Welcome to The Moth. I'm Kate Tellers, and this week we'll be exploring joy and pain.

A few days ago, we aired an episode of The Moth Radio Hour called Human Plus Nature,

where I shared some stories about humans, nature, and human nature.

But for this podcast, we're taking a different look at that topic,

as we explore the dark side of two of life's most natural joys.

Mute for a second, Dad.

Sex and laughter.

And what happens when something inside you prevents you from experiencing those natural highs?

First up, we've got Becky Feldman, who told this story at an L.A. Slam, where the theme of

the night was gratitude. Here's Becky, live at the moth. Okay, I'm going to get a little

sexy. Throughout my adult life, I have struggled with this condition called vestibulidinia,

and just give you a quick refresher. I basically have nerve pain in the entrance

to my vagina or the vestibule. So when I was in college, at the end of college, I started having

sex. And while I always could be stimulated clitorily, intercourse itself was always excruciatingly painful. I used to try and

just like grin and bear it and just push through the pain, but eventually my partner and I

would have to stop and I would be so embarrassed and I would apologize profusely and I would always

say like, oh, it's this medication that I'm taking, it's the side effect of it. And emotionally, it just wrecked me.

I felt like my body was broken.

I felt frigid.

And it just got to the point where I gave up.

Like in my early 20s, I stopped dating and I stopped being intimate with people.

But then I got to my 30s.

...