practitioner came back in with the printed resources they always gave me, and on the back she had written down a URL for a local pelvic floor physical therapist. The therapist was out of network, but the website provided me with validating information: this pain was not just in my head. Other people experienced it, too; it was called vaginismus. And it could get better.

Sex was not better the next day—it took a lot longer than that. I had to tackle a number of various issues, starting first with getting to know my own body. Finding the right positions is tricky, too, and it can change throughout the month with your hormone cycle or just the way your body is feeling that day. Medications and mental illness also got in the way, lowering my sex drive to null at times. Talk therapy helped a lot, and I am lucky enough to have a therapist that enrolled in additional courses to find a better treatment plan for me. My partner was patient with me, and understood that sex will be painful at times, but we can switch positions, use pillows or lube, and get intimate in other ways to make me more comfortable. Memories of a time when sex had been good kept me going when it seemed impossible to continue.

It was difficult to admit, but sex was painful for a long time for me, both emotionally and physically. I felt like something was wrong with me, that I was doing something wrong somehow. It took countless doctor visits to learn that I needed to first understand my own body, and then to learn how to trust myself. I had to learn to stop saying, “Thank you so much,” and start saying, “Actually, I don’t understand the results. Can you go over them again with me?” I learned that the sex ed I had been taught was severely lacking, because it didn’t go over what to do when sex isn’t fun anymore. I learned to be prepared for when sex becomes difficult, whether due to injury, sex drive, or disability.

When Michel Foucault wrote, “Tomorrow sex will be good again,” he didn’t mean it to be hopeful. Tomorrow does not guarantee a better day; sex is a constant negotiation of power and embodiment. Still, sex can be good again. But tomorrow’s progress does not come without today’s work. If you’re in a similar position, keep trying—learn more about your body, be open and honest about your pain, and don’t stop advocating for the care and comfort you deserve.

Managing Uncertainty of the Exponential Technology Age

AI Lunchbox, 12-1pm ET
Thursday December 19, 2024, online

This year, the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Annual Meeting was held from December 9-13, 2024, in Washington, DC. AGU is a nonprofit organization that supports the Earth and space sciences, and its annual meeting brings together thousands of people from all over the world. For AGU24, the theme was “What’s Next for Science.”  Approximately 75 presentations, a mix of oral and poster, were given by GESTAR II scientists throughout the week. 

Dominique Footes (SURA) and ESRA Director Margo Young (UMBC) coordinated with the Maryland Department of Commerce for GESTAR II to share an “Earth Sciences in Maryland” booth along with others in earth science research. Ms. Footes was involved with setting up the booth, procuring GESTAR II items, organizing the extensive list of GESTAR II presentations (including scientists' names, poster/talk titles, locations, dates and times), and providing photos from the week-long event. GESTAR II researchers who volunteered to staff the booth included Ivona Cetinić (616/MSU), Daeho Jin (613/UMBC), Carl Malings (610.1/MSU), and Andy Sayer (616/UMBC). We hope this was a productive week that provided good discussions, shared ideas, and future collaboration opportunities. 

Be sure to check out our AGU24 Photo Gallery (all photos by Dom Footes/SURA)!

The CAHSS Dean’s Scholarship for Education Abroad is NOW OPEN!

Apply now if you’re planning to study abroad in 2025!

As the holidays approach, we want to remind employees about the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) as a resource for eligible employees (Regular and Contingent II) and members of the employee's household.

Turn the holidays into a happy, stress-free time by taking care of yourself, bringing balance to your work and home life, and letting yourself relax and enjoy the season. Please see the attached flyer for tips on how to take care of yourself this holiday season.

Highlights of the EAP program via ComPsych and Guidance Resources:

• The EAP is available 24/7
• Free Confidential Counseling, up to 5 sessions free!
• Work-Life Solutions
• Legal Support
• Discounts, i.e. Pet Insurance

There are two ways to access EAP services:

Call 1-855-410-7628 to speak to a counseling professional who will listen to your concerns and can guide you to the appropriate services you require.

OR 

Visit Guidance Resources Online at www.guidanceresources.com and enter our company ID: USMEAP

We wish you and your loved ones a safe and happy holiday season!

Foad Hamidi, an assistant professor in the Department of Information Systems, has won funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support two new projects offering technology-rich informal learning opportunities to diverse populations in Baltimore and beyond. 

In the first project, called Space for All, Hamidi will collaborate with Digital Harbor Foundation, a Baltimore-based organization dedicated to creating pathways to opportunity through technology, and MN Associates, an education evaluation firm, to create accessible and engaging learning spaces and programs with and for youth and young adults with autism in three community spaces in Baltimore City. The second project—Introducing Synthetic Biology using Biomaker Activities—will work with youth and their families to co-design activities that support their STEM learning and engagement. That project is a collaboration with the University of Texas at El Paso, Baltimore Underground Science Space (BUGSS), and MN Associates, and will engage participants in El Paso and Baltimore City.

“This work builds on long-term engagement with community partners and transdisciplinary collaboration with experts in participatory design, learning sciences, and special education,” says Hamidi. “The two projects collectively provide our multi-institutional teams with more than $3.3 million to investigate and implement technology-rich, inclusive learning spaces and programs for youth and young adults. The projects will prioritize centering young learners’ and their families’ perspectives and interests through a participatory, community-engaged approach.”

Past outreach success

The projects incorporate lessons from Hamidi’s previous successful community engagement efforts. In an earlier project with the Digital Harbor Foundation Hamidi helped develop technology-rich after school programs in Baltimore. 

“An innovation in these programs was that they were offered at city recreation centers, which already have a lot of community members coming to them and are located across the city,” says Hamidi. In the new Space for All project, Hamidi is again partnering with the Digital Harbor Foundation to extend the programs to include youth and young adults with autism.

In the Introducing Synthetic Biology using Biomaker Activities project, Hamidi and his colleagues aim to engage youth and their families in the new field of synthetic biology, which uses computation and design technology to modify biological cells for research and health applications. The field is an important area for community involvement because synthetic biology has complex ethical implications and health applications, Hamidi says. 

Hamidi and his partners will work with youth and their families to collaboratively design and construct engaging learning activities. Possible options include genetically modifying microbes to express color pigments that are then used to paint living art and constructing 3D objects from material containing living fungus.

Art meets science

Hamidi has experience using art as an outreach tool. In 2023, together with Linda Dusman, music, and with support from the Imaging Research Center, he initiated a transdisciplinary project at UMBC to create an art installation called Infinite Transformations. The installation’s center podium displayed a bottle of wine fermented using yeast whose DNA was modified to include an encoded version of a poem by the 14th-century Persian Sufi poet Hafiz. The bottle was surrounded by animation created from large-print microscopic images of the genetically modified yeast and ambient audio fusing the poetry of Hafiz, flute music, and a Morse code representation of the poem.  

“Art can help the public learn about and be exposed to cutting-edge scientific concepts and methods in synthetic biology,” Hamidi says. “We will use the knowledge from the Infinite Transformation project to create hands-on activities for a younger audience to learn about biodesign, bioart, and synthetic biology.”