Cervical cancer and sex

Hello Jane75d4408e

My name is Steph, I’m part of the team who look after the Online Community here at Macmillan. May I wish you another warm welcome to the Community. Although I’m sure it’s a membership you did not want to have to join, I hope you will find the site to be a safe place of comfort and support.

I am sorry to hear that you've recently been diagnosed with cervical cancer and that your partner is pressurising you into sexual touching. No one should ever feel pressured into unwanted sexual contact. There is some more information about how to recognise sexual coercion here:

• Relate

If you’d like further advice, the National Domestic Violence Helpline (they also help people facing emotional abuse) has trained advisors who can help you figure out if you would benefit from professional help, and who can provide emotional support. You can call them for free on 0808 2000 247.

I'd also encourage you to reach out to the Macmillan Support Line teams, available 7 days a week, 8am-8pm on freephone 0808 808 00 00, email or live webchat.

I hope that the Community can help you find the words you need to speak to your partner. Whilst you're waiting for responses from our members, I have found some information that might be helpful for you to share with your partner.

• Our information pages on Sex and Cancer explain how a diagnosis might affect your sexual well-being.
• This information from Oxford University shares experiences of sex and cancer.

Please do let us know if you have any questions or need further support with anything at all. I hope the Community and Macmillan show you that you don’t need to go through anything alone.

Hi Jane75d4408e and welcome to our group.

I’m sorry to read that you’ve had a cancer diagnosis, but I can see that Steph has already given you some useful links to some extra help and support beyond the group.

It’s a very worrying time for you having a cancer diagnosis, but please feel free to ask any questions or share any worries in the group which is a safe space to chat to others who will understand.

It’s helpful for other members to have some information about your cancer to be able to help support you, so if you want to share any information about where you are in the process-ie have you finished the diagnostic process and had scans or been told of any treatment plan, that will be useful for us when answering any of your questions.

I hope you’ll come back and post again, and that you’ll let us know how you’re getting on.

Sarah xx