Badly hurt vets battle uncertainty over intimacy

updated 6:39 p.m. ET May 21, 2008

WASHINGTON - When B.J. Jackson lost both his legs to an Iraq war injury, his doctors talked about a lot of things, but they didn’t mention how it might affect his sex life.

Jackson’s less-bashful wife brought it up. But even then the couple didn’t get the answers they sought.

Jackson and his wife, Abby, say it’s time to get the issue out in the open in both military medical settings and at home. And they got a lot of agreement at a conference Wednesday, billed as the first of its kind, that focused on wounded troops and intimacy with their partners — in the bedroom and outside it.

This is no minor matter.

About 3,000 of the 30,000 troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan have suffered major physical impairment, said former Sen. Bob Dole, who served last year on a presidential commission that examined the treatment of wounded war veterans. Dole, who lost full use of his right arm to a combat injury during World War II, was among the speakers at the conference.

Call for compensation
Vets who have lost a quality-of-life function, such as sexual ability, should be given quality-of-life compensation in addition to other payment, he said, because the magnitude of their disabilities will fully sink in as they age.

It’s plenty serious at any age, suggested Mitchell S. Tepper, assistant project director at the Center of Excellence for Sexual Health at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, which organized the conference.

Tepper said badly injured patients are plenty interested in the subject, even if they’re shy about asking. He said studies of the general population of people with spinal cord injuries find that some rank the desire to have sex above the ability to walk again.

Healthy intimate relationships add meaning to life and can aid in recovery from other injuries, he said. And the loss of a relationship can be detrimental, even a factor in suicide.

As for injured troops, keeping feelings bottled up can be a problem for any couple, said Jackson, who is 26.

“My feeling is the sooner it’s discussed and the more it’s discussed, the more chance of having less arguments, less confusion, less frustration,” he said in an interview. “The more you communicate among yourselves the better off you’ll be, instead of well, ’I’m mad, so I’m just going to roll over.”’

The Jacksons’ appearance Wednesday underscored the painful aftermath of war and stood as a stark reminder this Memorial Day of the sacrifices borne by many soldiers, veterans and their families. More than 30,000 troops have been wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than half of them 24 and under at the time.

Said Dole: “Most of us go through this transition from able-bodied to disabled, and it’s tough. And I worry about these young men and women ... who are 17, 18, 19, because I don’t think it’s really going to hit them until they’re 20, 25, 30 years of age.”

For the injured, questions of self-worth and a fear of rejection because of physical or other changes they’ve undergone can form barriers in their relationships.

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