Jade May: Intimacy is a 'human right' - no matter what your body looks like
Hospitalised with Crohn's disease throughout her teens and twenties, Jade May found escapism, self-discovery and sexual liberation in romantic novels and erotica - now the 39-year-old writes her own.
In Jade May's upcoming "medical romance" novel Devoured by Eden, the female heroine happens to have Crohn's disease - a chronic bowel disease the author was diagnosed with at the "very tender" age of 13.
As a young woman, May experienced "incredibly painful bowel obstructions" that required multiple operations and crushed her body image and self-esteem.
"I felt and looked like a gutted fish, essentially, and that's really hard to come to terms with when you're a young woman," she tells Saturday Morning.
Jade May released her second book Tortured By Eden - an "enemies-to-lovers office romance" - in February this year.
Jade May / @authorjademay
In and out of the hospital and often unwell, May also missed out on a lot of the teenage and 20-something milestones, like partying and exploring intimacy for the first time.
As a young teen, she began devouring paranormal fiction, then epic romances "with lots and lots of spice" and eventually erotica, in which she learned about sexual "kinks" like BDSM.
"I was stuck in a hospital, so for me, the spicier the book, the better. I got to go on these amazing adventures and put myself in the heroine's shoes… that's how she discovered my own femininity and desires."
May, who works in marketing, says the thought she'd experience real-life intimacy didnt really cross her mind until she met her now-husband at work.
Like many people who live with a chronic illness or disability, she found it tricky to know the best time to drop her Crohn's disease into conversation.
"You bring it up too soon. You might scare them off. You bring it up too late, and you're hiding something."
When May eventually told her husband about the illness and its impact on her body and sexual confidence, he was "wonderful from the get-go."
"We've always been open about my needs and whether I'm able to or whether I'm not able to engage in any intimacy."
Jade May is an advocate for people living with chronic illness
SUPPLIED/Alysha Dawn Creative Co
En route to their honeymoon in Europe, she picked up the memoir of a sex worker at the airport and became fascinated with the intimate service they provide.
To "scratch the itch of her curiosity", for seven years, May worked behind the scenes at an escort agency as a "side gig".
Observing the clientele, she saw that for disabled people, both female and male, seeing a sex worker is not uncommon.
"It fascinated me that all of these people were still seeking out intimacy, and that changed something for me in my brain. If these people were seeking out intimacy, then I deserved intimacy."
Eventually, May came to view sexual pleasure and desire as a "universal human right".
"It's not just for people who have able bodies or who are attractive. It's for everybody. Everyone has to be touched."
She also learned to stop seeing her body as inferior, and shake off the belief that as a person with a chronic illness, she didn't deserve sexual satisfaction and should "just settle for being alive".
"I do deserve to be touched, and I do deserve connection and pleasure."
People with disabilities aren't often viewed as "sexual beings", partly because we don't see them in romantic stories, May says.
She hopes that one day soon a romance novel featuring someone with a chronic illness - like Devoured by Eden -will be adapted into a TV show or movie.
"We need more people with illnesses and disabilities on our screens, rather than just the token person in a wheelchair.
"When I was growing up, I would have loved to see a woman on a billboard with a colostomy bag. That would have made the world of difference."
