Send to a Friend
			Printer Friendly Format
			Leave Feedback
			Read Feedback
			Nerve RSS

I probably would've slept around a lot more in high school if I could've taken my pants off without help. But sex was the last thing on my mind after I broke my neck at the age of fourteen.
   On a late August afternoon, one week before starting my freshman year of high school, I wanted to show off to the neighborhood boys. We all grew up on the lake. It had been our summertime hangout since we were kids. They were diving off the top of a schoolyard slide that had been put out in the water. I thought if they could do it, I could too. Being a classically trained dancer, I did a Swan Dive, hitting my head on the bottom. My fifth and sixth cervical vertebrae were crushed, and in what's called the "kill shot," pieces of the bone shifted into my spinal cord, causing permanent paralysis.
   

I woke up with an EMT asking if I could feel something. He had been pricking my legs with a needle. I said no. The ambulance brought me to a big hospital in St. Paul, where I would live for three months.
   As a low-level quadriplegic, C5-6 to be exact, I only have use of my biceps and wrists; no triceps function. My arms limit me from being able to get in and out of my chair independently or to undress from the waist down. If my injury had been one bone higher, I wouldn't even be able to move my arms. One bone lower, I would be completely independent, since I'd have my triceps and the full ability to lift my ass wherever I wanted.
   The three years that followed the accident were hell. I was abandoned by my friends, and, worst of all, ignored by boys. Before my injury, I wasn't considered hot, but I had kissed a couple of guys. After, I felt like a circus freak rolling down the halls. I'd see guys avert their eyes when I came by. Each time, I sank further into depression. I tried to focus on my physical therapy, but I was plagued by the prospect of no man ever wanting me because I was a cripple. What point was there to becoming stronger if I'd be alone the rest of my life?
   I had no experience in receiving pleasure from my vagina before my injury, so I was clueless about how to sate my craving for sexual satisfaction. As

a teenager stuck in the suburbs, I had no vibrator, and I couldn't use my fingers to get myself off. I tried often, but my right index finger (the only one functional enough for masturbation) wasn't enough. After doing some research online, I learned that spinal-cord-injured women can orgasm but need a lot of mental stimulation, plus a penis or dildo to reach the g-spot. It was clear I needed a partner.
   When I was seventeen, my mom forced me to go to a summer camp for the disabled: seven days in northern Minnesota full of accessible activities, like seated water-skiing and pontoon boats with ramps so we could go fishing. There, I was a star. Every cute disabled boy stared at me with shining eyes. I even dated one of them: Mark, a bad-boy on wheels from three hours north. He had tattoos, a dirty mouth and such a muscular upper body that even the female camp counselors did double takes. He was born with legs similar to polio victims. We didn't have much in common except hormones.
   Mark was my first kiss after getting hurt. He would lie in bed with me, fully dressed, and tell me I had the most beautiful eyes. We kissed so much my lips were raw. I think he put a finger in my panties while we were in my bed one night, but he denied it, and my lack of sensation made a light touch impossible to feel. After three months, he stopped answering my calls.
   The next year, I went back to the camp and once again left with a disabled boyfriend. This one was totally in love with me, but we couldn't have sex because neither of us could move our hip muscles. We tried it once. He struggled to get on top of me, but couldn't move his lower body enough to get his cock inside of me. Talk about torture. I was too eager to experience "real" sex to stay with him. After about four months of fooling around, I broke it off.