Sex and Cancer: Connect with Your Body and Rekindle Your Spark

By Dr Amanda Hordern

Cancer can rob you of many things but the loss of intimacy, sexuality, and confidence in yourself and your body are rarely talked about.

This groundbreaking book combines the latest neuroscience with simple, powerful, and practical techniques to help you reclaim your sexual confidence, desire, and happiness from the inside out

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mind Potential Publishing
• Release date: Jun 18, 2021
• ISBN: 9781922380296

Dr Amanda Hordern

Dr. Amanda is a leading expert who strives to lift the lid off the great taboo of sex and cancer. She draws on many years of experience as Executive Director Cancer Information and Support, at Cancer Council Victoria, Australia and decades of counselling, teaching and research in cancer care. Dr. Hordern is an international keynote speaker and has lectured in cancer and palliative care at Post Graduate, Masters and PhD levels. She has assisted thousands of patients to reprogram their mind through her private practice, Bayside Healthy Living. She draws upon the latest findings in neuroscience to embrace measurable and uplifting changes, no matter what age, culture, gender, type or stage of cancer.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

It was late at night and the corridor lights had been dimmed to create a sense of calm throughout the cancer ward. There were makeshift beds squeezed in beside the beds of the terminally ill, their relatives preparing for the night time vigil. All that could be heard were the sounds of beeping machines, call bells and the hustle of nightshift nurses preparing for the 10-hour shift ahead.

I was making my way through the long ward, small torch in one hand and my other hand clutching my patient notes. As I gently beamed the torch light onto each person in my area of care, puffing pillows, searching for more blankets, recording the intravenous (IV) flow rates, switching off beeping machines, making late night teas to settle and sooth, the voice of Ange called out to me,

Before you leave, is it ok to have sex while I’ve got this chemo running through?

I felt a red hot flush rush through me and I was very grateful the torch light was on her face and not mine!

There must have been a long pause as I scoured my brain for the most helpful answer. It dawned on me that I had no answer. In all my years of study and clinical work I realised in that moment, that nothing had prepared me for this question.

I heard myself saying, "I’ll need to get back to you about that and check with my colleagues," to which Ange quickly retorted, No need, it’s too late for that, we just had sex in the patient lounge while you were all doing hand over!

I wasn’t sure whether to applaud her, or to ask for her best recommendations for sex positions on a two-seater lounge chair while managing an IV pole.

I smiled and said, "I hope it was good for you." Then I turned to exit the room as fast as I could to get back to the safety of the nurses’ station!

Back then, we had no instant access to Google so I frantically flicked through cancer manuals and text books, scoured indexes for words like ‘sex’ and ‘safe sex’ and any other version of these I could think. It was all to no avail, there was nothing to find.

By the time all the patients were settled for the night and everyone was back at the nurses’ station, I asked my colleagues, both doctors and nurses, Is it safe to have sex while on chemo?

There were stunned and confused blank stares… I still had no answer to give Ange.

One of the doctors said, "I’ll check with the senior consultant in the morning, to which I replied, It’s too late, one of our patients just had sex in the waiting room while we were in hand over!"

There was a gasp from a nursing colleague who quickly retorted, "Seriously? You’re having me on, right? Surely, they’ve got more important things on their mind."

Another nurse piped up and said, "That’s so gross, we should think about locking that room when we are in handover!"

I still had no helpful answer for Ange and her partner.

It wasn’t long after that evening that I found myself working at a Cancer Council Information and Support Service as a nurse counsellor. On my very first day, my boss Doreen Akkerman, came up to me and threw a book on my desk, which made me blush.

The book was called Sex for One by Betty Dodson.

Betty Dodson was an artist who, in the 1960s, pioneered ‘pro-sex’ workshops, demonstrating and teaching women how to masturbate.

As I tentatively opened the book on my tram ride home, I was horrified to see it was filled with pictures of women’s labia and clitoris that the author had sketched from live models. These women were being taught and inspired to find comfort in their uniqueness and pleasure from their bodies. It wasn’t until I closed the book to step off the tram, that I realised how many people were following each page with me. And here I was, leaving before we had all made our way to the climax of the book!

Doreen had said when she handed me the book, I’d like you to read this and join me tomorrow evening at a Cancer Support Group workshop. The workshop she was facilitating was called, Sex and Intimacy after Cancer.

Very few people in the industry know where to start and what to say for fear of opening Pandora’s box or putting their foot in it.

Curious, intrigued and eager to learn the answer to Ange’s question, I attended the workshop and along with many others, came to understand that this topic was a great taboo in cancer care. The taboo often discriminated against older people, and those grappling with advanced cancer or in palliative care. To this day, sex and cancer is a topic that is briefly mentioned in guidelines for health professionals with very little done to put minds at rest.

As I write this, I realise I have spent the past 25 years researching the answers to Ange’s question. I’ve spent my time supporting patients to find their own place of comfort with those answers too. I have to say a big thank you to Ange for being the catalyst.

I’ve facilitated thousands of workshops across the world, with all ages, all genders and all preferences and lifestyles; from heterosexual, to gay, bisexual, lesbian, transgender, intersexual and transsexual, all diagnosed with all different types and stages of cancer.

Across all participants the challenges they faced and questions they had were all very similar:

• How do I manage to live with these changes to my body?

• How do I move forward?

• What sparks joy after cancer?

My interest in the topic and the need for answers meant I dedicated the next four years to a research scholarship which enabled me to complete a PhD entitled Intimacy and Sexuality in Cancer and Palliative Care. That provided me with in-depth insight into what goes on for each of us when it comes to thinking or talking about Sex & Cancer.

It can feel awkward for a newly diagnosed cancer patient, someone in the middle or at the end of their treatment, cancer survivors many years down the track, and carers walking the path closely beside someone with cancer. And yes, equally awkward for health professionals providing cancer or palliative care. In all these cases it’s not unusual to ponder questions like Where do I even start?

How do I trust and connect to this body of mine? How do I cope with the fear and uncertainty? How can I rekindle the spark of who I truly am? What is most important to me now?

This book is for you!

If those are questions you’ve been grappling with, this book is written for you.

• Are you newly diagnosed with cancer?

• Are you in the midst of treatment?

• Have you finished cancer treatment?

• Have you lost confidence in your body and seek tools to help you connect?

• Are you thinking, Now what? And how do I learn to like and trust this body of mine?

• Perhaps you or someone you know is a cancer survivor, or in remission after recurrence and ongoing health challenges but still fears ‘The big C,’ having difficulty adjusting back into the world.

• You may be a partner of a person with cancer, wanting to reach out and rebuild the intimate connection you once shared

• Perhaps you are a friend or family member wanting information and knowledge to empower a person you truly care about.

• You may also be a health professional who wants to know how to comfortably open the conversation and provide the very best information, support and practical strategies to assist people to live fully and passionately.

The aim of this book is to provide a step by step process to facilitate safe and comfortable conversations and answer your questions along the way.

This book will:

• Take you on a journey to recognise the diversity of all that sex, intimacy and masturbation means for each of us across our lifetime.

• Offer a comprehensive list of answers to questions that you didn’t know you didn’t know. A list that you can flick through and find quick answers to and more detailed answers throughout the book.

• Provide straight forward information on how a diagnosis and treatment for any cancer type can impact sexual health and wellbeing for men and women, young and old, irrespective of age and culture, sexual orientation or partnership status.

• Encourage you to reflect on what sex and intimacy have meant to you before and after cancer, helping you identify old beliefs, barriers and mindsets, which have the potential to get in your way of reclaiming your sexual confidence and spark.

• Invite you to explore the very best ways to talk about sex comfortably, honestly and authentically including communication in the form of positive self-talk, powerful ways to discuss what you like and don’t like with a partner, amazing pick-up lines for prospective new partners, and