For many women, a breast cancer diagnosis brings a wave of physical challenges, emotional upheaval, and deeply personal changes to body image and sexuality. It not only affects the individual but also their family, friends, and partners.
While treatments continue to provide life-saving results, the impact on sexual health is often overlooked or forgotten. Mental health is often treated similarly. That’s exactly why we decided a Galentine’s Sexual Health & Intimacy Event was needed.
On February 6th, Salt + Root hosted an evening created specifically for women whose bodies and desires have been reshaped by breast cancer and its treatment. It was more than just an event. It was a safe space for honest conversations about desire, pleasure, body confidence, pain, physical changes, and navigating intimacy in a way that felt empowering rather than overwhelming.
How Women are Impacted
When a woman is in active treatment or survivorship, her relationship with her body often shifts dramatically. Surgery (lumpectomy or mastectomy), chemotherapy, radiation, and hormone therapies can all affect libido, sensation, lubrication, arousal, and overall comfort. Scars may feel different or foreign. Breasts may look or feel different and have different sensations from before. Hormonal changes can impact just about anything and everything.
Unfortunately, sexual health is not always prioritized in traditional oncology care. Women may receive life-saving results yet still feel alone with the loss and changes within their bodies.
That is why events like this matter so deeply.
Role of Sex Therapy
Sex therapy for women impacted by breast cancer is not about performance or pressure. It is about reconnection. It is about understanding how trauma, medical treatment, and identity shifts intersect with sexuality. These things are already impacted by women’s – dare I say – normal hormone changes, but it can be exacerbated with breast cancer and treatments.
It is about learning tools to reduce pain, increase comfort and pleasure, communicate with partners, and rebuild trust with your own body. Treatment starts within yourself; it must.
At Salt + Root, our focus is compassionate and informed care. Conversations are grounded, respectful, and empowering. Women are invited to explore what pleasure means for them now, in this season of life. Not what culture says it should be. But what feels safe, nourishing, and authentic today. These women understand the value of living life fully – and everyone should have the tools and resources to make it a reality.
How Events & Community Can Help
The February 6th Galentine’s event also offered something many women desperately need: community. Sitting in a room with others who understand the physical and emotional realities of breast cancer can be profoundly healing and comforting. When one woman speaks openly about pain, insecurity, or fear, it gives another woman the courage to exhale. To feel seen. To know she is not broken or alone in her experiences.
Reclaiming sexuality after breast cancer is not about pretending nothing changed. It is about honoring what has changed and gently discovering what is still possible. It may look like redefining intimacy.
It may mean slower touch, more communication, or a new understanding of arousal.
It may simply mean allowing yourself to feel pleasure without guilt. There is power in saying, “My body has been through something intense, and I still deserve pleasure and joy.”
Our event was a reminder that sexual wellbeing is not separate from overall healing. It is a vital part of feeling whole again. When women are given education, tools, and supportive spaces, they can begin to reclaim their bodies, their pleasure, and their peace. And that reclamation is not superficial. It is deeply restorative.
