worlds we ignore: disability and sex

From the blog: 'A Different Way Of Thinking' (How society approaches disability from the perspective of someone with autism)

It's time to talk about sex. I make no apologies for this. One of the problems that arises when discussing disability in relation to sex is that subcultures exist in which members of some impairment groups, such as wheelchair users, amputees, or people with restricted growth, are treated as fetish objects. A common reaction is to be disgusted and hence to regard any attempt to broach the topic of disabled people having sex as unacceptable. For those affected, both extremes can be equally difficult, resulting in unwelcome and often unpleasant sexual advances in one case, and repulsion by the targets of their affections in the other. It may seem odd to complain both about being attractive and being unattractive, although I suspect rather less so to women than to men, but the key point is that neither of the objectionable groups display evidence of considering us to be normal human beings.

Many disabled people find a regular sex life hard to obtain, not only because of physical impairments but also because of psychological ones impacting upon the ability to have a full social life. However, solutions proposed to this problem are not always satisfactory.

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The purpose of raising the topic is to show that the attitudes exposed ... are not just limited to perverted 'devotees' with disability fetishes and to sexually repressed prudes. The Green Party of New Zealand seem to think that disabled people have an insatiable appetite for sex which overrides the rights of women while many Danish politicians are obviously disturbed by the fact that we have sex at all. What we want is for people to realise that we are neither uninterested in sex nor gagging for it but have exactly the same desires as everyone else.

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