Love After War: Saving Love, Saving Lives offers realistic hope for active duty service members and veterans who have returned home with physical and/or psychological health challenges that are creating difficulties in their intimate lives.
The blurb above, taken directly from the 57-minute documentary’s website, so perfectly describes first-time director-producer-writer Dr. Mitchell Tepper’s triumphal film, there is no sense in paraphrasing the words.
The documentary, which has won numerous honors at film festivals, weaves personal stories woven in with Tepper’s expert advice. The vision is to restore emotional closeness and physical intimacy after serious combat-related injuries.
“Insights are drawn from the stories told by wounded warriors and their partners who are surviving and thriving in their relationships despite injuries like burns, amputations, genital injuries, traumatic brain injuries, PTSD, and spinal cord injuries,” he said.
Tepper, who may be familiar to long-time New Mobility’s readers as the co-author of the long-running Love Bites sexual advice column, is a sexologist who has been living a full life with spinal cord injury and a United Spinal member for nearly 40 years. Tepper completed his Master’s in Public Health while at Yale and his Ph.D. in Human Sexuality Education at the University of Pennsylvania.
Viewers will experience warmth, compassion and understanding. The couples interviewed are candid and open. Personal fears, failings and frustrations are shared in frank storytelling by real people in their own words. Tepper comments on each topic, sharing plain spoken expert advice and a wealth of ideas for modifying behavior and working through physical and psychological barriers.
While super-relevant to people with disabilities and their partners, the frank and open sharing is enlightening and informative to all audiences. The full-on injection of raw humanity — shared with a purpose to make lives more full and pleasurable — is an essential element of addressing disability and sexuality.
The film addresses intimacy: including sexual acts/behavior/issues – but not in a vulgar way. Participants may strip bare their lives, challenges, therapies and adaptations — but they are fully clothed. Were it rated, the film would be PG-13 at most.
A 1982 diving accident resulted in Tepper’s cervical spinal cord injury. His pursuit of knowledge about the intersection of sexuality and disability started in rehab and became a decades-long career as a researcher, educator, consultant, author, and now filmmaker.
Tepper’s association with United Spinal also began in rehab.
“After I broke my neck, somebody visited me in my room and my mother signed me up as a member,’’ he said. “I got very involved in leadership roles through the 1980s with what then was the National Spinal Cord Injury Association Connecticut Chapter, eventually serving as their President before moving on to be Executive Vice President of the national organization (NSCIA).” He took a break from board level activities while working through his master’s and PhD programs and getting established professionally, but continued serving through providing webinars and writing a brochure on sexuality and SCI for members. He has recently stepped up his involvement and is serving as VP of United Spinal Association Atlanta where he now lives. “United Spinal holds a special place in my heart.”
The film takes us into the lives of five couples.
Aaron Causey, an Army explosives technician, suffered multiple limb loss, extensive genital injuries and traumatic brain injury (TBI) after stepping on an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan. He was married to Kat Causey for 18 months when he was injured.
Tyler Wilson, an Army paratrooper shot multiple times during a firefight in southern Afghanistan resulting in spinal cord injury and lung damage. He married Crystal, a recreational therapist he met in a handcycle clinic.
Manny Gonzalez, a Marine Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear specialist, who received second and third degree burns to 80 percent of his body including his face while rescuing a fellow Marine from a brush fire during a training exercise. It took him 16 years to get the confidence up to ask someone out on a date, but he is now married.
Casey Kimes, an Army airborne unit veteran with TBI, hearing loss, multiple orthopedic and spinal injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder. His wife Tosombra (Tai) experienced military sexual trauma.
Tim Hornik, a retired Army Captain who is blind as the result of getting shot through the head in Iraq. He talks about struggling to adjust to his new post-military life with his wife, Cate Smith, the only partner who is not on camera in the film.
Tepper’s vision was to create a film that could address an integral part of life – intimacy and sexuality – for disabled active military and veterans. He hopes that treatment centers, from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to Veterans Administration hospitals to many other medical and psychological health centers that interact with veterans can expand and advance sexuality care. As a doctoral-degreed qualitative researcher, Tepper wants to partner with vets groups and others to expand the reach of his documentary as an educational tool.
Tepper’s goal is to have his documentary broadcast nationwide on PBS. He is working with organizations that help independent producers to place their documentaries on PBS and other broad platforms. The film, considered low budget even though it cost about $100,000 to produce, has a website that allows supporters to make contributions so it can be distributed.
Tepper got interested in helping those who serve our nation when he spoke at a national conference in 2006 that had several severely disabled veterans and their families in attendance. He learned from Department of Defense research that failed intimate relationships are the leading contributor in about 40 percent of suicides by service members.
“I wanted to show real life examples of couples doing well, with disabilities from combat,” said Tepper, noting he took to the road to start interviews and filming with his son who was doing photography and his son’s fraternity brother, who was in film school. “I also wanted to touch on a wide range of disabilities.”
“It is a film about sexual health. It is as much about compassionate love as it is about sex,” said Tepper, emphasizing that he is a sex educator and researcher, not a sex therapist. “Even though it is about injured vets, all people could learn something about sexuality and love by watching what these folks have gone through.”
Learn more by visiting https://www.loveafterwar.org/.
