Where do you start a conversation about losing control of your bowel or bladder during sex? Those who think that urine and feces are sexy probably already have some ideas on this, but for most people, taboos about bodily fluids – combined with restrictive ideas about what is sex and what is sexy – can make a conversation about bowel and bladder control during sex seem painful to the point of impossible.
Some people give up on partner sex altogether, or still have it but stop enjoying it, when they know they might lose control of their bowel or bladder during sex. No one should be pressured into having sex or not having it, but it’s important to know that hot, fun, intimate sex doesn’t depend on whether or not you have complete control over your bladder or bowel function. And for many the big obstacles are tied to shame associated with loss of bowel and bladder control during sex.
If you’ve decided you want to do something about the situation, and you have a partner, or you’ve got one or more in mind, you will have to communicate something about it to them. What and how much to say, and when you say it is entirely up to you. Below are a few tips on how to talk about bowel and bladder control during sex, offered more to inspire you to think it through for yourself than as a checklist or rigid way to guide.
Preparing For The Conversation
Given the way most societies deal with sex, you may feel embarrassment, shame, and/or confusion about how to even have sex when urinating or defecating during it is a possibility. The idea of talking about it in advance may make bad feelings even worse. Try to honor that, or at least be gentle with yourself, by not forcing yourself to bring it up until you’re ready, and without some preparation. Some questions to ask yourself, before you talk with a partner might include:
What Is It That You Want To Say?
Not thinking of your partner’s reaction, imagine what you want the first conversation to be about.
- Do you want to open their eyes a bit to the ways that bowel and bladder function isn’t just a personal issue but is a political one as well; the ways you feel that the world around you, not just your body, is part of the problem?
- Do you want to tell them something about how your body works?
- Do you want them to know because you want their help with something?
- Do you want to figure out if they’re going to be able to handle having sex with you?
When you imagine the conversation, is it more a one way giving of information, or do you want a dialogue? Presumably the goal of the conversation is to get you to a place where you’re comfortable having sex. This means that if you’re having a conversation with someone you’re saying you want to have sex with them, which is something most people are very happy to hear.
What Are You Prepared To Hear Back?
You’re bringing this topic up and you have the right to set the agenda and boundaries. If you need a chance just to talk about your feelings and you aren’t ready to hear a lot in response, think about that. In some cases that may not be fair, but in others you may have a partner who is able to just listen and hold their own responses until later. Just be careful not to ask for more than you really want to hear. If you say you want an immediate response, you might get something that isn’t very thoughtful. If the goal of this conversation is just to give you space to talk, and you aren’t ready for a response, you may want to first have a conversation with a trusted friend. Either way, you need to let your partner know that in advance. Which brings us to another important part of preparing for a sexual conversation…
What Do You Need To Feel Safe Having This Conversation?
If you haven’t had a lot of tricky sex conversations with this partner before it might be a good idea to establish communication ground rules before you talk. Ground rules for sexual communication are the things that you need in place in order to take the risk to talk honestly about sex. We aren’t encouraged to do this very often, and few of us learn how to do it safely in a way that takes care of ourselves and the people we want to talk to. Spend some time thinking about what kind of rules you’d like to establish, and unless it’s a completely one sided communication, ask your partner to think about it too.
Identifying Ableism And Internalized Ableism Before The Conversation Begins
Whether or not you identify as disabled, as a person living with a disability, as both or neither, abelism affects you because it affects all of us. Briefly, ableism refers to the physical and social ways that people with impairments and lived experience of disability are marginalized, excluded, or otherwise prevented from participating in world and accessing their basic rights. In the context of bowel and bladder function during sex, ableism is important to think about because it impacts not only the way you feel and how others will feel about you, but what you and others may even consider talking about. To offer one example, it’s an ableist assumption, not a fact, that because you don’t have full control over your bowel or bladder, that it’s your responsibility to disclose details of your body and health to people you want to have sex with. Inherent in this assumption is the suggestion that you have fewer rights to privacy, and a responsibility to a “greater good“. Yet because of these assumptions, which underpin so much of how we think and what we think about sexuality, you may feel less empowered to do what you want, and more inclined to cater to the needs of others. It’s a complicated discussion, and one beyond the scope of this article, but checking others’ abilities, and possibly your own internalized ability may be a part of having a useful and clear conversation with sexual partners.
Timing The Conversation
There probably isn’t one “right” time to have a conversation about bowel and bladder control during sex. It depends a lot on the relationship and the people involved. It’s important for you to know that you aren’t required to talk about this, certainly not before you feel ready. If you’re feeling pressure to bring it up, ask yourself whether that pressure is coming from a desire to be intimate, and the feeling that not talking about it is a barrier to intimacy, or is the pressure coming from your idea that you SHOULD be talking about it. The former situation may be the right time to talk about it. But if you’re thinking of talking about it because you feel you should, you may want to give yourself some more time.
While there may not be a right time, there may be a few wrong times. Bringing it up just before or as you’re starting a sexual activity may not be the best time. While these conversations usually go better than you think, you never know where it will go, and if you’re already being sexual, it might be best to either stop and say instead you want to talk, or let yourself have that sexual encounter and bring it up at a later time. Also, bringing it up at a time when you don’t have a lot of time to talk about it (e.g. just before you’re heading out to work to meet friends) may not be ideal. Again, if you haven’t talked about this before, you may want to give yourself and/or your partner time to process the conversation.
Finally, think about timing it for when you’re ready for a response. This may be a topic that you feel vulnerable about, and one way to take care of yourself is to wait until you feel you’re ready to deal with what might come from a conversation like this. There are all kinds of sex you could be having that don’t involve exchange of bodily fluids or full nudity, that would in no way require you to bring this up. Certainly talking with a partner about it before you have the kind of sex where you think it’s going to be an issue is a good idea. But talking about it as soon as you think you MIGHT want to have sex with this person may be too soon for some, as the conversation may become more about whether you both want to have sex in the first place, which may or may not be the conversation you thought you were heading into.
Opening Lines
How any conversation goes down depends a lot on whether this is a partner you already have, or a new one. In either case, it may help to remember that the goal of this whole thing is a very very positive one, for both of you. The goal is to have awesome sex! Despite what we are told by countless obnoxious “experts” great sex doesn’t come easily, and it certainly doesn’t come “naturally” (whatever that means). But it may help cut through some of the tension, some of the time, to focus on the outcome in order to get through the process.
No one can tell you the right way to do this, but if you’re stuck on how to begin a conversation, here are some examples of lines that people might use to start a conversation about bowel and bladder control.
A bold and sexy way to start a conversation could be a line like: “So I’m hoping we’re going to have sex at some point, and there are a few things about my body I want you to know” or “Since you’re clearly hot for me, I thought I’d give you a heads up about a few of the things having sex with me includes“. Of course these opening lines don’t have to just be about a conversation about bowel and bladder control, since you are not just about that. Whether or not your body may leak urine or feces during sex, sex with you is a whole lot more than that, and there’s no reason to make a conversation just about this one aspect of what might happen during a sexual encounter.
Another way to start a conversation is by acknowledging that what makes this conversation difficult isn’t just a personal or individual thing. You can start a conversation by pointing out something about how social barriers get in the way of you having the sex you want. It might be about pointing something out that you see in a film or read in a magazine, or just highlighting an assumption you, your partner, or someone else, made about what is sexy and who gets to have sex. You might start a conversation like this by saying “I find the way people talk about sex, and what you see in the movies isn’t really like sex the way I have it. How about you?” or more “In most movies they make sex look so clean and controlled, it makes me realize how much I’m not represented in what I see in the world.“
Again, this isn’t the kind of thing someone can tell you how to do. But if you’re feeling like you can’t imagine starting the conversation, then give yourself the task of trying hard to imagine it. If it’s easier you can think about typing it out. The sexual scripts we’re given tend to be so narrow and uncreative that it takes time and work to find ways to communicate that feel safe and genuine. But it is possible.
What To Disclose
Exploring the ethical implications of disclosing or not disclosing is beyond the scope of this article (but you can read more about sexual ethics here). You don’t have to disclose anything to someone you haven’t had sex with yet. And ethically, I would suggest you only need to disclose as much as they require to make an informed choice about their own sexual safety. There are all sorts of ways to have sex that wouldn’t expose a partner to bodily fluids, so if you’re feeling the pressure to say something before you are sexual at all, remember that it’s your right to decide what to say and when.
If you’ve established that the partner is a safe person to share intimate information with, you need to give some thought to how much you want to share. You may or may not want to tell them specifics about bowel and or bladder control. You may or may not want to share your experience of daily life around bowel and bladder routines. You may or may not want to talk about the kinds of medical diagnoses you have received. The detail and depth is up to you, and you don’t need to share everything all at once.
If you’re feeling like you should disclose, remember to check in with yourself about how much of that is about internalized abelism, the idea that you are responsible for other people because of an individual difference which is really about a form of social oppression. You do have responsibilities to act in ethical ways and to treat partners as you would like to be treated, but often if you’re the one with the “issue” you shoulder a greater burden which is hidden by abelism.
Talk Now About Talking Later
If you think you want to have the kind of sex where losing control of your bladder or bowel will be obvious and something your partner will need to deal with, it might be good to talk some specifics about your and your partner’s response when that happens. Do you want it to become something you both joke about? Do you feel uncomfortable with any kind of laughter around it? Do you want to ask for the right to feel different at different times? There may be specific words that are painful for you to hear because they connect to other difficult experiences (so, for example, you may want to ask your partner never to use certain words, or ask them to take responsibility for their own assumptions which are about them and not you).
If your sexual partner, or partner-to-be, hasn’t had sex with someone who can lose control of their bowel or bladder during sex, this will be a new experience, and it can be surprising at first. Most partners I’ve spoken with find it far less distressing than the person who loses bowel or bladder control does, and less of a big deal once it happens the first time. For some people, talking about the nitty gritty beforehand can help with talking about it when it comes up.
Give Your Partner Time, And A Chance To Speak
It’s important for you to take care of yourself while communicating about these issues, it’s also important for you to encourage your partner (or partners) to take care of themselves. If this is a new conversation for them they may need time to process. And they definitely need an opportunity to speak and feel heard. They may have questions, emotional responses, fears or concerns of their own. It’s not your responsibility to answer all their questions, but it does seem fair for you to be willing to hear them out. Sometimes once you have the conversation there’s a sense of relief, and other times it doesn’t come until later.
How involved a conversation will be depends on many things. A conversation with a casual sex partner you never plan on seeing again may be very different than a conversation with someone you are hoping will be both a sexual and romantic/intimate long term partner.
The truth is that sexual conversations are never this compartmentalized, it’s only when sex educators try to talk about things that they get so boxed up! You may start by talking about this but you never know where you’re going to end up. Something to remember is that we all carry some shame and guilt and insecurity around sex with us, and we all have concerns about having sex with someone new and how it will go. If bowel and bladder control during sex is something you know is an issue, it can feel like you’re the one with the deep dark secret. Once you start talking with people though you’ll probably find out that everyone’s got them, and the pressure mostly comes from how socially sanctioned or marginalized the issue is.
