If Your Vagina Feels Tighter Than Usual Sometimes, It's Not In Your Head

When You’re Ovulating, Your Vagina Tends to Feel Looser

As I’m pretty sure you already know, ovulation is the time within your menstrual cycle when an egg is released from one of your ovaries. Although you may experience a myriad of symptoms including a change in texture when it comes to your cervical mucus, breast tenderness and even some mild cramping, something else that tends to transpire is your vagina ends up being a bit looser. That’s because your body is going through a shift in hormones which can cause an increase in blood flow to your genital region which can feel like your vagina is a bit looser; more slippery too.

Right Before Your Period, Your Vagina Tends to Feel Tighter

If you’re someone who uses a menstrual cup or tampons during your cycle, and sometimes it feels like it’s more difficult to insert them than others, this could be due to your estrogen levels.

The truth is that, right before your cycle, estrogen is quite low and that can result in your vagina feeling tighter and your cervix being lower and feeling a bit firmer. No worries, though. After your cycle, it will pass.

When You’re Not Sexually Aroused Enough, Your Vagina Tends to Feel Tighter

Although I know a couple of folks who don’t fit this particular point, it is rare that I run into people, both male and female, who do not need foreplay in order to thoroughly enjoy their sexual experiences. How much? Well, the word on the street is that somewhere between 15-20 minutes (on average) suffices. One of the reasons why this is essential for women is because foreplay is what helps us to cultivate natural lubrication, which makes the friction of intercourse more comfortable and pleasurable. On the other hand, when a vagina isn’t wet enough, the dryness of it can definitely cause the vagina to feel tighter.

Moral to the story here: require foreplay. Your vagina needs it. Yes, literally.

When You’ve Got an Infection, Your Vagina Tends to Feel Tighter

Whether it’s a yeast infection, an STI/STD or a bout of vaginitis — something that all of these things have in common is they can cause your vagina to feel tighter. The main reason why is because these health-related issues can lead to inflammation of the vagina.

So, if your vulva or vagina feels itchy or irritated or it’s been six months since you’ve gotten tested for an STI/STD (whether you notice symptoms or not), see your physician. This one, right here, you don’t want to play with.

During the Latter Stages of Perimenopause, Your Vagina Tends to Feel Looser

During the latter stages of menopause, your body will lose a significant amount of estrogen. As a direct result, it could cause your vagina to go into a stage of what is known as vaginal atrophy which includes symptoms like vulvar itching, a change in your discharge, urinary incontinence, a shorter vagina (yep, you read that right) and your vaginal walls potentially having less elasticity — and that can make them feel like they are looser than they once were. Speaking to your doctor about how to get more estrogen into your system is an option, if this is the case.

While You’re Breastfeeding, Your Vagina Tends to Feel Looser

Something that you may find interesting (that at the same time will probably not be surprising) is that women tend to produce more estrogen in their system when they are pregnant than at any other time in their lives. Then, after giving birth, her estrogen levels typically drop (sometimes drastically), in part, so that prolactin (a hormone that stimulates the production of milk) can be produced. When this happens, it could cause your pelvic floor to become weaker which can cause their vagina to feel looser.

Something that can help with this is doing exercises like kegels, yoga, and squats, and being patient during the process.

If You Are Stressed Out, Your Vagina Tends to Feel Tighter

I’m telling you, the older (and prayerfully wiser) I get, the more aggressive I am about not allowing any person, place, thing, or idea stress me out — including myself (some of y’all will catch that later). There are a billion-and-one reasons why; one of them is because I know what stress can do to my overall health and well-being — and it isn’t worth it. Stress can affect how we digest our food; it can increase our risk of having a heart attack or stroke; it can make it harder to conceive children; it can totally tank our libido, and yes, it can even make our vaginas feel tighter.

As far as that last one, stress can do that by bringing tension to your pelvic floor which can make your vagina tighten up as an end result.

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As you can see, if you are noticing slight changes in how your vagina feels, very real things are probably causing it. The good news is that once you’ve narrowed down the root cause, a few tweaks can bring things back to feeling normal again.

Amazing how sensitive our vaginas are to things, right? Definitely not something to keep in mind.

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