It's funny as when people look at me they see someone who uses a wheelchair but never understand the other elements of my impairment. I also experience high levels of chronic pain and really feel that these are often overlooked. My paralysis has little impact on my ability and desire to have sex, other than my loss of my ability to gain erections which I found a way round very early on. However my pain can really impact on my desire to have sex and even my ability to be touched. Personally I have found that sometimes sex can ease the pain, but it does take an effort to battle through the original desire to flinch when touched. When you experience high levels of pain you also feel exhausted, which can also mean you don't feel sexy. At the end of the day, these factors can have an effect on anyone's sexuality. Pain and illness can make you feel less sexy, a requirement to care for someone can make your partner feel less sexy too as does age or many others of life's changes. If we all are open about how our own experiences impact on our lives then we will create an understanding that highlights our shared experience. Another example of a situation rarely focused on is the times when I care for my non-disabled wife. When she is ill she doesn't feel like sex, but most people would never imagine that I, as a disabled person, was not having sex due to my non-disabled partner. It's part of life and of being in a relationship. I love my wife dearly and if I never had sex with her again I would still love her dearly. I would miss it obviously but I could never go with someone else. But perhaps the thing that hurt me the most would be that everyone would instantly think that we had stopped having sex due to my impairment. Hopefully it will never happen, but weird to think that if it did no one think the issue was with someone other than me. That's the big issue disabled people have to face.... of one of them eh?