When cancer strikes the most private parts of our lives.

Experiencing any type of cancer is evidently traumatic for us, for our partners and for our families. It quite simply shatters the reality and the certainty of the life we had and leaves us shocked, scared and bewildered. When the cancer you are suffering from happens to affect body parts that we generally associate very vividly with our intimacy things get even more complicated. While we reluctantly accept cancer treatments’ side effects (sickness, loss of our hair, sometimes some weight gain) we often find it more difficult to accept the psychological losses we have to endure. When cancer means the loss of a womb, a breast, the ablation of a prostate or  the loss of a testicle, it is not only our body image which is affected but our sexual image. 

The way we relate to our sexual body varies immensely from one person to the next. We all invest our bodies differently and this reflects many conscious and subconscious experiences. The way we may have been held, caressed as a child will also influence the way we relate to our bodies. There is of course also a cultural aspect to the way we tolerate touches. In France, it is normal for children, teenagers and adults to kiss friends, colleagues, strangers they are being introduced to on the cheeks. In Ireland this could feel quite intrusive.

The loss of a uterus or a breast can evoque  for some women the loss of a real or fantasised maternity (and this even if they had completed their family at the time of the diagnosis). They will be grieving the potential for life giving /life feeding that those body parts offer.  As such, it is important to understand that we invest our bodies in a symbolic way. For example, we may attribute strength to athleticism or softness to rotundity. For other women, the breasts and the uterus will represent a source of sexual power, their loss may bring to the fore different types of fears:  not being attractive anymore, abandonment, etc..

Similarly, prostatic cancer with its potential loss of erection and ejaculation and testicular cancer can elicit fears regarding the loss of sexual power or more generally strength. Symbolically, men may feel emasculated when those body parts are affected. Some men can also grieve the loss of the potential for becoming a father or giving a child to their partner. It is important we don’t fall into biases when it comes to men’s physical and mental health and assume they don’t get affected by those losses. We have plenty of wonderful men who want to be fathers and who will be crushed at the thought of not being able to become one.

If you or your partner find themselves going through the throes of one of those cancers, you may want to take the time to reflect a bit about those losses, maybe accompanied by a therapist. The thing is, our body sexual parts don’t hold the key to our sexual power. That power is in everything else that makes you you. It is your smile, your humour, your tenderness, the way you look or touch your partner and many more things besides this and cancer can never take away those. # don’t let cancer steal your sexual mojo.