Fertility in Male Paraplegia

Abstract

Fertility is an important part in the sexuality of handicapped people. For society in general, the handicapped person is someone who, by definition, is without sexuality. There is a very clear literary example: 50 years ago D. H. Lawrence wrote Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Lawrence describes Chatterley, a paraplegic invalid of the First World War, as being impotent, making Lady Chatterley’s extramarital affairs a natural consequence. The image of the impotent paraplegic is matter of factly accepted not only in the literature, but also by the professional healthcare worker. Certainly in the initial phase of their handicap, but often later as well, handicapped people also see sexuality as something that is definitively past; something that cannot longer fit in with such a seriously damaged physical image. It is difficult for nonhandicapped people to imagine what it is like to have a spinal cord lesion. Cole (1975) attempts to resolve some of the difficulty by means of a realistic description.