'I saw a sex therapist about painful sex. Here's what she told me.'

Who do you envision when you think of a sex therapist? Barbra Streisand in Meet the Fockers, constantly alluding to love-making by speaking only in double entendres (working from a home office decorating with dicks)? Or is it a pioneering sex educator and academic like Betty Dodson Ph.D, who dedicated their career to instructing women on cultivating real pleasure (with or without a partner)? Or, better yet, is it Gillian Anderson in Sex Education who comes to mind, donning her impossibly cool outfits and leading her own single life of total sexual freedom.

Now I am a big fan of all three examples above. Though I am yet to confirm whether these kinds of pop culture cliches exist much in real life, I'll have you know there is a new breed of sex therapist on the block. You may have noticed the rise in all kinds of young, progressive people who are creating clinics equipped to treat a series of modern sexual conundrums.

Watch: Sexologist Chantelle Otten sex tips for couples. Post continues after video.

Meanwhile, there is also all sorts of accessible, educational information on better sex out there. More and more websites dedicated to the topic like Liz Goldwyn's The Sex Ed, podcasts like Juliet Allen's brilliant Authentic Sex and even educational sex toy companies like Normal (which is informed by sex coach, Georgia Grace). Sex and new-wave sexology right now is in, a trend I hope is here to stay.

This current cultural obsession finally led me to see a sexologist about my moments of dyspareunia (painful sex) which I've always put down to just another bloody endo symptom. I, like one in ten people who possess a womb, have endometriosis, which can be debilitating in a myriad of ways. Sometimes this causes me pain during intercourse and, more often than that, it causes me constant anxiety about potential future pain during sex.

I saw Sydney-based somatic sexologist and sex counsellor, Alice Child, recently for a one-on-one session dedicated to dyspareunia. As I walked into her home office, Alice, part of the aforementioned new breed of sex therapists, sat me down in her beautifully decorated space. Though there were a couple of tasteful nudes scattered about the place, this wasn't the kind of home clinic I'd imagined, instead a gorgeous and "normal" environment which immediately made me feel at ease - her little dog Merlot sleeping in the corner certainly adding to the charm.

We started the session with a short mindfulness meditation. I was expecting a bit of deep breathing, but as Alice guided me to calm, one thing that stuck out to me was her prompt to pinpoint where I was feeling pleasure in my body, something I'd honestly never thought of in a moment like that.

I then told her about my odd bouts of dyspareunia. She patiently wrote notes as I told her how frustrated it made me and how it can be handbrake on 'the mood'. I was expecting her to reply to my woes with a list of instructions to do with my anatomy - do a breathing exercises, try this position, even take a Panadol.

Instead, she began to ask me about my story, the background on my relationship, and what my history around sex was - no, not how many people I've bedded, but how I came to learn about sex, and what kind of household and culture I grew up in.

I began to recount my uptight, anglo-Saxon origins, and also the hilarious story of how my best friend at five (who was aptly named Eve) and I found a 1980s porn video, carefully hidden in the back of a cupboard, and watched it with total fascination until our little sisters dobbed us in. I don't think I have ever been in so much trouble, except for the time I crashed my car at age 16, perhaps.

I then spoke about my all-girls high school where the greatest currency for bullying was sexual shame. I certainly fell victim to rumours about me which weren't at all true (though, in all fairness, I probably propagated stories about others which were also made up of cruel lies). Part of my story was also about my reproductive health issues, and how endometriosis has been a part of my pattern since I started menstruating.

After that we worked through my history - again, something I'd never really thought through. Alice told me about the concept of accelerators (turn ons) and brakes (turn offs). We embarked on another exercise which was made up of a series of quick fire questions to pinpoint what mine were.

Listen to Sealed Section where Chantelle discusses the changes that happen to your body in your 40s, 50s and beyond and answers some juicy questions from women going through their 'sexual relaunch'. Post continues below.

I was expecting the obvious to come to mind, the smell of his sweat or total privacy but beyond the cliches all sorts of unexpected triggers popped to the top of my head. Things like warm weather, doing it in the afternoon, words I perceive as fun such as "minx" (accelerator) vs words I perceive as derogatory like "slut" (brake). I figured out that the majority of my accelerators exist most on holiday somewhere in the Mediterranean (surprise, surprise). So how could I conjure them up when I'm living a busy on a budget life in Sydney?

Alice started to explain that good sex comes from a combination of time, stimulus, and being in the right headspace, and also that it's so important to get to know yours and your partner's accelerators and brakes (a list of mine now live in my phone). It's unsurprising that the majority of couples have the most sex when they're on holiday (in fact Alice confirmed that a lot of women can only orgasm when on holiday).

She then - and this is genius - talked about the concept of "micro-dosing pleasure". Asking me, how could I lean into my accelerators more during my day-to-day? We cooked up a personal concept for me dubbed "Mediterranean Mode" in which I indulge more, take my time with things and delve into all of my senses - even doing things like consciously taking more time to eat my meals.

The thing about the session I found most astounding was how in the end we didn't talk much about my pain problem. In fact, the biggest issue I have to do with my dyspareunia is anxiety in anticipating my own agony, the physical symptom doesn't actually happen that much. Beyond that, pain is only a minor part of my sexual picture.

On pain, Alice wisely told me that "pleasure is the best antidote to pain". Anatomically, as women become more aroused, the vagina gets deeper and can take on... bigger things. So that is one thing to bear in mind for fellow sufferers, to remember that taking our time with sex is crucial. However, my main homework now is centred on cultivating the aforementioned Med Mode, and generally leaning into pleasure more. I think I can manage that.  

Clearly a long-standing medical issue can't be solved in a single session, hence if you seek help from a sexologist you'll likely need a series of sessions with them. I know I plan on going back to her too, further figuring out other ways to manage my anxiety, to keep rewriting my sexual story, and also to cultivate more intimacy with my partner as we navigate a long distance relationship.

You can also see a sexologist for issues more serious than mine. Anything from postpartum intimacy to premature ejaculation, from difficulty orgasming to literal lessons in techniques can be guided by a sexologist. Alice further describes her training as "trauma informed but not trauma focused" making a specialist like her a wonderful choice if your sexual history consists of some traumatic moments.

The last thing I feel I must add is that Alice told me the "biggest mistake women make is faking orgasms. Faking orgasms is a recipe for average sex." Statistically 80 per cent of women admit to faking the big O, and I get it, honestly I used to too. However, I made a promise to myself, before meeting my current boyfriend or Alice for that matter, that I would never do it again. Let me just say that my sex life has never been better. Alice added, "Nobody wins when we fake pleasure. The person giving the pleasure doesn't get the feedback or chance to learn whilst the person receiving doesn't get the chance to get off and never really will."

Sex is a topic with plenty of spectrum. Our culture craves hard, fast, masculine sex thanks to mainstream porn and women often forgoing pleasure for fake orgasms. But there are some universal principles - if we all lean into our accelerators, steer clear of our brakes, build better communication with our partner(s) and stop pretending to climax we should be on the path to more pleasure.

I, like so many others, have so many stories surrounding sex, not to mention many preconceived ideas about it (as you might have grasped from above). But seeing a sexologist with a contemporary take has shattered my illusions in just one session. Back to that moment of mindfulness at the start of our appointment - pleasure is certainly something we rarely focus on. So, what makes you feel pleasure? 

Visit alicechild.com.au for more information. You can also follow her on Instagram @vulvadialogues.

Feature Image: Supplied.