The broad range of diagnosis and treatment options for breast cancer, means that there isn’t a one stop shop approach to resolving the problem of sex after breast cancer treatment, although to be more accurate, the concern is more about the lack of sex after breast cancer.
Sex after breast cancer treatment is not normally raised as an issue by the medical profession who are after all more concerned with saving your life. Perhaps it’s understandable, and all that really means is that you need to identitify and be proactive in resolving the situation for yourself.
In this article we want to concentrate on getting the juices flowing again by dealing with a decreased sex drive post breast cancer treatment and introducing a few simple technicques.
Firstly, lets explore a few reasons why you could be experiencing a reduced sex drive:
1. Chemotherapy and drugs like Tamoxifen can reduce your sex drive (although not so with radiotherapy, apparently) and this is a physiological effect, much the same as having not enough food, or taking sleeping pills, will reduce your overall performance and sense of wellbeing.
2. The after effects of surgery, such as numb boob and non functioning nipples, or no nipples and no boob can mean that a previously sexual part of your body has become a no-go zone because having it touched doesn’t feel nice anymore.
3. Both partners can feel embarassed or uncomfortable about changes to your body. You may also have to deal with letting go of the old parts of your sexual routine. For instance, your partner may loved to have nuzzled in the gulley created by your breasts and that little comfort area has now gone. Sometimes there is more than this physical gap to overcome.
4. Your pleasure can be reduced, and sex can even be painful due to vaginal dryness. Vaginal dryness can be a symptom of the menopause, which can be brought forward by Tamoxifen and dryness is also often attributed to chemotherapy. Our broader programme, and other articles, covers more in depth advice about vaginal dryness but the first step is to contact your doctor.
Each of the above will have its own set of potential remedies but in this article we focus on overcoming the lack of desire and simply ‘I don’t fancy it’.
1. Much of our sexual desire is based on our visual, auditory and kinetic systems. So, you get a picture in your minds eye of an exciting sexual encounter, you remember sounds, or someone speaking sexy words to you, and finally you recall, and may even rekindle a feeling in your body. This ability to conjure up desire by visualising and remembering pasts events is crucial. And you can try it now by recalling a sexy moment you either experienced personally or watched in a film. Do you get a bit of a tingle in your tummy, or somewhere else? No, well give it time and keep practicing.
If you can’t remember anything right now then all is not lost because your brain also has the ability to induce a sexually excited state. And you know this works because the evidence is in one of the most successful industries in the world – porn.
Just use the tools you’ve got (not pun intended). Start conjuring real past experiences, or inventing new ones to induce that state of desire and get going right now. In a few days you could be cooking.
What about keeping a diary for a month. As soon as a sexual feeling crops up you record it, along with details of what you felt, heard or saw in your minds eye, the time of day, where you where and anyone who was with you. After a month you can have a look back and see if any patterns are emerging
If still nothing’s happening, then I suggest you go hunting around for porn or erotica to suit your personality. There is so much variety and today porn is mostly about couples having fun.
2. It’s no good creating the desire if it’s immediately swept away by fearful imaginings that your partner will be touching bits you don’t want touched and expecting you to undress or hang from the lampshades when you’re still feeling physically or mentally sensitive to the changes. Make sure these fears arn’t crippling your sexual desire.
You partner is not pyschic and you must tell them what you want because they really don’t have a hope of getting it right by themselves. If they avoid your boob area, for the best of reasons, then you may feel they no longer find that part of you attractive and are avoiding the scarring. If they plunge in with gusto then your numb, sensitive or scarred parts are unlikely to be feeling particularly erotic. My left boob area has only just come back into play, a year after my radiotherapy ended. Up until now it’s been like a spare limb.
Going rigid when you’re touched in a particular place is not enough to signal what you do and do not like now. Plus, it’s also very demotivating to your partner. There are three recommended actions for supporting partners through the transition into a new sex life:
SAY what you want. Grit your teeth and be honest
TRUST them to want to get it right
FORGIVE when they slip back into old habits because sometimes it can take a while (around 30 days) for a new habit to be formed. Get over what’s happened and get back on the job!
Your partner is making adjustments as well as you. REMEBER this.
3. Create the right atmosphere and attend to details. When we get sick then sometimes certain things just fizzle away. Maybe you got out of the habit of wearing your sexiest undies whilst waiting for the wounds to heal. I don’t know about you but I prefered big comfortable knickers for my treatment to my usual skimpy string things. Before you know where you are, a new habit has formed and you’re in grannies knickers.
Have a think back to what you used to do and wear before you got breast cancer. Are there naughty knickers which have slid to the back of the draw and need rescuing. If there arn’t then go and buy some! Have a bath and light some candles, treat yourselves to a massage, soft music – whatever does it for you. And here we’re really talking about relaxing back into your sex life again.
If you treat it as a new courtship but where you can still remember the old comfortable stuff then think how invigorating it will be to bring in new and exciting elements.
4. Visit a couples sex shop such as Ann Summers and just have a look around.
5. As Nike says, ‘Just Do It’. Often the less you have sex, the less you want it. Understand this happens and get lubed up and just get started whether you want it or not. Once you’re back on board, you may find all is back to what counts for normal in your new life after breast cancer.
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