Cancer and Sex

So, the silence around sex and cancer was the impetus to this very blog. No one would talk to us. Not a doc or a nurse or a PA...finally a friend got some out of town resources for us, but by then I was so mad, and I started provoking everyone, and I wrote a very mean post about cancer resources folks who think relationships live on the "C" word:  cuddle.

Now there is a little bit more info and I dig for every bit of it and bring it to you right here.

So here is todays offering--a new book, "Sex and Cancer" by Dr. Saketh R. Guntupalli and Maryann Karinch. The link below is to an article in today's New York Times section called Living with Cancer--and Susan Gubar (we love her) writes about the new book.

Take a look, and please share this with family
 and friends who are living in CancerLand--You might save a relationship and a life:

https://nyti.ms/2FMqqPP

Chop Wood, Carry Water

There is an old Zen saying:

Before enlightenment: Chop wood, carry water.

After enlightenment: Chop wood, carry water.

It applies to cancer too:

Before cancer:

Chop wood, carry water, buy groceries, pay bills, make love.

After cancer:

Chop wood, carry water, buy groceries, pay bills, make love.

Before and after cancer there are  bills to pay and water on the sink, socks in the dryer, deadlines, aches, pains, worries, bad TV, great movies, Facebook, missed birthdays, cranky coworkers, amazing friends, too much candy, not enough water...

and a poem to write every day.

The Great Divide: Certain Regrets

When interviewed at or after middle age, both men and women have expressed some profound sexual regrets. But, researchers say, what they regret shows how great gender differences can be.

 It is as you might expect: Women regret sexual experiences they had—one-night stands, or sex with the wrong person, while men regret sexual experiences they missed --opportunities passed up, or not attempted.

According to Marty Haselton, professor of social psychology at UCLA, “When men miss a sexual opportunity it may be a costly loss from an evolutionary perspective.” 

Researchers at The University of Texas agree: “Men are genetically hardwired to seek mates and on some level each missed opportunity to have sex is a missed opportunity to reproduce. 

But for women, who invest more in each offspring—pregnancy, breastfeeding, infant care—“the consequences of casual sex are much higher which is likely to have shaped women's emotional reactions to sexual liaisons even today”, according to the findings reported in The Archives of Sexual Behavior. 

So then, here we are in CancerLand and we wonder about regrets here. Do we, should we make an extra special effort to have more sex and keep our sexual lives, well, alive? Or should we acknowledge that being alive (beating cancer) is the ultimate prize, and go have a great chocolate cake and some champagne?

Does a cancer diagnosis, and surviving cancer (and its treatments), change our regrets, or make us wish for—and still try for—more sex?