After surgery (vaginoplasty) to create a neo-vagina from the existing cock and ball skin, the strict medical advice to keep the vaginal cavity open and receptive to whoever or whatever you might invite in, is to dilate three times a day, every day, at first for 30-45 minutes and then less as time goes on, until now a few years later when I still dilate at least once a week.

Sadly, often the vaginal cavity loses depth as a natural part of the healing process but the loss of this depth can lead trans women to feel like they are failing. Failing at readying themselves to experience sex and pleasure authentically, as their true selves, and failing to be ready for the big 'F' day.

Dilation is an arduous task which, for me always felt medicalized. The dilators provided by the NHS (National Health Service) in the UK are hard and unrelenting clear objects. Normally, two are given to the patient after surgery, one slightly smaller in diameter and length than the other which at first seems huge. Ironically, soon after surgery, the vagina is at its most compliant and loose as the healing process has not yet started. I was able to use both sizes within days. It felt quite competitive on the ward as to the depth and breadth of the vaginal cavity. It was also a deceptive illusion because as soon as stitches and joins start to heal, the space naturally becomes tighter. After the first week I would struggle to use the larger dilator again for a few weeks and even then it was always quite painful as the entrance to my vagina became quite tight and it wasn't skin that could be stretched out through dilation, it was scar tissue.

"I'd imagined lying with my legs open and relaxed on the bed, that things would run smoothly, but instead my vagina became a space defined by pain and forced penetration, forced by apparently vital penetration to keep her depth and to keep her open."

I started to dread dilation as it always involved deep breathing to try and get over the intense pain hurdle, three times a day at first and then lessening off to perhaps once a day for the first six or eight months, down to a couple of times per week.

That's a lot of fear around pain. There was so much tension for me. I felt like I was failing.

I thought, this is my vagina, the pleasure space I have dreamt about for years and years, closing my eyes, bringing my thighs together and fantasising that my genitals were femme and not masculine. For years, I'd dreamt about an easy breezy space that I could lubricate and then push fingers, or a toy into. I'd imagined lying with my legs open and relaxed on the bed, that things would run smoothly, but instead my vagina became a space defined by pain and forced penetration, forced by apparently vital penetration to keep her depth and to keep her open.

It felt almost like being locked in a battle with myself. I started to wonder, 'could I let her close up', 'did I really need to have sex', and 'could I let myself fail?’ After all these years of waiting, wanting, dreaming, fighting, ‘could I just let go and lose all the depth?’

I couldn't.

I didn't want to, so I persevered and in doing so, I stayed in what felt like a negative medical process that would lead me to a sex ready space, both physically and mentally. There was always a slight dread of the tightness and a slight sadness at the depth I knew I had lost, as I had long since purchased a smaller set of dilators to try and make the experience less stressful and perhaps easier. I was after all spending at least an hour a day on my back dilating.

It never felt easy because of the dilators—the medical dilators. Only when I was interviewing someone for my last book (Queer Sex) that the subject of dilation came up did I have a revelation.

"Dilators," they said in astonishment, "I never used horrible medical dilators. The first thing I did a month after surgery was to throw them away and use dildos and vibrators. I turned my dilation into masturbation. I still do. For me, it became sexual pleasure very quickly rather than part of the medical or surgical process."

"I turned dilation from medical and pain to sexual and exploration, which includes respecting my pain thresholds."

I felt stunned! I felt a little silly. I wasn't sexually naive. I had spent my life on and around different kink scenes yet here I was suffering every day without ever thinking that I could put the hard uncompromising dilators to one side and replace them with the beautiful, soft, spongy, flesh-like vibrator which lay in the drawer next to my bed, unused, forgotten about. The answer to my dilation dilemma lay right next to me all this time.

I turned dilation from medical and pain to sexual and exploration, which includes respecting my pain thresholds. I always had and viscerally understood my thresholds in any sexual activity, be that fucking, nipple play, rope play or any other activity in which I fully embraced my limits. On one hand, I felt elated because it was so easy to make the switch from medical to pleasure, but on the other hand I felt complete sadness for exactly the same reasons. It had been so easy to swap a dilator (painful and medical), for a vibrator (soft and sensual). Yes, I still have tightness and some pain, but I respect that pain and move away to find pleasure rather than trying to push through.

Why, oh fucking why, do they not give out this gem of advice as standard practice for post-surgical care?

Is it because, as women, we are supposed to endure a level of pain to arrive at the place deemed desirable or pleasurable? Oddly, over the years, my vaginal depth has become vastly unimportant to me as there is very little sensation deep towards the back of my vagina. Sadly, the question of sexual pleasure is seldom brought up in the process.

I masturbate, now, at least once a week and if it's warm, then out in my courtyard underneath my old olive tree. Feeling the heat of the sun bathe my vagina is almost pleasure enough, it can make me tearful. As I switch on the vibrator to its lowest purring setting and press it against my clit, feeling sensations radiate out sublimely in the sun; and then stroking it down between my lips and gently easing it inside of me; my body now relaxed, I exhale and can hardly remember where I threw the dilators.

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Join the conversation. Share your thoughts below in the comments section. If you've had vaginoplasty, what advice would you offer others for finding pleasure again?