Interview with Jessica Gregory
Jessica is beautiful, she’s got a great sense of humor about life and herself, she’s a brilliant writer and published author, and an advocate for individuals like herself, who are living with disabilities.
She offers some great insight into the ways sex has evolved alongside her disability, her self-awareness and self-love. It serves as a powerful example of how we can stay connected to pleasure and our sexual selves in the incredible vulnerability and challenges of chronic pain, upsetting diagnoses and physical limitations.
6. Would you say that your sexual orientation has been a source of confusion or excitement?
I grew up feeling isolated in my experiences of sexual desire. I’ve always had a libido, but didn’t seem to experience attraction in the same way as my peers. This became particularly evident when I entered the co-ed environment of university and had a lot more freedom. I was frequently made to feel boring, prudish or too “conservative” for not wanting to date around, or express sexual interest in people.
As I got older and my physical health issues became more severe, I was able to tell myself that it was the pain and fatigue that prevented me from feeling sexual attraction “normally” and gawked at people around me who seemed willing to make any kind of sacrifice for a chance of sexual activity. When I started self-identifying as disabled in 2020 I felt even more isolated.
At this stage I was in a long-term, loving relationship with my now husband, and while we had sex, it was becoming more and more infrequent due to my mobility issues, and increasingly bad pain from what would turn out to be Endometriosis. It wasn’t until I had a hysterectomy last year and could suddenly have painless sex whenever I wanted, that I finally started to see myself as I really am.
10. Tell us about the most sexual time or relationship of your life.
It might seem counter-intuitive given the revelation about my sexuality, but the most sexual period of my life is absolutely right now!
My hysterectomy has been life-changing in many ways, but the impact on my sex-life has been an unexpected surprise. I don’t know if it has been getting off hormonal birth-control, or getting past the psychological barrier of associating my sexual organs with pain, but my libido has been at an all time high since I recovered. I went from not knowing how to have an orgasm before I met my husband, to then not even wanting one because of the debilitating pain, to now being effortlessly multi-orgasmic. My current record is 7, and I intend to dedicate a good amount of time to breaking it!
Understanding my sexuality alongside accepting the challenges and limitations that come with my health conditions has also helped me to unlock a willingness to “customise” my sexual activities to meet my needs. I’m slowly learning to treat my sexual desires with the same care and consideration that I do other important things in my life.
I feel the most like having sex when I relaxed, well rested, and emotionally connected to my partner. In reality, that means that most of our sexual exploits stem from lazy Saturday mornings in our pyjamas before we’ve even brushed our teeth, not something you see in Hollywood, but it makes us happy, and that’s all that really matters.
9. How has your body, your sexual drive and response changed over the years?
I started becoming interested in my own sexual pleasure around puberty, but that didn’t really translate into the limited romantic relationships I had as a teen. Instead, I started to learn more about harnessing my sexual response when I started dating my now husband during university. Partially because he was one of the few people I felt sexual attraction to, but also because he never made me feel silly or unusual for my lack or knowledge or experience.
We initially had a fulfilling sex-life, but it got harder and harder to maintain when my health started declining. There was the initial challenge of me having an undiagnosed disability and generally just feeling very shitty and unsexy all the time, and later, the problem of me finding penetration and/or sexual stimulation increasingly painful and difficult.
Here’s where I get up on my soapbox to preach about the appalling state of AFAB healthcare. From the age of 12 I saw no less than 6 different gynaecologists about my pelvic health concerns. Other than a quick ultrasound no further investigation was done. I was simply cycled on and off every different type of birth control under the sun, most of which gave me depression and anxiety, and/or murdered my libido.
This went on for 16 years, and I genuinely feel like all the hormonal and mental health fluctuations took a few years off my life. It wasn’t until I was referred to a Gynaecologist who specialised in complex cases that I was recommended for a hysterectomy on the basis that my Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (EDS) was causing excessive, long-term bleeding and clotting. While this was likely a contributing factor to my distress, he also found Endometriosis lesions around my uterus and ovaries when he opened me up for surgery - something which could probably have been removed at any point in last decade and a half, if someone had have just taken my pain seriously! Grrr!
In the lead up to my surgery, I also began to investigate other treatments for my difficulty with painful penetration, as my pelvic floor muscles were also getting tighter and more spasmodic with age.
Thankfully, I ended up finding a great pelvic floor therapist who educated me about the link between EDS and having tight, spasming muscles that were desperately trying to compensate for the other weak connective tissues in the body. She worked with me on a combination of relaxing the tight muscles, and re-training my pelvic floor to work in combination with other areas of my body, rather than carrying the load all on its own. This enabled me to be able cope with penetration again relatively quickly, but I still wasn’t able to enjoy sexual stimulation without pain until after my operation.
Despite this grueling period of my life, there were a few things that helped me remain connected to my sexual energy, even when I wasn’t sexually active. The first was practising burlesque. I took classes in a safe, supportive environment with women from all walks of life.
It was a refreshingly non-judgemental space, where no one seemed to care who I slept with or how often, and the teachers were focused on helping us to harness our sexual energy for our own self-expression and satisfaction, rather than for someone else’s excitation. It’s a world I would love to re-connect with now that my health is more stable and I am more mobile again.
The second was (and continues to be) reflecting on my relationship with my body and being mindful of how I think about it. I’m much more careful now about the media that I consume and am actively trying to exorcise the harmful messages I absorbed from it previously.
The penny finally dropped for me when I was diagnosed with Lipoedema last year (yet another complication of my EDS ). My body is gaining lumps of unusual fat tissue in weird places, and this will probably continue to make me look less and less “conventionally” attractive as it progresses. Yet, I find myself feeling more sexy and confident than ever before.
When I younger I had much more external validation, I was skinnier, able-bodied, and had lots of boys wanting to date me, but inside I felt terrible. I didn’t accept myself or value my own pleasure, so my relationship with my sexuality was much more performative.
Of course it’s easy for me to say this as someone who is in the early stages of Lipoedema, and who’s body still more or less fits within the standards that society has defined as “acceptable,” but it’s clear to me now that true sexual power and satisfaction comes from embracing yourself as you really are, and finding freedom by following your own unique path and purpose.
