Sex and the One-Breasted Woman

I thought that I could write about my sex life, post-mastectomy, but I find that I can’t.

So just let me say that there is sex after a mastectomy, but it’s not easy to take your clothes off when you are missing a breast.

I’ve never gone to bed with a man who didn’t know beforehand that I have had a mastectomy (I don’t need THAT surprise in the bedroom), and I try to keep Jabba out of the bed. Also I try to remember that old, somewhat-stupid saying about how the most important sex organ is the brain, but it doesn’t always work.

Women's Bathhouses Are Not About Sex
One other thing, I know a LOT of women have had mastectomies, but I never see them at the women’s bathhouse. My friends and I go to a wonderful bathhouse, run by Koreans, for body scrubs, the yummy Korean food, and to soak in pools of various temperatures, and I have yet to see another one-breasted woman at the bathhouse--where are they hiding?

I go to the bathhouse, where everyone is naked, because I want to go, and I refuse to let my slight discomfort over not having a breast keep me away. Do the other women look? Of course they do, but discreetly, and no one ever says anything. (I almost wish they would. They are so consciously not noticing.)

I figure I’m doing my bit by showing other women what it looks like to be a one-breasted woman.

@ Jeanne Sather 2007.

Comments

[Kristina]

I know exactly what you mean about women conspicuously not looking at a missing breast. I had my first mastectomy in June '05, and I have been in locker rooms many, many times since then and nobody so much as glances at my chest. Even on the Breast Cancer 3-Day, in the showers, nobody said anything. Is it kindness that keeps them quiet? Fear? Are they protecting their modesty, or mine? Or do they hope that if they don't "notice" then my missing breast will go away, replaced by something they're more used to?

[babybaby]

you are both way braver than me. I hide in the 'disabled' change room, and suffer the dirty looks that gets me. I have let my husband see my scar exactly once - it doesn't help that he is not trying to remind me that I can still be sexy with one breast.

[Jeanne]

Hi--I just left you a comment on your blog, but I'll respond here too.

Leave bravery out of it--you do what is comfortable for you. But I'm really sorry about the lack of sex thing (I usually wear a loose shirt or a camisole, because that's my comfort level during sex, at least to start out with. Then if it comes off, that's OK.)

If you want to talk about it, send me an e-mail: jeanne.sather@gmail.com

[Kristina]

I'm thinking about sex and the cancer patient today.

For me, the boobless thing is old news. My "breast shapes" (your term and one I'm using now, thank you) might as well not exist when it comes time for intimacy; they are placeholders for something that used to be there and best ignored.

But all of the other side effects of treatment are harder to ignore. Can I just tell you how much I miss estrogen? I think, in the end, I miss it more than my breasts. My libido has taken off into parts unknown (I suspect a mountain range in Tibet; having never been there myself I can't be sure), and my body is, um, uncooperative at best. (Ha. There's a euphemism.)

If you have any light to shed on this subject, I'd love a post. I know about "helpful products" and taking one's time etc. etc. etc. blah blah blah but really, what I want, is the way it used to be. And it's not. How are others dealing with this?

[jeanne]

An update: When I went to the bathhouse recently, there were TWO other women there who had had breast cancer surgery. One had a tattoo where her breast used to be--beautiful!