The Guide to Getting It On (166 page)

It is also essential to educate your partner about diabetes, and how he or she can recognize your hypoglycemic episodes and other possible problems. They need to know how to be in charge when you aren’t, and what to do. It will be much harder to explain after the fact. Since most diabetics feel good as new in a few minutes to a few hours, it won’t be long after treating a low when you and your partner will be back in the saddle.

Here are a few of many other sex-matters to consider:

• Safe sex for diabetics includes keeping a pack of Lifesavers or glucose tablets next to the condoms and lube.
  
• Women should watch out for blood-sugar weirdness a few days before and after their periods. If you can find any menstrual-related patterns, make adjustments in your diet, exercise, insulin, and sexual robustness.
  
• High glucose in the blood means that more glucose is available in the urine. This can trigger an infection. Plenty of women discovered they were diabetic as a result of recurrent urinary-tract infections. If you get yeast infections, avoid lubes with glycerin.
  
• Sugar binges from marijuana munchies can be a problem, although some people claim that marijuana helps even out their blood sugar. There aren’t any studies on this, so please discuss it with your endocrinologist. Ecstasy can make you think you have boundless energy when your body is on its way to a blood-sugar low, and people on Ecstasy tend to drink lots of water, which lowers BGL. Problems from alcohol are the most dangerous of all. Alcohol raises BGL and can also result in dehydration. Alcohol-related lows usually come from being too polluted to eat or to remember to eat. When you have been partying, others around you will assume that any unusual behavior is from being drunk or stoned. You might not get the help you need. Be sure that friends you party with know what to do, although their responses might not be 100%, either.
  
• Decreased vaginal lubrication and erection problems are common side effects of diabetes, especially in sex-crazed seniors. These problems can be due to an interruption in nervous-system feedback, problems in circulation, or a combination of both. Store-bought lube without glycerin is a great equalizer for women, and Viagra-like medications are helpful for many males. Even if they aren’t, this Guide is full of suggestions for pleasing your partner without needing to have an erection. If you do take erection medicine, don’t get it over the Internet. Be sure to consult with your healthcare professional, and get a prescription from him or her.
  
• Peeing before and after sex can help reduce urinary-tract infections. If you are a female diabetic who gets frequent urinary-tract infections, consider shacking up with a partner who is into golden showers. Going on your guy will be killing two birds with one stone, or stream, although women who are kinky and infection prone should only be the doers and not the receivers of the golden stream.
  
• Be sure to wear a medical ID bracelet or tag, and if you’re a man who cruises the parks or trails, you might put an extra tag on the waistband in the front of your briefs where it’s more likely to be seen.
  
• If you can’t live without getting your love parts pierced, the chances of getting an infection are higher when your blood glucose levels (BGLs) are elevated. Infections will increase the scarring around piercing sites and they will make your BGLs shoot even higher. Get thee to a health-care provider at the slightest indication of an infection. Also, tongue piercings will make your tongue swollen and sore, which will inspire you to skip meals, which can lead to a hypoglycemic episode.
  
• We hate to mention the following little nastiness, and hope it applies to no readers of
  The Guide
  . But rumor has it that some girls will skip their insulin in order to keep their BGLs high. This results in decreased appetite. This kind of “weight-loss program” is dangerous and dumb.
  

As for inspiration, one of the founders of sex therapy had diabetes for most of his life. Management had been so difficult that he had to inject himself twice a day. His name was Albert Ellis and he recently died at the age of 93. He said that while staying on top of his diabetes had always been a pain, the bigger pain was if he didn’t. Ellis had been quite the sex radical during his 93 years, and he was even a fan of
The Guide.
Out of the blue, he sent a very kind e-mail saying it was one of the best sex books he had ever read. Imagine that, still reading and writing sex books when you are in your 90s!

Diabetes doesn’t mean you can’t be as good or bad as anyone else in bed. As with everything else in life, it just means that you’ve got to plan ahead and jump through a few more hoops.

A Special Thanks
to Ricky Siegel, a sex educator, therapist, and member of Planned Parenthood, and to Barry McCarthy, an author and leader in sex education who also has diabetes. Also, to Bill Taverner, for putting the word out!

CHAPTER

84

Sex When You Are Horny & Disabled

A
story appeared on the Internet about a 22-year-old man with cerebral palsy who has virtually no control over his body’s movements. He started using his wheelchair antisocially, as a ramming device. He was running over anything he could. Eventually, this young man wrote on his word-board that he was so horny he couldn’t stand it anymore. Although his body has the same sexual urges and desires as an able-bodied 22-year-old, he has no ability to walk, talk or masturbate like the average 22-year-old. He can’t even download porn or surf adult websites.

As quickly as they began, this young man’s wheelchair tantrums stopped. The reason? A nurse’s aide mercifully began giving him handjobs. But then she was caught and fired instantly. The board-and-care home threatened to file a complaint against her for sexual abuse.

Sexy & Disabled?

If you think you are fair-minded about sexual matters, consider a quadriplegic who wheels by in an electric wheelchair. The person drools a little and steers the chair with a joy stick that’s strapped to his forehead. Do you think of this person as being sexual? Do you think he has the same sexual needs and desires as you? Chances are you’d wonder how good his jump shot is before you’d think of him as being just as horny as you are.

Many people not only disapprove of sex for the severely disabled, but find the concept offensive. They might even feel that we need to protect people who are disabled from sex.

Dear Paul,

I’m a paraplegic. From where I sit, I have women’s rears and crotches in my face all day long. You have no idea how much restraint it takes to keep my hands to myself. Last week I copped a feel but apologized and blamed it on my “bad driving” and “spastic hand.” —Dude from Dubuque

Dude,

There’s not an able-bodied guy on the planet who could come face-to-tail with as much anatomy as you do and not want to reach out and touch some. You must consider a crowded elevator to be a gift from God, as well as one of life’s great torments. Counterpoint: I recently received a letter regarding my response to Dude because I didn’t chastise him for his inappropriate actions. “I am really disappointed that you suggest in your response that a man couldn’t be expected to withhold his sexual desire and that it’s fine to occasionally use a woman’s body for your own purpose.”

One reason why so many of us blanch at the idea of a disabled person having sex is because the advertising industry spends billions of dollars each year trying to narrow our concept of what sexual attractiveness is. Never do advertisers tell us that sexual appeal might have something to do with integrity and character, given how those can’t be paid for with a credit card. Forget even existing sexually if you are missing a few fingers or an entire leg, slur your words when you talk or are paralyzed from the chest down.

A huge hurdle for many disabled people is being able to accept themselves as being sexual. If you don’t accept yourself as being a sexual person, it is unlikely that others will.

Roll Models

“Prior to my becoming blind, the only person who was blind that I had seen was a beggar. I was horrified to think that this was the only option available to me as a person who was blind.” —From an article on women who are blind by Ellen Rubin in
Sexuality and Disability
.

One of the more discouraging aspects of having a disability is that positive role models are few and far between. If you ask people to name a famous disabled person, just as many will say the Hunchback of Notre Dame as Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Of the two, FDR was a real-life American president who provided people with a real sense of sanctuary, although he was unable to walk unaided. There were reasons why FDR tried to hide his disability. When he was a young man, disabled people were considered a success if they could get a job in the circus.

Different Ways That Disabilities Happen

When people are disabled from crashes and accidents, it is often because the spinal cord was damaged. About 85% of spinal-cord injuries happen to men, many in their teens and twenties. That’s because men have a penchant for doing things that involve speed or collisions. For instance, if a boy says he needs “pads,” you might assume he’s talking about something to put under his football jersey. If a girl says she needs “pads,” it’s likely that she’s referring to sanitary napkins. In addition to sports and car crashes, disabilities might come from gun wounds, stabbings, fistfights or a serious bonk on the head.

Diseases that cause disabilities include arthritis, which can make intercourse painful or cripple your fingers so much that you can’t masturbate. Polio can make it nearly impossible to walk or breathe and can result in problems later in life (post-polio syndrome). Diabetes can hamper an erection or vaginal engorgement, but usually not orgasm. Multiple sclerosis can be mild and manageable or severe and debilitating. Cancer and the treatments for it can impact a person’s ability and desire to have sex.

There are many genetic or congenital disorders that can cause disabilities. Certain chromosome disorders can damage a person’s physical growth and/or mental development. Congenital disorders might result in dwarfism or being top-shelf challenged. (There’s a recent TV series that follows a family with dwarfism who seem just as “normal” as their tall neighbors.) Medications taken during pregnancy can result in the birth of infants with severe disabilities. Parental exposure to pollutants and chemicals can cause birth defects. Disabilities can also result from strokes and heart attacks or cerebral palsy and muscular dystrophy.

Spinal-Cord Injury (SCI) Shorthand:
When people with spinal-cord injuries are talking to other people with spinal-cord injuries, they sometimes use a shorthand such as “I’m a C-4 quad” or “I’m a T-3.” This code refers to the location on the spine where the injury occurred. For instance, a C-4 injury occurs higher up on the spinal cord (in the neck) than a T-3, so it is likely that a person with a C-4 is paralyzed from the shoulders down (quadriplegic), whereas a T-3 has the use of his or her arms (paraplegic), and an L-4 most likely has more use than a C-4 or T-3 because the injury happened at a point on the spinal cord between the ribs and pelvis. Another factor is whether the injury was complete or incomplete, with the latter supposedly being less severe.

Quad Note:
Thanks to Tom Street for this info. Tom is a C-4 quad from an auto accident in 1988. Tom manufactures a computer mouse for quadriplegics called the QuadJoy. This special mouse, combined with extra software that Tom has written, allows the user to run the entire computer, including keyboard, by mouth. The full range of clicking and dragging happens by virtue of puffing and sucking on the end of the joystick. This can be particularly helpful for a quad who would like to interact with others in chat rooms or who would like to see Internet porn in PRIVATE and without the help of an attendant. Tom can be reached on the internet at
www.quadjoy.com
.