Female Sexual Pain and Depression in a Non-clinical Sample of Religious Israeli Jewish Women: Does Religion Make a Difference?

The association between female sexual pain (FSP) and various aspects of physical, psychological, and sexual well-being is well-documented in the research literature. Multiple studies have reported a link between FSP and depressive symptoms. This study aimed to examine the possible moderating effect of religiousness on the FSP-depression association among a non-clinical population. A sample of 163 adult Israeli Jewish women in heterosexual marriages, all identifying as religious, responded to an online questionnaire including measures of genito-pelvic pain, depression, and two aspects of religiousness-religious behavior and religious fundamentalism. Male partners also assessed sexual pain and depressive symptoms of the women participating in the study. As predicted, female sexual pain was significantly associated with depression both for the self-assessment and for the partner assessment of these variables. In addition, moderation analysis indicated that religious behavior moderated the relation between FSP and depression for both types of assessments. Similarly, religious fundamentalism moderated the association between FSP and depression for the partner assessments but not for the self-assessments. However, whereas religiousness was predicted to buffer this association, interaction probing indicated that at higher levels of religiousness, the positive association between FSP and depression was significant, whereas when religiousness was lower, this association was not significant.

Long Term Outcome of Surgical Treatment of Central Introital Dyspareunia

Controversies remain regarding the preferred treatment strategy for central introital dyspareunia. The primary goal of this retrospective study was to evaluate the short- and long-term outcomes after operative management of central introital dyspareunia by widening hymenoplasty. In total, 513 patients were included, with a follow-up time of 10 years. We assessed the repair of sexual activities, quality of sexual life, and the prevalence of pregnancies after the procedure. In addition, general health status was assessed using the EuroQol-5D questionnaire. Of the 513 women operated on during the period of January 2009 until December 2019, 380 (74%) agreed to participate by sending a valid response. Eighty-seven percent of the respondents mention no to moderate pain for longer than one week after the procedure, while 9.5% and 4% of patients recalled the procedure as severely or extremely painful, respectively. Seventeen percent of patients recalled a complication; 13.2% reported prolonged healing or postoperative pain, 4.7% reported infection, and 2.4% reported bleeding. Twelve months after surgery, 72% experienced no or only slight pain during penetration. We can conclude that widening plasty of the posterior hymenal rim and vestibulum, performed as an ambulatory care procedure under local anesthesia, resolves more than 70% of the central introital pain problems one year after surgery.