I first contemplated sex as a disabled woman 35 years ago while sitting through the standard sex talk in inpatient rehab. A group of us, mostly men (as 78% of people with SCI identify as male), watched an uncomfortable video of paralyzed people engaging in sexual activity and listened to health care professionals break down the mechanics of sexual activity. They talked about function, erection aids, fertility … but intimacy? Not a word. A woman’s point of view? Left for us to discover on our own.

You can hear a pin drop in the silence surrounding sexual intimacy and disability. Breaking that silence brings something else: Agency. Because claiming intimacy isn’t about what we’ve lost — it’s about what we own. It’s about demanding space in a conversation we’ve been excluded from, about exploring pleasure in a body the world assumes is incapable of it, about rejecting shame and choosing desire instead.

Society tends to portray women with physical disabilities as asexual or undesirable, and when that message is reinforced again and again, it’s easy to start believing it. To the contrary, women with paralysis are sexual beings who can and should engage in and claim intimacy on their own terms.

Learning Your Body Again

Claiming intimacy starts with exploration — learning, testing and discovering what works in this new version of your body. Physical rehabilitation is often about functionality — learning how to transfer, how to dress, how to navigate the world again. But no one prepares you for the deep personal work of learning how to feel again, how to connect pleasure with sensation, how to process a body that no longer moves or responds the way it once did.

Kelsey Peterson is probably best known for co-directing and starring in the documentary film Move Me. She also writes and blogs about sex and sexuality on Substack. But long before she started down those paths, she found herself facing all of these questions in the wake of a 2012 SCI.

“I had to grieve,” she says. “My whole life had been centered around movement, physicality and embodiment. I had been a dancer, using my body as my language. I had been confident in my sexuality, knowing how to move, touch and feel. When that changed, I was forced to reckon with a loss I hadn’t even considered: How would I connect with my body again?”

Peterson says it took five years for her to experience sexual intercourse again. Not because she had made a conscious decision to avoid it, but because she needed to figure out what felt good in a body that felt so unfamiliar. “I had to allow myself the time and space to feel vulnerable, to protect my heart, and to work through the fear and internalized ableism screaming at me, ‘Am I desirable? Will this even be fun? Will my body cooperate?’”

For Teri Thorson, the journey to claiming intimacy after paralysis revolved around discovering pleasure through reconceptualizing. Thorson has been living with quadriplegia since 1996 and is the manager of peer coaching and outreach for Spinal Cord Injury BC, a community-based organization in Canada that supports the disability community. She is also currently leading “SCI Women’s Global Movement,” an initiative to bring women with SCI from across the world together to support each other.

“I get autonomic dysreflexia with pretty much anything. So, you touch me, and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I got a headache, or I’m sweating,’” she says. “With sex I had to reframe the dysreflexic symptoms — OK, I know my body’s freaking out because something is happening to it, but it’s actually not a bad thing. As long as I don’t push it to the point where I get a headache, I can make it feel good. That became what an orgasm was for me.”

This process of reframing and relearning is powerful. It forces us to slow down, to listen to our bodies in ways we might not have before. It also pushes us to explore beyond the road map of pleasure we were taught. When traditional erogenous zones no longer respond in the same way, it requires creativity: a heightened sensitivity in the neck, a new appreciation for deep pressure, a previously unnoticed responsiveness to breath or vibration.

For many of us, this process of rediscovery is deeply personal. It’s a form of self-love, of reclaiming a body that the world tells us is broken.

The Burden of Legitimizing Our Own Sexuality

But that reclamation doesn’t happen in isolation. We live in a society that constantly sends the message that disabled women are not sexual beings.

Peterson points out that before her injury, she never had to prove her sexuality. “I might have had to defend it, but I never had to legitimize it,” she says. “After my injury, I realized how quickly the world strips disabled women of that right.”

It’s one thing to combat personal fears about desirability, but it’s another to constantly be faced with external voices reinforcing those fears. I’ve had strangers tell me that my “sexuality has expired,” as if my ability to experience pleasure had an expiration date.

Sadly, my experience is not unique. “I was in a bar one night, waiting for drinks, and some guy was hitting on me in this weird, patronizing way,” says Peterson. “Then he said something like, ‘I bet you were wild in bed back in your day.’ Back in my day? Like, what the fuck? First of all, none of your business. Second, my ‘day’ is today, tomorrow, every damn day. I left right then and there.”

These interactions reinforce the exhausting reality that disabled women have to constantly assert their right to be seen as sexual beings.

Navigating Intimacy and Dating: The Realities

Dating with a disability is a complex, layered experience. For many of us, it involves an additional level of emotional labor — educating potential partners, filtering out those who fetishize or objectify us, and facing rejection not because of who we are, but because of the assumptions people place on our bodies.

Thorson puts it bluntly: “I think guys were interested in having sex with me. It was morbid curiosity — like, ‘How would this work?’ But I was never the girl that people wanted to date or introduce to their friends.”

Peterson remembers a conversation she had with a close male friend shortly after her injury. “I told him I was afraid I’d never meet someone, that no one would want to be with me in this new body,” she says. “He told me something that stuck with me: ‘It won’t matter to someone who really loves you.’”

And that’s the truth. The people worth your time and energy won’t see your body as a burden or an obstacle. They’ll see it as you, and they’ll meet you in a space of mutual exploration, connection and respect.

Claiming Intimacy as an Act of Radical Self-Love

At its core, claiming intimacy is about empowerment. It’s about recognizing that pleasure, desire and connection are not reserved for nondisabled people. It’s about refusing to accept society’s limitations and defining our own experiences.

As Peterson says, “Everybody loves differently. It’s erotic. It’s new. It’s exciting. When something is new and different, it’s erotic.” She compares the experience to discovering an exciting new place. “There’s something innately exciting and sexually charged about that. Disability and sexuality have this innate ability to bring a sense of erotic awe.”

That includes exploring resources designed to support pleasure. From pillows and supports that enhance comfort during intimacy to sexual aids designed specifically for people with disabilities, these tools can enable claiming intimacy, sexual agency and pleasure. Thorson shared her frustrations with finding some of the right tools. “Vibrators are hard to find because you can’t try them out, so I have so many that didn’t work for me,” she says. “The only one that worked was the Magic Wand, because it’s strong and has a handle I can hold with limited hand function, albeit with two hands.”

Thorson’s organization, SCI-BC, worked with a health care team to develop the PleasureABLE Sexual Device Manual for Persons With Disabilities to provide insights into adaptive techniques, sexual aids and positioning ideas. These resources matter because they acknowledge that disabled people are sexual beings who deserve information and support.

You Are Whole

Claiming intimacy is an evolving journey, one that shifts over time.

“My whole body and how I feel about my body has completely changed since hitting perimenopause,” says Thorson. “Nobody knows anything about being a wheelchair user and menopause. There’s almost no research.”

Sexuality is not static. It’s fluid, adaptable and deeply personal. But at its core, it is ours to define. Claiming intimacy involves understanding the way your body responds to touch and sexual stimulation. Remember, “different” doesn’t mean “absent.” Erogenous zones aren’t confined to traditional areas. Get creative: Your neck, ears and shoulders might be hidden sources of deep pleasure. The sensitivity in certain parts of your body might be heightened; lean into that, embrace the ways your body can experience touch and connection. Explore by yourself, explore with someone else, just don’t forget to give it a try.

For any woman reading this, wondering if intimacy is still possible for you, let me be clear: It absolutely is. Your body is still deserving of love, pleasure and connection. You are still whole.

Because claiming intimacy isn’t just about sexual freedom. It’s about power. It’s about joy. And it’s about refusing to let the world tell you otherwise.