Ballard's "Crash"

In Crash the mechanics of automobiles acts as a filter for the narrator's sex life. Or, if not a filter than a substitute for elements of a sexual act.

As with his wife's inability to "reach orgasm without an elaborate fantasy of a lesbian sex-act" (35), he himself is unable to think about his wounds without thinking about sex. "These descriptions seemed to be a language in search of new objects, or even, perhaps, the beginnings of a new sexuality divorced from any possible physical expression" (35). He might be suggesting that as one ages senses dull and new ways to stimulate have to be invented. Catherine and her husbands sex lives have to be constantly reconsidered in new lights: violent news, lesbianism, and now his accident.