What are common psychological obstacles to sex that women face after a spinal cord injury? - Diane M. Rowles, MS, NP

The ideas that appear to get in the way for women, or some of the repeated themes that I've heard over the years, are a lot of self image—"How can I take care of others?"—"How can I be loved?" And, the other things are, again, "If I don't have normal sensation, how is that going to work?"—"How can I do this?" For women you know, when they hear, "Yes, you can have a baby," and "Yes, you can be a mom." Just like for men, "I can have a baby, I can be a father," that's all very exciting and rewarding. And like I said, their sexual response cycle isn't necessarily interrupted, so they can do all of those roles. So it more comes down to a self-image issue for women—fear of abuse, fear of being taken advantage of— but I have to say that those issues are also dealt with by men. So, it's a lot of those kind of issues for women, as well as health maintenance issues. You know, "How do I get a mammogram when I'm in a sitting position?"– "How do I go to a gynecologist when I'm in a sitting position?—"How do those issues…what's going to happen with my…?"—"Do I have to use pads?"—"Can I use tampons?"—"If I do get pregnant, how does the pregnancy happen?"—" How do I push?" Those kind of issues.