When they met, Joe awakened Jess’s sexuality. Now, after his cancer diagnosis, Jess is helping Joe enjoy his body, ‘the way he taught me to find pleasure in mine’
How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously
When Jess squeezes my ass in passing, it’s like she’s reaffirming my humanity
I’ve always been very sexual, and that’s as true now as ever – maybe even more so. When you’re grappling with terminal cancer, your tactile experiences are generally traumatic – there’s so much pricking and slicing, probing and scanning, to say nothing of the poisons being pumped into your body – and after a while it’s tempting to just mentally detach. There have been times in the past few years when I’ve felt more like the subject of a medical experiment than the person I used to be, but when Jess caresses my arm or squeezes my ass in passing, it’s like she’s reaffirming my humanity, reminding me that touch can be enjoyed, not just endured.
Before my diagnosis, Jess and I would often have sex more than once a day, and it would be easy for her to resent how much that part of our lives has changed, but she’s never made me feel like I’ve let her down when my body refuses to cooperate. We’ve both had to navigate me using feeding and draining tubes, to adjust to me being skeletal, then bloated, then skeletal again – but the fact that she’s been so vocal about how attractive she finds me throughout all of this has made it so much easier to cope.
