Disabilities in the Bedroom
The Threshold of Pain and Pleasure
People always imagine the disabled as soft, delicate flowers that are easily breakable. I’ve survived a lot. Sometimes, they’re right. Our joints creak, we have seizures, we walk with assistance but for all the pain we endure there can still be another side to that pain. There can still be pleasure ascribed to these suffering nerve endings and my disease has somehow heightened that sensation for me.
First, I am extremely sensitive. I have to be to notice minute changes in my body. I respond quickly to temperature, wind direction, even light. When I’m on certain meds some sensitivities are increased or decreased. On high doses of prednisone(a steroid)my libido increases tenfold. I spend most of the time in a state of torturous arousal and when I’ve eaten my fiance alive, I can work a massager for a fair three hours to get the level of satisfaction I need. When I’m like this, pain tends to garner the appropriate response. Hurting myself doesn’t work, however. I can pinch my breasts or bite my arms, dig my nails into the meat of my thighs but something about being the bringer of my own pain doesn’t get me off. Same thing with bringing myself to climax, it goes better with my partner.
It has taken nearly my entire life thus far to become comfortable in my body, to embrace the scars that rise over it in patches like a leopard. My weight fluctuates and right now my breasts aren’t as full as I want them. My stomach, with the slight swell and stretch marks, makes me feel like a tiger. However, the one thing I both love and hate about my body are my hips, I think they’re perfect. Though suffering from a labral tear, the skin there is smooth and free of scars. My hips hug the soft of my belly and if I tickle my fingers there, I don’t even have to hurt to start being wet. My fingers are not all the same anymore. Losing my skin and having it heal over again gave me new fingertips and new rougher texture to my skin. When I touch myself I have to be gentle, wary which fingers caress my skin and the skin of my partner.
My fiance played a huge part in opening up my sexuality. He’s the first man I’ve ever felt comfortable with sexually. He’s seen me in every shape and being naked in front of him makes me feel powerful and desired. Make no mistake, I am an attractive woman. I’ve had men run into doors, stopped traffic, have had men threaten their own lives, just to put their hands on me but along with careful hands I need emotions to fuel my desire. I need an absolute commitment to me. My partner and I have discussed polyamory and thinking on it, I wouldn’t mind so long as an emotional connection between the third party and I existed. They would have to love all the scars, they’d have to respect my partner and I’s physical limitations.
I have an injured hip, my partner has old shoulder injuries that have come back to haunt him. When we’re together, we cater to these injuries. Example: Sometimes, I need sex to walk better. Spreading my legs out and straddling my partner, his large hands closed over mine for balance, he forces me to stretch my body where it needs it most. As I’m flexing my thighs around him and curling my toes, the ache in scar damaged feet disappears. The ease of muscular tension, the rush of endorphins, the near delirium when he chokes me, makes it the stiffness in my hips all but disappear. For him being underneath ensures that he won’t hurt his shoulder.
Sex also helps with the steroidal madness that comes with taking it and coming off of it. In either state, I become agitated, depressed, anxious. When I’m in that state the sex gets pretty intense. It has to be, and it also has to be painful. Biting my nipples, my neck, my sides, slapping my pussy hard, hair pulling, squeezing me till nails leave dents. Smacking across the face, biting lips till they bruise, being forced down onto my partner’s cock, while he wraps his hand around my throat, while I scream with my mouth full, his fingers pushing into me, I need that shit to bring all the rage down. When I’m on drugs, when I’m not being pinned down on a mattress some sizable chunk of me is pissed off. My partner gets that and isn’t surprised when I’m jumping him two or three times in a day.
Pain is also necessary because it’s my life. I know that sentence seems crazy but after what I’ve been through, pain in degrees feels good, feels high-key comforting in a way I can barely explain. I’ve been biopsied, gone numb, hard of hearing, coughed up blood, lost skin, spinal tapped, IVed for weeks at a time, had wounds forced open, stitched closed, only to go through the process several more times. I have seen some shit. And so, my body I guess, feeds off of that trauma now. Now, sex is nothing without it. It needs to hurt or I can’t really feel it and it needs to hurt because psychologically I’m so used to being in pain I equate it to normalcy. The stinging, hot sensation of pain is my kickstarter. It let’s me know I’m still alive.
I’m comfortable with my partner because we discuss our intimacy. We ask whether or not we satisfied the other person, we ask what we can do better next time. We get creative and no night we spend together is ever the same. We laugh during sex, we talk, hold hands. The next day we’ll look at each other and playfully ask the other, “Wow, what happened to you?!” We talk about our favorite parts, take turns making each other blush. I can honestly say, I love day afters, the smiles and the caresses of skin. I’m glad that I have the person in my life that I do. He never let’s me stay embarrassed or ashamed of anything that I want in bed. When wounds resurface, joints hurt or ache, we work around them with care. Before my fiance, I’d never been with anyone that took time to work with my disease when we were together.
Nothing is perfect, though. There are dry spells that are outside of my control. I know what you’re thinking. My period isn’t really a dry spell because my whole body is more sensitive, so climaxing is easier when I’m touched. Lupus affects my skin’s ability to heal and sometimes the sex is so intense I have to let my skin recover. Places where I’ve been bitten, where I was slapped, become locations it’s easy for the skin to break down. I drink protein shakes (protein heals tissue damage), bulked up by multivitamins in order to prepare for the next round. It can be an antsy wait.
When you’re disabled, it feels good to do something for others. You don’t always want to be the receiver because people always assume that’s your role. When my partner and I are intimate, I get to please him. It’s entertaining, watching him squirm beneath me. Finding out what he likes (finding out what he didn’t even know he liked) is part of the challenge. Knowing that I’m the direct cause of someone’s pleasure is a huge turn on, knowing in those moments that my body is capable enough is gratifying. As someone with physical challenges, I’ve learned that some things need to be on my terms. My partner always asks if I like something, if it’s okay, if he should do something again. For a while, when we first got together, I thought I had to lie about my feelings. Trust is the most important thing in our relationship and over time I learned that lying to my partner hurt us both. With the lies removed, we have so much more fun, no insecurities about whether or not out partner is pleased with our performance. Being with my partner helped me to erase feelings of incompetence. I got to see firsthand that my pleasure mattered. In hospitals, in labs waiting to get my blood drawn, even at home, when someone asks if I can handle something or if I’m scared, I lie. I brace myself. I tell myself, it’ll all be over soon and that I just have to be strong. My partner and I have conversations I appreciate about our fears, kinks, passions that I’ve never had with anyone else. He touches me the way I want to be touched and surprises me all the time.
If you’re like me, disabled, mentally different, don’t lose heart. There are people out there who want to get to know us, the real us. They won’t fetishize our pain, they’ll learn to understand it and work with our disability. These partners will caress and kiss our skin regardless of the scarring and still call us beautiful. Don’t settle for careless hands, we don’t take that shit in hospitals so why in bed? Let someone treat your body with the kinks you feel it deserves, whips, paddles, biting, slapping, however you like, just don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t have it. You sure can, and it feels effing fantastic.
About the Creator
L Sophystra
Writer, singer, painter, dancer and spoken word artist. Come into the world of the Lady. Diversify what you know, living with lupus since age 12, this unique artist offers perspective that will change your heart and mind.
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