Sexual Disability and Marijuana
by C.A.

Both men and women may suffer loss of sexual function as a consequence of paraplegia. In men it often results in an inability to get or maintain an erection and an inability to ejaculate. With women it is as described below by C.A. Her description of the way cannabis is helpful to female paraplegics is consistent with our understanding of that capacity.

I can think of no way to prove what I am about to say, but I am very serious and quite desperate. I am a 38-year-old woman who was paralyzed in a car accident when I was 16 in 1970. I have been married to one man for the past eleven years, and we have enjoyed an active and satisfying sex life. My problem is not lack of desire or passion or unwillingness to experiment, but the extremely limited erogenous zone (for lack of a better word) left to me after I became paraplegic.

About eight years after I was paralyzed, before I met my husband, I discovered that my sexual sensations were greatly heightened in all the necessary areas, including the clitoris, after I smoked one marijuana cigarette. At that time I had my first orgasm since the accident. At first I thought this had to be my imagination. After all, how could a drug increase sensation? So I experimented using and not using marijuana whenever the opportunity afforded itself. When I met my husband he was willing to go along with it, and try as we might to disprove it, the irrefutable fact is that the marijuana heightened my sensations. Or maybe it heightens my awareness of my sense of touch; I’ve yet to figure out which. All I know is it heightens my sense of touch to the point of achieving orgasm when we make love. It truly works. I hope you can understand what this meant to me after ten years. We were recently caught with our marijuana and given five years probation, with the usual drug testing. Because the state of Missouri in no way recognizes the use of marijuana for medical purposes, I am once again crippled. It is almost unbearable having this disability forced on you when you know there is another option.

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