How does my body respond differently to sexual stimulation after a spinal cord injury?
• Many women need emotional ties to become sexually excited. You may want and need your partner to touch and hold you in a non-sexual way to become excited. These needs usually do not change after a spinal cord injury. You also may need to work with your partner to discover sexually sensitive areas that help you to become excited. • Your response to what you see, hear, feel, smell, taste, and think about may change after an SCI. For sexual stimulation to occur there needs to be a connection between the spinal cord and the brain. Whether you can respond depends on the level and extent (how complete) your SCI was. • Your response to physical stimulation below the level of your injury may change. This is because the messages cannot travel to your brain. Even though you have an SCI, you still have body areas that may give you pleasure when they are touched. A reflex sexual response, such as reflex vaginal lubrication, is not under your control. This means that when your clitoris or other b
