Sex and sensuality

Well done you , very inspiring, I like you have estrogen positive breast cancer  and at present having chemotherapy. I am early 50’s and opted for a double mastectomy no reconstruction. Dreading starting estrogen reducing meds , so glad to hear you have met someone and enjoying a pleasurable sex life . I am in a relationship but sex has been off the cards through treatment, I think it’s always a worry how getting the passion back will be effected after such drastic physical and mental changes so I’m sure you’re story will give lots of women inspiration to know fulfilling relationship is still possible after all we have been through .

I am certain my experience would be very different if I were having chemotherapy....Strength to you as all is endured.

Something many may not know, lubes can be watery, try anal lube, not for that! But it is longer lasting and easier than the other kind! Just look on line, even Boots sell it

My cancer isn’t oestrogen driven but the breast consultant said I would have been able to stay on Vagifem even if it had been. Worth exploring, it made a huge difference for me post-menopause 

SewErica, thank you, will try that. And Coddfish I use oestrogen cream with the blessing of my surgeon and onco., and I am oestrogen and progesterone positive.

I LOVE this post...I think about this a lot.   I am 58....I was on a dating site and really hitting it off with a guy, but then I was diagnosed with Cancer and I have not gone back to the site since.....My thoughts are...."This guy won't want to date a woman who is SICK"...Who possibly could have her breast cut off (although he never came across as being there just for sex".

I also am a very "sexual being" and am very concerned or curious if I will ever be intimate with anyone again because after the breast surgery I am also having a HYSTERECTOMY! 

I have been feeling done, washed up, old, ugly, dirty, sick, undesirable and these are all feelings I bring upon myself...no one is making me feel these things.

However, because YOU wrote this post and showed me that there is a possibility of intimacy after such a devestating diagnosis and procedure that you had.....

I feel a bit more positive that someday I may be able to be held and touched again.

Thank you for bringing up this taboo subject and sharing your story...You helped this girl!

Can I give some more advice that I hope will help, Relate have sex therapists, if you are really having problems, want to learn how to be sexual again, they are very well trained and I would recommend them to anyone, results depend on how invested you are. I was a Relate counsellor, now retired, for full disclosure, but would go there myself.

Missy SewErica I would echo the comments on Relate sex therapists. No personal experience, not a counsellor myself, but was a Trustee at a centre for a long time and knew several of their therapists and they seemed very well regarded. And not at all what you might expect! 

All our lives we are indoctrinated as women as to what 'sexy', 'attractive', 'desirable' should look like and almost none involve illness, ageing, menopause, surgeries and so your feelings of undesireability are not of your own making at all.  Finding a way not feed those thoughts or give them too much weight is more in your control.  I believe absolutely that love and touch is possible for you while also acknowledging that online dating can be a bit of a bearpit.  Go back on I would say.  I didn't put anything about the illness in my bio and I didn't bring it up until I felt the conversations were worth the risk.  I told a couple of guys and was immediately unmatched...so be it.  Best wishes for all.  You deserve love and intimacy 

I think this is the EXACT problem for me..."indoctrinated as to what sexy, attractive, desirable should look like"....THIS is imbedded in my head.

And my boobs are large (but proportanate) to my body...and have always been a big attraction to the men.

So because I feel self conscious about what is going to happen....I want to be done with it and comfortable with myself before I go back on the dating site.

If the guy was really THAT into me and he is still single by that time....I will go back on and tell him why I left him hanging like that....because I don't want that rejection that you said you had received when you let some of them know your diagnosis.

I have an X of 7 years that I loved to death and it didn't work out with us because my son had seizures and had to move home and my X made it difficult for us all to live together....he wanted my son to move out and I said NO...so the X moved out.

He randomly texted me last night...."Hi"......I did not answer.....I won't be talking to men or basically many people at all until this cancer is treated and I know where I stand. 

I feel like there is enough on my plate rather than to worry about what someone else is going to think or feel about my cancer....especially as I go thru treatments...I can't see myself dating ANYONE at the same time.

However, your post....DID make me see hope for FUTURE dating.....and I thank you for THAT.