Crohn’s is an autoimmune disease that affects the digestive tract. It’s painful, exhausting and often invisible. And for a long time, it swallowed my self-esteem whole.
The first thing to go was confidence. When your body is in constant pain, when you’re bloated, bleeding from the rectum and covered in surgical scars, feeling “attractive” becomes a distant concept. Add in steroid weight gain, medical fatigue and a near-death experience, and dating starts to feel less like a thrill and more like a high-stakes game of emotional roulette.
But what really messed with my head wasn’t just the physical symptoms – it was the way people started treating me. The way friends tiptoed around certain conversations. The way doctors focused only on keeping me “stable”. The way dates would flinch – or worse, go silent – when I mentioned my condition. And the way society, in general, paints chronically ill people as fragile, undesirable and somehow sexless.
There’s this quiet myth that floats around us like smog: that people with chronic illnesses must also be asexual. As if being unwell automatically switches off desire. As if pain and passion can’t coexist. As if our bodies are no longer capable of pleasure or worthy of being desired.
It’s a myth that isolates us deeply.
I internalised it for years. I thought, “Why would someone want to be with someone like me?” I avoided dating altogether throughout my twenties. And when I finally did start exploring intimacy, I did it with a certain nervousness and shame, as if I had to apologise for my body first.
But here’s what I’ve learned: illness doesn’t cancel out desire.
Even when I couldn’t physically engage in intimacy – when my body was in pain or exhausted – my longing for connection, for touch, for closeness never went away. If anything, it intensified. Because to be sick is also to crave the reminder that we are more than our diagnosis.
Ironically, it was through fiction that I found myself again.
During the darkest chapters of my illness, I turned to books – specifically romance and erotic fiction. These stories became my refuge, a space where I could explore desire, agency and femininity without judgement. Through fictional heroines, I discovered my own preferences, curiosities and boundaries. I began to understand that sexuality isn’t about looking a certain way or performing for someone else – it’s about connection. To yourself, first. And then, maybe, to someone brave enough to hold space for all of you.
Those stories didn’t just entertain me. They rebuilt me. So much so, I became a romance author myself. Because I wanted to write stories about women who are desirable, empowered and worthy of love. Stories that might help someone else feel seen, and maybe even begin to rebuild, just like I did.
But reclaiming my sexuality wasn’t all slow-burn romance and happy endings. It was awkward. It was vulnerable. It meant communicating more than I ever wanted to. It meant setting boundaries, cancelling plans, explaining my condition again and again, and figuring out how to make intimacy work with a body that changes daily.
It also meant confronting my own internalised ableism – the part of me that believed I had to be “healed” to be sexy. That I needed a flat stomach, or an uninterrupted night from going to the bathroom, or a pain-free week to be worthy of desire.
The truth? Some of the most connected, beautiful experiences I’ve had came during flare-ups or recovery. Not because I was at my best, but because the person I was with made me feel safe. Because I let them see all of me. Because I gave myself permission to feel pleasure, even when things weren’t perfect.
And yet, even with progress, the loneliness remains. Chronic illness is inherently isolating. You cancel plans. You miss milestones. You don’t always have the energy to flirt, or swipe, or show up. There are days when even texting back feels monumental.
That’s why representation matters. That’s why conversations like this matter. Because chronically ill people exist in every facet of life – including sex, romance and relationships. We deserve to be seen not just as survivors, but as lovers, as complex beings with wants, needs and fantasies.
So no, we’re not sexless. We’re not broken. And we’re not waiting to be fixed.
We are worthy of intimacy that honours our bodies exactly as they are. We are allowed to take up space in the dating world without apology. And we are allowed to embrace our desires – not despite our illnesses, but alongside them.
Jade May is an Australian romance author and chronic illness advocate. Her second novel Seduced by Eden will be released on 21 May. Follow her on Instagram @authorjademay.
