S(Exploring) Disability
Normalizing Disability and Sexuality
Margaret Camp – University of South Carolina
Upstate
Tiffany Bailey – University of North Carolina Chapel
Hill
Definitions
• Sexuality – capacity for sexual feeling
• Oppression (sexual) – treating people in an unjust, unfair
way at times by a person or a group in power
• Sexual citizenship
• Sexual surrogate - A sexual surrogate is someone who
teaches people about physical contact, sexual contact, and
intimacy in a therapeutic environment.
• What is a Sexual Surrogate? - Definition from Kinkly. (n.d.).
Retrieved June 22, 2015.
• Sexual desire – strong wish or want
Sexuality
“Sexuality is an integral part of the personality
of everyone: man, woman, and child; it is a basic
need and aspect of being human that cannot be
separated from other aspects of life.”
– World Health Organization
Sexuality
“Sexuality is perhaps the last human dimension
that many of us refuse to grant is socially
created, historically variable, and therefore
deeply political.”
– Seidmen, in Tom Shakespeare’s ‘Disabled Sexuality: Toward
Rights and Recognition’ (2000)
Disability and Sexuality in History
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Historical taboo associated with PWDs
Historical taboo associated with sexuality
Forced sterilization of PWDs
Forced abstinence for PWDs (institutions)
Denied right to marry
Denied right to parent
Sexual abuse of PWDs
Paying for sex (prostitutes)
Paying for sex (sexual surrogates, sex workers)
Disability and Sexuality
• Barriers to sexual experiences for PWD
– Lack of access to their own body
– Lack of privacy
– Lack of sex education (contraceptives, etc.)
– Lack of physical access to social spaces (clubs, etc.)
– Lack of sexual self-determination
– Lack of spontaneity
– Lack of access to a healthcare provider
– Assumption that they have greater needs than sex
– Perception of PWD as angelic, child-like
– Internalization of societal asexuality assumption
– Societal standards of beauty and ‘normalcy’
“Sociocultural barriers may be more disabling than the disability itself”
Disability and Sexuality
• Heteronormative Assumptions/Stereotypes
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PWD is asexual, no sexual desire
PWD is too fragile for sex
PWD does not have functional genitals
PWD is unable to please their partner
Fear of being a caregiver rather than a partner
PWDs should be with other PWDs (their sexuality is
not normatively equivalent)
– Sees PWDs as child-like, angelic, in need of protection
– Fear of reproduction of genetic condition
– Sex as phallocentric, heteronormative, penetrative
Disability and Sexuality
‘Allison Lapper Pregnant’
2005 Controversial Sculpture in Trafalgar Square
Disability and Sexuality
Murderball
2005 Documentary about Wheelchair Rugby Athletes
Disability and Sexuality
Push Girls
2012 TV Show on Sundance Channel
Disability and Sexuality
‘Randy Paralympians ran out of condoms’
Sunday Independent, 2012
The Paralympians have apparently almost worked their way through 11,000 condoms.
More have had to be ordered, tweeted Gareth Davies, a Paralympics correspondent
for the Daily Telegraph on Saturday: “Condoms: seven boxes of 1 600 each have
already been supplied to the Village. A re-order was made yesterday.
“Disabled people sometimes find it harder to get sex at home, but when they get to the Games, all that
can change. There’s a lot to be said for shared experience. If you’re at the Games, you don’t have to
explain to someone what it’s like to not be able to see or walk properly or whatever. You’re well past that
‘Oh! You’ve got a disability!’ stage of getting to know someone.”
Disability and Sexuality
Steamy London Olympics: A condom-a-day per athlete
Aug. 3 (Bloomberg) -- In today's "Off The Charts," Bloomberg's Scarlet Fu
reports that the London 2012 Olympic games have set a new record for the
amount of condoms given out to athletes at 150,000, an average of 14.2 per
athlete for the length of the games. She speaks on Bloomberg Television's
"Market Makers.
The 100,000 condoms of Sochi Olympics
Tinder-gate of Sochi 2014 is just the most recent round of faux-surprise that
Olympians might, in fact, be having sex. (Because while it’s ok to allude to the deed by
sexifying female athletes, the idea that anyone’s having any actual sex is a different
thing completely.)
Disability and Sexuality
Aimee Mullins
Actress, Model, Athlete
Disability and Sexuality
The Sessions
2012 Motion Picture
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Based on the true story of Mark O’Brien
Helen Hunt nominated for Academy Award
Takes place in 1988 Berkeley, California
Based on ‘On Seeing a Sex Surrogate’ 1990
Disability and Sexuality
The Undateables
2012 BCB Reality TV Show
Specifically PWDs
Disability and Sexuality
Oscar Pistorius
2012 Summer Olympics
Dated model Reena Steenkamp
Disability and Sexuality
Stephen Hawking
The Theory of Everything 2014
‘Stephen Hawking loves strip clubs’
‘Report: Stephen Hawking is a 'somewhat of a regular' at California strip club’
‘Stephen Hawking and sex clubs: Why is this news?’
Disability and Sexuality
The ‘Undressing Disability’ Campaign
2015, UK
Undressing Disability is a campaign by Enhance the UK
focusing on raising standards in sexual health and sexual
awareness for disabled people.
Disability and Sexuality
Sins Invalid
2015 Performance and Documentary
Sins Invalid is a performance project on disability and sexuality that incubates
and celebrates artists with disabilities, centralizing artists of color and queer
and gender-variant artists as communities who have been historically
marginalized from social discourse.
Disability and Sexuality
Sex Talk Realness: How I Have Sex With a
Disability
"Honestly guys, I'm simply paralyzed, I didn't have my vagina sewn shut!”
Cosmo, April 2015
Disability and Sexuality
‘Accessible orgy a go for disabled’
Toronto Sun, June 3, 2015
TORONTO - A major barrier is about to fall for Toronto’s disabled.
The city’s first ever accessible orgy is set for this summer.
Deliciously Disabled, August 14th
“By making this party accessible, we are saying openly that
people with disabilities are sexual beings ... and not only in
more conventional ways.”
“This should not be shocking. It should be celebrated.
“But it’s fine. No progress is ever made without controversy.”
“The Berlin wall of sex for people with disabilities is coming
down!” Stella Palikarova, event organizer
Progress takes many forms.
Even an accessible orgy.
Disability and Sexuality
Devotees: people who are attracted to disability, typically
physical difference, such as amputation, or people who use
wheelchairs
Fetishism
Pretenders
Wannabes
Disability and Sexuality
–Is sex a human right?
• Is access to sex a human right?
– Is access to sexual pleasure a human right?
» Is access to fulfilling, intimate experiences a human right?
– Sex workers for PWD funded by government or
non-profit organizations:
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Denmark
The Netherlands
Switzerland
Australia
France considered it in 2013, ongoing debate
Disability and Sexuality
Government funded to enhance the social lives and
quality of life of people with disabilities:
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Surgery for cleft palate
Breast reconstruction surgery following mastectomy
Subsidized birth control
Viagra for erectile dysfunction
Some states – funded abortion services and assisted
suicide
Disability and Sexuality
The importance of sex for PWD:
• May be the first time or the only times their body is
touched in a non-medical way
• Allows person to connect or reconnect with their body, use
their body in enjoyable ways
• An opportunity to provide independent consent about
what happens to their body
• Inclusion in sexual citizenship
• “…bodies matter not because we live in them but because
the experiences that constitute the self are always
embodied.”
Sexuality
“I’ve always assumed that the most urgent Disability civil
rights campaigns are the ones we’re currently fighting for –
employment, education, housing, transport, etc…etc.. and
that next to them a subject such as sexuality is almost
dispensable. For the first time now I’m beginning to believe
that sexuality, the one area above all others to have been
ignored, is at the absolute core of what we’re working for
….It’s not that one area can ever be achieved alone – they’re
all interwoven, but you can’t get closer to the essence of self
of more ‘people-living-alongside-people’ than sexuality, can
you?”
– British disabled feminist Liz Crow, in ‘Disabled Women and Sexuality’
Perspectives
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Dating
Sex
Partnerships
Pregnancy
Parenting
Comments, questions, thoughts?
References/Resources
• Allison Lapper:
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2005/sep/18/art
• Aimee Mullins: http://www.aimeemullins.com/index.php
• Controversial Journal – Northwestern University:
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/06/17/facultymembers-claim-university-made-them-remove-controversialjournal-issue-its#.VYHeGIyKE84.mailto
• My Gimpy Life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYTnldzk9nc
• Randy Paralympians ran out of condoms:
http://www.iol.co.za/sport/randy-paralympians-run-out-ofcondoms-1.1374114#.VYwyROtChz9
• Push Girls: http://www.sundance.tv/series/push-girls
References/Resources Cont.
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Sexual Orgy: http://www.torontosun.com/2015/06/03/accessible-orgy-a-go-fordisabled
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Sexual surrogate: http://www.kinkly.com/definition/295/sexual-surrogate.
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Sex Talk Realness: http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/news/a39179/sex-talkrealness-how-i-have-sex-with-a-disability/
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Sins Invalid: http://www.sinsinvalid.org\
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The Sessions: http://www.foxsearchlight.com/thesessions/
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The Theory of Everything: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brquaZ5V4Do
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Undressing Disability: http://enhancetheuk.org/enhance/sex-anddisability/undressing-disability-the-campaign/