Sex While Disabled

Sex despite disabilities: an oxymoron?

To many people: yes. The mention of 'disabled' people having sex is guaranteed to raise a lot of eyebrows. An individual in a wheelchair is seen as an object of pity, not of desire. Being 'ugly' or overweight doesn't make a person asexual, but having a physical disability does. And the worst part of this is that many people with disabilities believe this myth themselves. To many men, a spinal injury that results in impotence is seen as the end of their sex-lives. My own Muscular Dystrophy has had an effect on my motor skills. But even less dramatic disabilities often cause people to shut themselves off sexually out of feelings of inadequacy, or out of a fear of rejection.

It would be easy to say that the problem is worse for men, as even moderate dysfunction is immediately evident and sexual potency and functioning cannot be simulated, but the truth is that the problem can be just as devastating for men and for women; just in different ways. The problem may not be as obvious in women, but cultural demands to be "perfect" are so overwhelming that any disability just adds to the already impossible task of living up to the unrealistic ideals all media perpetually assault women with.

And men are just as conditioned by those images as women. We try to live up to what we are expected to be (admittedly, much easier), but disabilities do not enter into that picture. Or if they do, the images of men in wheelchairs that are shown use men in sport-chairs who have the bodies of Olympic athletes and who are casually whizzing around with the greatest of ease. And of course, men are conditioned to desire that unrealistically perfect woman -- who naturally must not have any disabilities.

So, for each gender, disabilities often cause people to either shut themselves off sexually in order to avoid rejection and embarrassment, or we are shut out, out of fear and lack of understanding.

Wake up everybody!
"Don't allow your disABILITY to shut you out of life; your request for Access has been Granted"