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The media are dominated by sexual messages that show slim, healthy, beautiful, young men and women, and stress performance and orgasms. Disabled people are often viewed as non sexual, and so friends, family or medical attendants don’t offer sexual cues and discussions, and this can cause patients to consider themselves as asexual.
People who suffer from obviously disfiguring conditions such as cerebral palsy, burn scars, or paraplegia may be made to feel inadequate with regard to their sexuality. However, everyone is handicapped in some way, and some people feel damaged if they consider themselves too tall or short, or too fat or thin, or their breasts are too small or too big or they have acne. Healthy or diseased individuals, and those who are beautiful and those who are not, may all have difficulty with sexual response and fulfillment, but it can be very difficult to be abandoned in sexual intimacy if one’s body is disliked because it is different. This can result in failure of sexual response, which may be emotionally traumatic and in turn can affect the relationship. People who doubt their own self worth and have poor body image may find it difficult to give or receive love, because they fear that the exposure that comes with intimacy will reveal their inadequacies and cause them to be rejected.
Sexual activity includes sexual intercourse [penetrative sex], but is not confined to it, and does not necessarily include orgasm. Making love ranges from a glance, to being physically close to sensual pleasuring to orgasm, as part of physical and emotional intimacy.
Although the disease or disability may make it impossible to have intercourse, it doesn’t mean that you can’t feel or make love, and most couples agree that 'making love' is more important than 'having sex'.
