The ABC’s of Sex After a Spinal Cord Injury 

First questions after a new spinal cord injury are:  “Will I be able to make love and enjoy sex, even though I’m paralyzed?” and  “Will anyone still want to love me?”

We heard them over and over as we were developing FacingDisability.com, the new website created by the non-profit Hill Foundation of Chicago for families facing spinal cord injuries.  We heard it from people with spinal cord injuries themselves, and from their spouses, partners and families, as well as from experts in the field.

Since the majority of spinal cord injuries occur to young men between the ages of 16 and 30, sexual function is an urgent personal issue.  And yet, sex is still an uncomfortable subject for many people, especially in a hospital or rehabilitation setting where the focus is on physical therapy and healing.

And it’s not just the person with an SCI who is wondering about sex.  Parents wonder if their children will still be able to get pregnant or father a child; spouses and partners worry about what sex after an SCI might be like, and if it’s even possible.

But all too often, people keep these questions to themselves—maintaining a kind of sexual silence—and hope that eventually they will get it figured out.  Many never do.

Knowing this, we wanted to make FacingDisability.com an important resource on sex for families facing spinal cord injuries.  It contains expert professional information and advice about sex, fertility and social life after a spinal cord injury, as well as videos of people sharing their real-life experiences with sex after SCI.

There is an in-depth interview “Sex and Fertility after SCI” with Diane M. Rowles, MS, NP, of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University.  The interview is in a question-and-answer format, so it is easy to find specific information.  Questions include: “What about positions and foreplay after a spinal cord injury” “What are common psychological obstacles to sex after SCI?”  “How should expectations about sex change after a spinal cord injury?”  and “How does an SCI affect male fertility?”

FacingDisability.com also offers the voices of experience. It contains more than 1,000 videos of people with spinal cord injuries and members of their families. You can see and hear real-life answers on commonly asked questions such as: “What sex advice and information was most helpful?” “What about sex and dating?” and “How has your relationship with your spouse or partner changed?”

In a nutshell, FacingDisabity.com is a website that offers the ABC’s of sex after a spinal cord injury.

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Thea Flaum is president of the Hill Foundation for Families Living with Disabilities.  The foundation’s major focus is FacingDisability.com, a web resource which contains more than 1,000 videos drawn from on-camera interviews of people with spinal cord injuries, their families, caregivers and experts.  Thea Flaum came to the Hill Foundation after a 35-year-career as an Emmy-award-winning TV producer