Why You Go from Wet to Dry (And Why Your Body Isn't Broken)

The multi-layered truth about vulva lubrication - and how to work WITH your body instead of against it

Hello, beauties.

So I have been sitting with a question that I received not long ago, and it goes, "why is it in the beginning I am so wet, but then most times during sex I go dry? It's very frustrating." And I get it, this is a very common experience for many vulva owners, including myself. And I wanna let you know that your body is probably doing something that is completely normal. And yet our mind can interpret this as a failure.

Vulva owners have so much narrative to push back against, to compete with when it comes to their appearance, their function, heck even their pleasure. And it's very easy to get lost in the sense of moral failure if you are somehow not able to be gushing like a waterfall every time you have penetrative sex.

There are actually many factors that impact your ability to lubricate. It's not just one fixed system. So we're gonna talk today about getting into the physiology of the vulva and its lubrication., And I wanna right at the start here that there are many reasons why your lubrication may not flow as you would like.

Stress obviously affects what's happening in our body. Any medications that you may be on, what your emotional state is in the moment, what life stage are you at? Where are you in your hormonal cycle? All these things can contribute to that sense of not feeling wet enough.

And so today for this sex geekery post, we are gonna dive deep into all the different layers, all the different systems that contribute to your lubrication ability. Because it is not a one and done system, it is layered multi-sourced. So let's talk about it.

The three main sources. For vulva and vaginal lubrication, we're gonna begin with number one, the vaginal wall. Yeah. This is the one that most people think about. You could consider this the baseline arousal of wetness. And so where does this lubrication come from? In the vagina, which remember is the tube inside, that canal that shifts and changes shape during your arousal. This lubrication doesn't come from a gland. It's actually a wait for it. Pla uh, plasma tranduate, which is basically fluid is filtered from the blood vessels. It literally seeps through your vaginal walls. Isn't that cool? And so what can trigger this filtration across is increased blood flow, right?

Because of the engorgement tissue getting a bit plump. And your arousal whether that be the physical arousal or the psychological arousal. This lubrication can feel clear, slippery, watery, and essentially it is coating the vaginal canal. Now this is your primary lubrication for penetration because it's inside, of course.

Now the second source for lubrication is the bartholins glands, and these glands sit on the outside of your vulva at the entrance of the vagina at around the four and eight o'clock positions. Now you can see this with a mirror if you know what you're looking for. And so they sit just inside the inner labia, and now these glands secrete more of a mucus like lubrication. Again, sexual arousal helps trigger the release of this mucus like lubrication. And so it is compared to the vaginal fluid, it is a little bit more thicker and it helps to lubricate the entrance to support the comfort at the opening.

Okay, next one. Number three, we have the skenes glands, or the para urethral glands. This is often associated with a female prostate, and they sit inside around the urethra. And that is located just on the inner front wall area of the vagina, also around the goddess spot, right? And so this fluid that is released here, the urethral lubrication is also known as squirting or female ejaculate. And so this release here isn't something necessarily automatic, but it happens when that G area is stimulated, when you are in those deep arousal states. And so what does it look like? It can vary between person and person. It could be thin, clear, and watery, or it could be more milky, just like that prostatic fluid.

And so this fluid here isn't so much about general lubrication, but rather it's about the arousal expression and release of that. All right, still with me? I've got a bonus layer for you.

We can also look at the cervical fluid, which is the fluid that your cervical releases based on where you are in your cycle. And so this one is often really overlooked in most sexual conversations. So as I said, it comes from the cervix. This fluid releases depending on where you are at in your home hormonal cycle, and it changes. And so what happens? It can go from dry sticky to a creamy, to and like egg white, wet, lubricated feel before it starts shifting back into creamy and dry. And so this is really intelligent where your cervix, when it is, when your cycle is moving towards your peak of ovulation, the cervical fluid shifts in a way to support the movement of sperm, right? And that's where you can feel very wet. Very slippery. Slippery. Naturally more lubricated, right? And so obviously this will contribute to all your overall wetness.

Now putting all of this together, we can now see that. You are not, your wetness isn't just one fluid. You are actually getting a blend. So from the vaginal walls, we have the base lubrication. The bartholins glands gives us that entrance lubrication. The skenes glands is that arousal expression for some people. And the cervix fluid is that cycle dependent contribution.

And so any one person can have a very wide variation of lubrication response, because each system is driven by something different. The vaginal walls are driven by blood flow and arousal. The bartholins glands are driven by arousal, especially that slow burn build. The Skene's gland is a very specific stimulation of that G area. And your cervix fluid again, where are you in your hormonal cycle?

And I wanna make this really clear before we dive too much deeper. Just because you have lubrication doesn't mean that you're necessarily aroused. It is possible to have high arousal and low lubrication. Or high lubrication and low arousal. Because we know that there are many things that affect our blood flow, our tissue, our nervous system.

And I also want to drive the point home that lubrication isn't just for sex, isn't just for penetrative sex. The vaginal environment is a beautiful micro-biome driven environment, it is self-cleaning, it is slightly acidic. These lubrications are there to naturally support tissue health, immune function, and micro-biome balance.

If we come back to our question of, you know, "I was wet to begin with, but then I got dry and I got really frustrated", and yes, it's common, but what can we do about it?

I will always recommend that people use some sort of lubricant. It helps to support your tissues, it helps the smooth glide for penetration, it helps reduce the chance of micro tears. It also means you can have longer sessions and remove that stress of needing your body to perform in a particular way. Lubricant is not just a fix for a broken body, lubrication is support for your pleasure and your tissues. No matter how much wetness you have or may think that you don't have. Because we already have enough shame put upon us that our sex, our pleasure anatomy needs to be a particular way.

In my Tantric yoni massages, if we are going to include the genitals in the session, it is a three hour session. And the reason is , because we are taking the most slow and luxurious time to open up the entire body. Massaging the entire body, massaging the breasts for an extended period of time, over 30 minutes on the exterior vulva alone. Moving at the pace of the client so that they can really feel their pleasure anatomy their engorgement to be full juicy, connected, Unrushed.

Just because you experience an initial arousal spike, it's not the same as having a sustained arousal. If your early wetness came from the sense of excitement, of novelty and anticipation. But the body's not continually engaged and opened along the way, that's where your arousal can drop. Because lubrication is going to follow your arousal. The unfortunate truth is most vulvas are penetrated far too early before they're actually ready.

So someone who may initially feel that the lubrication outside, that wetness where those bartholin’s glands are. But then if they were to receive penetration, the vaginal wall may not be wet enough. The vaginal canal may not have been open enough. The cervix may not have been, begin to tent and create space. And so what happens when you penetrate something that's not ready?

Oh, it's dry. It feels uncomfortable. That sense of friction increases and I can tell you from my own experience that's not comfortable. And that can trigger the shutdown to begin. What else can get us out of the ability to maintain a sustained arousal? Well, let's go back to our example. Maybe you've been penetrated too early and you feel that discomfort, that dryness, that friction. Your body may begin your, the lubrication shut down may be beginning. And when that happens, the mind starts to spin, right?

Those performance thoughts start to spiral. What's wrong with me? Is my body taking too long? Why am I not wet enough? What's happening with my body? And so now what may have began as your nervous system state being in a arousal parasympathetic state, it is now switching to an alert, hyper-vigilant, sympathetic state.

And again, this is another signal to the system that says it's not safe to stay open. It's too uncomfortable. There's too many thoughts spinning, so I should just shut down lubrication even more. The body will literally stop producing lubrication as a protective response.

So this is frustrating. It is totally, totally frustrating. However, most people take this frustration as a sense of moral failure. And that's where I want to gently dismantle the myth of what wetness is. Wetness is not a performance metric. It's not something that you get right or you get wrong. It's actually a response state. Because bodies don't fail you, they are communicating.

And so instead of taking the feeling not wet as a sign that you're somehow broken, that there's something wrong with your body, that you should be wetter and falling into that tension and shame spiral. Because the cultural script says that if you are wet, then you're ready. And if you're not wet, that's a problem. And I call bullshit on that. Your wetness can be partial, fluctuating, and context dependent, and the sense of readiness for penetration in the body is deeper than just lubrication.

So instead of asking, why did I dry up? What's wrong with my body? Why can't I be wetter? I wanna invite you to reframe the question as, what did my body need more of that maybe I didn't get. Was it more time, more presence, more varied stimulation? Did I need more emotional safety, perhaps less pressure? All of these things affects our ability to feel safe, grounded, and connected in our body.

Because just because your body is wet does not mean that you are ready and if you dry up, it does not mean that something is wrong. It can often point towards that something was missed or rushed and your body lost connection.

And when you understand what is happening in the moment and what you need to actually move you towards what you desire, then you can work with this.

So here's what I'm curious about after sharing all of this with you. What would shift for you if you stopped seeing drying up as a failure and started seeing it as information. What if your body's lubrication response was actually trying to tell you something important about pace, presence or safety?

In today's membership post I'm gonna be diving into the practical side, of how to actually explore your own arousal and engorgement, so that you can learn your body's readiness signals from the inside out. Because when you understand your own vulva pleasure anatomy through direct experience, everything changes.