Common sex questions

Cancer and its treatments can have side effects. These changes can affect your sex life, including:

• your feelings, emotions and mental health
• changes in hormone levels that affect sexual desire and response
• your physical ability to give and receive sexual pleasure
• fatigue, energy levels and pain
• how you feel about your body and your level of self-esteem.

When you are first diagnosed with cancer, it’s natural to have a range of emotions. You may feel grief, anger, anxiety, sadness, fear, guilt, self-consciousness, shame or depression. These feelings can affect your sex life.

Learn more at Emotions and cancer.

This depends on the treatment and how quickly you recover – both physically and emotionally. You can kiss or touch most parts of the body as soon as you feel comfortable. Ask your doctor how long to wait before sex, including penetrative sex.

After a mastectomy, ask how long until you can put pressure on the area. This is called a minimum waiting period and helps to prevent injury or infection.

It’s natural to worry or be nervous about having sex again after cancer treatment. If you feel unwell or not ready, it’s okay to wait. Don’t feel pressured to do anything before you’re ready.

You can’t catch cancer from someone, or pass it on to your partner through sex. But during some treatments, you may need to use barrier contraception (condoms or dental dams). This may be to protect your partner from body fluids, or to avoid pregnancy.

Chemotherapy – These drugs may stay in body fluids for several days. Depending on the drug and how often you are having treatment, you may need to use protection.

For penetrative intercourse, including anal sex, use condoms or female condoms. For oral sex, use condoms, female condoms or dental dams (latex squares). Wear latex gloves if using hands on the genitals or for penetration. Some chemotherapy may pass into the saliva, so check if open-mouth kissing should be avoided.

Ask your doctor what safety steps you may need to take, and for how long, especially if you are having ongoing chemotherapy.

Radiation therapy – If you are having internal radiation (brachytherapy or radioactive seeds), you will usually need to use a condom during and for a while after treatment.

If you are having external radiation therapy, it’s safe to have sex once you get home, as the radiation doesn’t stay in your body for long.

Immunotherapy – After each Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) treatment for bladder cancer, use barrier protection for a week.

Many other immunotherapy treatments are new, so your doctor may suggest you use protection and avoid pregnancy for a time.

Sex is a normal and important part of health, but it’s something your doctor might not discuss with you.

Even if cancer or its treatment affects your sex life, your doctor may not talk to you about it for several reasons:

• If you don’t ask about sex concerns, your doctor may think that you don’t want to talk about it. They may worry that they’ll offend you if they bring it up.
• There may not be time during your appointments to talk about issues like sex. Or, there may not be a private space where you can comfortably have a discussion.
• Your doctor or health professional may feel uncomfortable talking to you about sex.
• You may not know that there are treatments available for many sexual concerns, so you don’t think to ask your treatment team.

Many cancer treatments affect sex and intimacy. That’s why it’s important to know what to expect and how to have sex safely. During and after treatment, you can ask questions and share your concerns with your doctor. If they don’t know how to help you, or don’t feel comfortable talking to you about sex, they should refer you to someone who does.

If you don’t feel safe or comfortable talking with your doctor, ask another person on the team for a referral to someone else (e.g. if you want to see a female or male doctor).

Your general practitioner (GP), doctor or nurse can refer you to one of the health professionals below for help with specific concerns.

Health professionals who can help