ABOUT CANCER AND INTIMACY
We’re here to remind you that you are not alone—and you are still whole.
Why Cancer&Intimacy was created
This site was born from a clear and urgent realization: Modern oncology care is not addressing the whole person.
Patients, survivors, and their partners are often left to struggle silently with changes in desire, touch, identity, and closeness—right at the moment when connection and reassurance are most needed.
Our founder, Claire Rumore, is a long time erotic educator, intimacy coach, and spiritual director who walked through the fire of cancer in 2022/2023—and came out the other side asking different questions, ready to apply them to her own personal life as well as to a hugely needed new professional offering.
Our work exists to provide solutions, resources, and guidance for these challenges:
- How do we talk about desire when we’re embedded in a disembodied medical system and often consumed by fear
- What happens to our sexual identity when our appearance, function, or hormones shift drastically?
- Where do sensuality, desire and pleasure live in a body that has been cut, scarred, or is numb?
- Can intimacy still be part of my life—even now, or are those days gone?
These are some of the questions that too few people have focused on answering—and they are ones our healthcare systems too often ignore.
Our site exists to remind you:
You’re not alone.
And you are still whole.
There is more pleasure to claim in your life, more self love to welcome, and an ever-expanding, fulfilled erotic self to step into no matter where you are in your journey.
Welcome! You belong here.
About Claire Rumore, Cancer&Intimacy Founder
Claire Rumore is a sexuality and intimacy educator with over 20 years of experience in somatic coaching, sacred sexuality, and embodied facilitation. She has supported hundreds of individuals and couples in navigating erotic healing, communication, and personal sovereignty—often in moments of profound transformation.
After being diagnosed with cancer in 2022 and coming out the other side of her healing, Claire vowed to converge her professional life (as an erotic educator and coach) and personal truth (as a cancer survivor) in new ways. What emerged was not just recovery, but renewal—and a desire to create a resource that didn’t yet exist: CancerandIntimacy.com
Today, through this initiative, Claire brings forth a deeply compassionate presence in coaching, facilitation, and training, conducts vital sexological research for patient care advocacy purposes, and provides evidence-informed tools and resources to help others reclaim their sense of sensual and sexual sovereignty during and after cancer or illness.
Read About Claire's Personal Cancer Journey
My cancer journey was an unusual one that most certainly stopped me in my tracks, tore me down to my studs, and then built me back up to a completely upleveled version of myself. My doctors describe what I went through as unique and remarkable, and my results nothing short of miraculous. If any part of my story might be helpful to you or someone you know, I share it here as a contribution to your healing and the reality that truly ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.
Our Mission
At CancerAndIntimacy.com, our Mission is:
To empower people impacted by cancer to reconnect with their bodies, their desires, and their relationships through inclusive, trauma-aware somatic education around intimacy, sexuality, and embodiment.
We aim to bridge the gap between medical care and erotic care, helping people find wholeness—not in spite of what they’ve been through, but by honoring and integrating it fully.
We believe:
- Pleasure is not a luxury—it’s part of your aliveness; a basic human necessity.
- Healing doesn’t mean going back to who you were. It means becoming more fully who you are now.
- Sensuality and sexuality can change and evolve—and still be sacred and essential.
- Everyone deserves access to language, tools, and support for navigating intimacy with dignity.
There is no “right way” to heal, love, or be in your body.
Cancer& Intimacy Core Values
Compassion First
We honor the whole person—body, mind, heart, and spirit. All experiences, identities, and emotions are welcome here.
Body Sovereignty
You are the expert on your body. All our content and coaching is consent-based, choice-driven, and never prescriptive.
Trauma-Awareness & Inclusivity
We are committed to offering resources that reflect the diversity of the human experience—gender, orientation, culture, ability, and more. Safety, sensitivity, and inclusivity guide our every step.
Spiritual Integrity
Whether you identify as spiritual, secular, or somewhere in between, we hold that eros and spirit are not opposites—they are intimately connected. Our work is rooted in sacred respect for the mystery of being alive.
Access & Dignity
We offer both free and low-cost resources alongside deeper programs. Healing should not be gatekept by privilege.
Liberation Through Pleasure
We believe reclaiming pleasure is an act of resistance, resilience, and reverence.
