Regain That Feeling: Sexual Healing After Serious Injury or Illness Devi Ward speaks with Dr. Mitchell Tepper on the secrets to pleasure and orgasm discovered from laboratory studies with people who have spinal cord injuries and how to access great sex regardless of illness, disability, advancing age, or sexual dysfunction. Click the bar below to listen to this enlightening discussion!

With the success of The Sessions starring Helen Hunt and John Hawkes, there has been increased attention on sex surrogates for people with disabilities.  While I am a strong advocate for the use of surrogate partner therapy, I recognize that there are very few trained sexual surrogates in United States and they're concentrated mainly in California and a few other states. Furthermore many people with disabilities are living on a fixed income that does not allow for the luxury of assistance that is not covered under medical benefits. Facilitated sex, as discussed in this interview with Dr. Mitchell Tepper,  is a more accessible and affordable pathway to sexual expression.

U.S. Marine Corporal William Berger talks about how his TBI soured the relationship with his girl friend. He describes how he was childish, irritable, withdrawn and unable to be intimate. His mood swings and reactions to medications became so extreme that she finally called it quits.

Chief Warrant Officer Richard Gutteridge describes how, during his struggle with severe PTSD after two deployments to Iraq, he became withdrawn from his wife and two sons,. His dependence on alcohol combined with depression and insomnia drive him to the brink of suicide. His wife appears with his packed suitcase when he leaves the Army base to check himself in to the psychiatric ward at Landstule Medical Center in Germany.

Doctors, psychologists and educators nationwide detail how sex - or lack of it - affects our mental and physical health. Includes a focus on potential threats to sexual health, be they mental, physical, cultural or religious.

In this unprecedented four-volume set, doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, educators, and clergy join forces to present information vital for sexual health. Topics candidly discussed include the meaning of sexual health, the effects of ignorance or neglect, and the role of love, touch, and communication. Doctors explain the roles of physical systems, while psychologists and members of the clergy detail the roles of religion, culture, and parental or family beliefs in spurring or squashing sexual health. State-of-the-art treatments and research are also featured. Each volume includes a chapter on how to talk with a doctor, therapist, or patient about sexual health.
Americans feel free to tell medical doctors of health ills from headaches to hemorrhoids, and to tell psychologists about mental problems from depression to delusions. Yet, there is one area that affects both physical and mental health most people don't discuss with either doctor or psychologist: sexual health. According to a survey published by the American Medical Association, 43 percent of women and 31 percent of men in the United States experience some form of sexual dysfunction, problems are largely hidden, and so exacerbated. Doctors don't initiate the topic with patients; neither do most psychologists aside from trained sex therapists. The problems might not even be rooted in disorders commonly understood as illness. As officials at the World Health Organization have defined it, sexual health is more than the absence of disease. It is a state of physical, emotional, mental and social well-being related to sexuality.

Many of us were taught before we became disabled or in adolescence that sex entails excitement that grows more and more intense until it results in a climax. The goal is usually seen as orgasm and the release of pent-up sexual tension. We learned about sex in a culture that treats it as sinful and unspeakable, yet uses a medical model to describe it. According to the medical model of sex and orgasm, a buildup of muscular tension leads to a peak, followed by a release - ejaculation for men and contractions of the muscles surrounding the vagina for women. Since what science can measure is primarily physical in nature, orgasm is seen basically seen as an autonomic reflex, a mere spasm of genital contractions. The medical model doesn’t work for all of us. When our disabilities are accompanied by loss of genital sensation, limited movement or inability to ejaculate or have genital contractions, we may feel like giving up. The sexual pleasure we learned about or once knew has become inaccessible. Tantric sex - based on the esoteric teachings of several eastern religions - provides an alternative way to experience sexual pleasure and bring new meaning to a loving relationship. Tantric orgasm is counterintuitive to the medical model. In Tantra, excitement is just the beginning rather than the means to the end. Instead of rushing toward a climax, a Tantric practitioner slows down, remaining in the moment, and travels toward deep relaxation. In the medical model, sexual energy builds, then is lost. In Tantra, energy is not lost but gained. Instead of using a partner for one’s own gratification, Tantric partners provide vital energy to each other.

It may be a little late for Monday morning quarterbacking as the public media hype over Super Bowl XXXVIII has come and gone in about the same time it took Janet Jackson to flash her nipple, barely covered by a silver sunburst nipple attachment. That being said, let’s get right to the point.