How Getting Arthritis at 31 Changed My Sex Life

Disabled people have sex, too — but I’m still struggling

When I write about sex, I like to make it sound sleek and wild. But the reality isn’t so glamorous.

Everything I write about is true, I just omit some of the difficulties when it’s not relevant to the story I’m telling.

And there are plenty of difficulties, because a year ago, at 31 years old, I was diagnosed with arthritis.

A lot of simple, everyday things became challenging. The physical tasks that used to come naturally to me became painful, awkward, or downright impossible.

And that included just about every sexual activity I normally engaged in.

Arthritis at Its Worst

The symptoms showed up practically overnight.

I had just given birth to my fourth child and I started experiencing severe weakness and pain in my wrists.

My baby weighed only 5 lbs. but I had a very hard time holding him. I couldn’t even move my hospital blanket without feeling excruciating pain.

My wrists ached constantly. My knees hurt when I walked. I even had to relearn how to sit because I could no longer be in a lot of the positions I was used to.

And I had to put my writing on hold because typing, let alone writing with a pen, was simply too painful.

The diagnosis was clear — arthritis — but the details were a bit fuzzy, and they still are. What I have is either rheumatoid arthritis or arthritis due to hormonal imbalances (most likely low testosterone levels). My doctors are hoping it’s the latter and I am too because there would be some better treatment options.

I didn’t jump right back into having sex when I started experiencing these symptoms — like I said, I just had a baby — but I knew it would cause trouble once I was ready to start again.

I spent a lot of time online reading about sex with arthritis and arthritis-friendly sex positions.

It wasn’t promising.

I always knew I’d have to tone things down one day. Probably nix a few of the positions that require a lot more bending and contorting. Maybe slow the pace, too. I knew I’d have to adapt once my body went through some of those changes, when I’d get aches in places I never had before, and when I just didn’t have the kind of energy I once did.

But at 31?

I wasn’t ready to adjust so abruptly.

I probably put off having sex longer than I had to because I just wasn’t ready to face the new reality of sex with arthritis.

Once I did finally work up the courage to have sex, it was a lot less interesting than it used to be.

You know how sometimes you’re watching a porn scene where a guy holds a gal upside down to eat her out, or someone gets fucked standing up, and you think “That’s really hot but I could never pull it off in real life?” That’s how it was for me, except it was for all the really basic stuff.

Being on my knees was unbearable. If I got into doggy position, I couldn’t hold myself up with my hands. I could do elbows at best, and only for a limited time.

Holding my legs up in any way also became painful, so I had to be careful even when doing missionary.

I more or less stopped giving blowjobs because I couldn’t really figure out a position that worked without hurting some joint or other.

Even handjobs were out of the picture. Stroking my husband’s dick — even gently — was just too painful on the wrist.

The only highlight, really, is that I got prone boned a lot. That’s something I enjoy tremendously. But when it became something I had to do as a default — not something I work up to or use as a grand finish — it lost some of its magic.

Not Perfect, But Better

My arthritis isn’t cured. I’m still dealing with the hormonal issues that might be the root cause of it. But I have found a way to lessen the symptoms.

I started taking CBD oil and I’ve seen some very noticeable improvements — improvements that vanish if I skip my daily dose.

My abilities are still limited and there is some pain and discomfort, but with 40mg in my system, I can be a much more active participant in my life and my household.

I can play with my kids again, as long as I don’t have to run or lift much. I can do a little bit of cooking, though I need help if anything has to be peeled or something firm like a carrot or turnip needs to be chopped. And thankfully, I can write again, although I still do get flare-ups that make me have to hit the save button and leave the draft alone for a while.

And sex is going a lot better. I’m not swinging from the chandeliers or anything like that — I’m still somewhat limited in what I can do.

Doggy style still means pressing my tits into the mattress instead of holding myself up and I have to ask my husband to lay down before I blow him so it isn’t too hard on my knees.

But a lot of my regular activities and positions are back. I can give handjobs again as long as it’s not an epic marathon jerking session. I can get in more than two positions without it murdering my joints. I can even ride cowgirl without it being too painful.

I still have to spend a lot of time in bed to recover and ease up the pressure on my body, but at least now I can take advantage of it.

Psychological Obstacles to Sex

One thing I didn’t expect is that there aren’t only physical obstacles to having sex with arthritis — there are psychological ones, too.

Having arthritis means that I’ve gone from being a caretaker to a recipient of care.

I can’t do much of the cooking or cleaning around the house, so my husband has to take on most of it.

My baby is now a toddler and taking care of him is a challenge. I can’t hold him for very long, and even then I often have to pick him up using my forearms and not my hands so I don’t put too much pressure on my wrists. I’ve delegated a lot of his care to Mr. Austin, too.

If I need to go out with the kids, I have to bring him as well. Carrying our toddler is hard — picking up and carrying our 4- and 7-year-old girls is downright impossible. And unfortunately, it’s not optional. Both of our daughters are autistic, which means that I might be dealing with intense meltdowns and risky defiance (like not staying off the road when we’re going for a walk or not stopping when told to when walking through a busy parking lot). There’s just no reasoning with an autistic child who’s having a hard time coping with sensory overload — you often just have to pick them up and carry them out. Because I can’t do that, I can’t go out unaccompanied.

I also can’t lift and carry most grocery bags if I do the shopping by myself, so even when things go well, I need assistance.

And at home I feel like I’m just a constant fountain of needs and requests. It’s sometimes hard for me to go down the stairs to get to the kitchen, so I have to ask for a glass of water instead of getting it myself. I can’t stretch the fitted sheet back onto my mattress because it involves too much wrist work, so I have to ask Mr. Austin to make the bed for me. And I need assistance with a million other little things.

It’s hard to feel sexy when I’m being cared for and catered to like this. I want my husband to see me as a MILF, but when everything has to be done for me, I can’t help but feel more like the fifth child in the family.

And I kind of feel bad initiating sex after my husband spent all day juggling work, childcare, and a mountain of chores that grow faster than they can be dealt with. He needs sleep. He needs a break. The last thing he needs is me asking him for even more of his time.

He insists he still finds me attractive despite all this, and he hasn’t turned me down yet. So, I decided to ask him how he manages to still see me as a sexual partner when I sometimes just feel like a chronically ill sloth.

First, he said something about critical disability theory (Mr. Austin is a recovering academic) and how there’s no reason to de-sexualize someone just because they have a chronic condition.

Then he mused about whether the question made any sense, because “women have managed to take care of all the household chores while babying their husbands and they still managed to fuck them.”

Fair enough. But I still have a hard time looking past the arthritis and all the needs that come out of it. Most days, I struggle to think of myself as desirable. And that makes it hard to get in the right headspace for acting on my own desires.

Learning to Be Sexy Again

The symptom and the diagnosis came hard and fast. I suddenly found myself in a category that is unfairly but often associated with sexlessness.

There are lots of these categories.

Some guys can’t think of moms as sexual (to the dismay of their partners).

Some can’t think of anyone over 50 as having a sex drive.

And then there are those who think disability or chronic illness spells the end of desire.

And that’s where I found myself, out of the blue.

I’m still trying to overcome this. When I think of other chronically ill and disabled people, I think of them as sexual beings, like most of us are. But somehow when it comes to myself, I have some extra hurdles to overcome before I get there.

I know we’ve been given the wrong narrative about sex. Sex is often presented as province of unattached teenagers. They’re hormonal AF and a little too loose with risk, so they’ve earned a place at the table, but that doesn’t give them a monopoly on sexuality.

We need to think of sex as something that happens in real life.

Sex is something we do when we’re old. It’s something we do when we’re disabled.

It’s something we sandwich between diaper changes and trying to figure out how to cut the grocery bill down so we can pay rent.

Sex is fun. Sex is beautiful. But it’s not sacred. Real life doesn’t tarnish it or ruin it, because sex is a part of real life.

And I’m learning to treat it that way and see myself as deserving of sex, and I’m doing it one awkward, careful, arthritic fuck session at a time.

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