“I am now infertile. How do I grieve? How do I renegotiate my relationship with sex?”
Psychosexual therapist Kate says...
For anyone trying to conceive the meaning of sex changes almost instantly, whether that is temporary or more long term. Sex becomes more functional and focused on the result that it can achieve. This isn’t always a bad thing for people, but it’s an obvious example of the subjectivity of sex and how the meaning of what we are doing creates huge change in our experiences.
When it comes to cancer and cancer treatment, many people feel that the choice has been taken away from them in terms of trying to conceive or finding out that they are infertile. Whilst there are also non-biological ways to become a parent, for many people this may not be what they desire, and coming to terms with infertility in what psychotherapist Julia Samuel calls “a living loss”. It’s important that you give yourself the opportunity to grieve this loss. For many it may change the entire outlook of their future and the way that they thought their life was going to look, and this can be a huge adjustment.
Co-founder Brian says...
As a queer man, I don’t think people (friends, doctors, support system) would have expected that I had a profound and difficult relationship to being told I was infertile at 20 years old (mine was because I had quite advanced testicular cancer). But yeah, infertility sucks, and it’s sometimes challenging to think about even many years later. It comes in waves really, a sadness that seems to both affect sex/sexuality and a sadness that feels very far apart from my usual sexual practices (which, if with cis-men, wouldn’t result in pregnancy).
