A charity in Taiwan has volunteers who provide sexual “help” for a small number of disabled people.
Complete Article HERE!
Sex and parenthood for people with disabilities
By
Do people with disabilities have sex? Should they marry and have children?
As part of a research project, Emily Hops, a graduate of CSU Channel Islands, and I interviewed eight college students with disabilities about their general experiences with intimacy and sexual health last spring.
Each student expressed his or her own internal struggle with whether or not they should bear children themselves.
One said, “Is it selfish to have a kid? Even if your kid doesn’t have a disability, are you putting that burden on that kid to one day take care of you because you have a disability?”
Some students shared stories about professionals, even teachers, who dissuaded them from developing intimate relationships with others.
Even though California passed the Healthy Youth Act of 2015, which mandates adapted sex education for students with disabilities, I wonder if we have fully embraced the sexual rights of people with disabilities — especially considering California’s dark past with something called the “eugenics movement.”
Eugenics is essentially selective breeding in order to increase the occurrence of desirable inherited characteristics. California was a leader in the eugenics movement, which resulted in the sexual sterilization of 20,000 people in the state between 1909 and 1979. Seventy percent of those sterilized without their consent had various disabilities, spanning from schizophrenia to a casual diagnosis of being “feeble-minded.”
With a total of 60,000 sterilizations across the U.S., California was responsible for a third of all the procedures. Castrations and tubal ligations were common procedures performed. Some even argue that the U.S. led the way for Nazi Germany’s mass use of sexual sterilizations during the Holocaust.
Along with sexual sterilization laws in the eugenics movement came laws prohibiting marriage between people with disabilities, with the assumption being that reproduction was the reason for marriage.
California passed an annulment law, which specifically stated physical or mental capacity and consent as reasons for deeming a marriage null and void.
While there were other reasons that a marriage could be annulled, physical and mental capacity as well as lack of consent were the only reasons that involved third parties, such as parents or physicians.
These third parties could argue that either the bride or groom was “physically incapable of entering into the marriage state” or “was of unsound mind” at the time of marriage, and the marriage could be annulled.
If third parties were aware of a couple with disabilities planning a marriage, those third parties could make an argument about the incapacity of the bride and/or groom before the marriage date and shut it down altogether. In the early 1900s, 28 percent of marriages were annulled on these grounds.
The law is still on the books. Although rarely enforced today, these reasons for annulment remain in the wording of California Family Code Section 2210.
Not only is marriage annulment due to disability still lawful, but our history of perceiving people with disabilities as “asexual” beings still lives on today.
My hope is that we can learn to appreciate all people with disabilities as sexual beings with full sexual citizenship in hopes that they themselves do not question their own rights as human beings.
Complete Article HERE!
3D-printed sex organs help blind students learn about sexual health
3D-printing technology is letting blind students experience comprehensive, accessible sex ed for the first time ever.
By Katie Dupere
[A]dvocates and researchers collaborated to create more than 18 3D figures that model sex organs during a various states of arousal. They range from a flaccid penis to a dilated vaginal opening, allowing students to “feel” their way though sexual health lessons.
While it may be a NSFW (let alone not-safe-for-school) endeavor, these models are game-changers for blind students who often need to learn about sexual health through verbal instruction alone.
Sex ed classes overall often rely on dull videos and static illustrations, and while that type of stale education is a disservice to all students, it presents a unique problem for blind students.
“That approach does a blind student no good whatsoever because they, of course, cannot see the pictures and videos.” Dr. Gaylen Kapperman, a professor at Northern Illinois University who was involved with the project, told Mashable via email.
Studies show that 61% of blind adults or those with low vision say their vision status had a negative impact on the way they were able to participate in sex education.
It’s a gap advocates and researchers at Benetech, a nonprofit organization specializing in tech for good, set out to solve by creating these models of various penises and vulvas.
“3D models are the only types of models that make any sense to blind people,” Kapperman said. “Many people believe that if you provide raised-lined 2D tactile pictures of sex organs that blind people will be able to generalize this information. [That approach] makes no sense whatsoever for blind persons.”
But these models don’t only break sex ed barriers for blind children. Researchers say the models could make the instruction more meaningful for sighted kids, too.
The project’s goal is to eventually provide open-source 3D printing files for teachers. This means school districts would only have to finance the materials and printers to make the models.
Many experts predict the technology will become a staple for schools anyway. Once a school district owns a printer, 3D printing is a low-cost way to create models for classroom instruction, making it ideal for schools on a budget.
A sizable 90% of blind students attend school with sighted children, relying on modified lessons to fully absorb material. But there are only about 61,700 blind students in the U.S. Buying commercial models of genitalia already on the market can cost up to $500 per model — something low-funded schools would likely be reluctant to do, especially when only a handful of blind students may ever pass through their district.
To develop prototypes, Benetech partnered with LightHouse for the Blind and Northern Illinois University, where the models were first tested on blind college students. The project was funded entirely by a private Benetech donor.
Now in the second phase of the pilot program this spring, the models will make their ways into the hands of middle school and high school students — the target demographic.
By the end of the 2017 school year, researchers hope to have feedback from students on the current prototypes. Then they’ll release files with detailed printing instructions for classroom use.
Benetech plans to offer pre-printed models to accommodate schools without 3D printers, for a fee much lower than commercial models.
“It is our hope that these models will be an effective teaching tool for teachers to communicate sex education in a way that works for students who are blind and visually impaired,” said Dr. Lisa Wadors Verne, program manager of education and partnerships at Benetech.
Complete Article HERE!
Women with HIV, after years of isolation, coming out of shadows
By Erin Allday
Anita Schools wakes at dawn most days, though she usually lazes in bed, watching videos on her phone, until she has to get up to take the HIV meds that keep her alive. The morning solitude ends abruptly when her granddaughter bursts in and they curl up, bonding over graham crackers.
Schools, 59, lives in Emeryville near the foot of the Bay Bridge, walking distance from a Nordstrom Rack and other big chain stores she can’t afford. Off and on since April, her granddaughter has lived there too, sleeping on a blow-up mattress with Schools’ daughter and son-in-law and another grandchild.
Five is too many for the one-bedroom apartment. But they’re family. They kept her going during the worst times, and that she can help them now is a blessing.
Nearly 20 years ago, when Schools was diagnosed with HIV, it was her daughter Bonnie — then 12 and living in foster care — who gave her hope, saying, “Mama, you don’t have to worry. You’re not going to die, you’re going to be able to live a long, long time.”
“It was her that gave me the push and the courage to keep on,” Schools said.
She had contracted HIV from a man who’d been in jail, who beat her repeatedly until she fled. By then she’d already left another abusive relationship and lost all four of her daughters to child protective services. HIV was just one more burden.
At the time, the disease was a death sentence. That Schools is still here — helping her family, getting to know her grandchildren — is wonderful, she said. But for her, as with tens of thousands of others who have lived two decades or more with HIV, survival comes with its own hardships.
Gay men made up the bulk of the casualties of the early AIDS epidemic, and as the male survivors grow older, they’re dealing with profound complications, including physical and mental health problems. But the women have their own loads to bear.
Whereas gay men were at risk simply by being gay, women often were infected through intravenous drug use or sex work, or by male partners who lied about having unsafe sex with other men. The same issues that put them at risk for HIV made their very survival a challenge.
Today, many women like Schools who are long-term survivors cope with challenges caused or compounded by HIV: financial and housing insecurity, depression and anxiety, physical disability and emotional isolation.
“We’re talking about mostly women of color, living in poverty,” said Naina Khanna, executive director of Oakland’s Positive Women’s Network, a national advocacy group for women with HIV. “And there’s not really a social safety net for them. Gay men diagnosed with HIV already historically had a built-in community to lean on. Women tend to be more isolated around their diagnosis.”
There are far fewer women aging with HIV than men. In San Francisco, nearly 10,000 people age 50 or older are living with HIV; about 500 are women. Not all women survivors have histories of trauma and abuse, of course, and many have done well in spite of their diagnosis.
But studies have found that women with HIV are more than twice as likely as the average American woman to have suffered domestic violence. They have higher rates of mental illness and substance abuse.
What keeps them going now, decades after their diagnoses, varies widely. For some, connections with their families, especially their now-adult children, are critical. For others, HIV advocacy work keeps them motivated and hopeful.
Patti Radigan was living in a cardboard box on South Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco when she tested positive in 1992. By then, she’d lost her husband to a heart attack while a young mother, and not long after that she lost her daughter, too, when her drug use got out of control and her sister-in-law took in the child.
She turned to prostitution in the late 1980s to support a heroin addiction. She’d heard of HIV by then and knew it was deadly. She’d seen people on the streets in the Mission where she worked, wasting away and then disappearing altogether. But she still thought of it as something that affected gay men, not women, even those living on the margins.
Women then, and now, were much more likely than men to contract HIV from intravenous drug use rather than sex — though in Radigan’s case, it could have been either. IV drug use is the cause of transmission for nearly half of all women, according to San Francisco public health reports. It’s the cause for less than 20 percent for men.
Still, when Radigan finally got tested, it wasn’t because she was worried she might be positive, but because the clinic was offering subjects $20. She needed the cash for drugs.
She was scared enough after the diagnosis — and then she got pregnant. It was the early 1990s, and HIV experts at UCSF were just starting to believe they could finesse women through pregnancy and help them deliver healthy babies. Today, it’s widely understood that women with HIV can safely have children; San Francisco hasn’t seen a baby born with HIV since 2004.
But in the 1990s, getting pregnant was considered selfish — even if the baby survived, its mother most certainly wouldn’t live long enough to raise her. For women infected at the time, having children was something else they had to give up.
And so Radigan had an abortion. But she got pregnant again in 1995, and she was desperate to have this child. She was living by then with 10 gay men in a boarding house for recovering addicts. Bracing herself for an onslaught of criticism, she told her housemates. First they were quiet, then someone yelled, “Oh my God, we’re having a baby!”
“It was like having 10 big brothers,” Radigan said, smiling at the memory. Buoyed by their support, she kept the pregnancy and had a healthy girl.
Radigan is 59 now; her daughter, Angelica Tom, is 20. They both live in San Francisco after moving to the East Coast for a while. It was because of her daughter that Radigan stayed sober, that she consistently took her meds, and that she went back to school to tend to her future.
For a long time she told people she just wanted to live long enough to see her daughter graduate high school. Now her daughter is in art school and Radigan is healthy enough to hold a part-time job, to lead yoga classes on weekends, to go out with friends for a Friday night concert.
“Because of HIV, I thought I was never going to do a lot of things,” Radigan said. “The universe is aligning for me. And now I feel like I deserve it. For a long time, I didn’t feel like I deserved anything.”
Anita Schools got tested for HIV because her ex-boyfriend kept telling her she should. That should have been a warning sign, she knows now.
She was first diagnosed in 1998 at a neighborhood clinic in Oakland, but it took two more tests at San Francisco General Hospital for her to accept she was positive. People told her that HIV wasn’t necessarily fatal, but she had trouble believing she was going to live. All she could think was, “Why me? What did I do?”
It was only after her daughter Bonnie reassured her that Schools started to think beyond the immediate anxiety and anger. She joined a support group for HIV-positive women, finding comfort in their stories and shared experiences. Ten years later, she was leading her own group.
She’s never had problems with drugs or alcohol, and she has a network of friends and family for emotional support, she said. Even the HIV hasn’t hit her too hard, physically, though the drugs to treat it have attacked her kidneys, leaving her ill and fatigued.
Like so many of the women she advises in her support group, Schools is most troubled by her finances. She gets by on Social Security and has bounced among Section 8 housing all over the Bay Area for most of her adult life.
Schools’ current apartment is supposed to be permanent, but she worries she could lose it if her daughter’s family stays with her too long. So earlier this month they moved out and are now sleeping in homeless shelters or, some nights, in their car. She hates letting them leave but doesn’t feel she has any other choice.
Reports show that women with HIV are far more likely to live in poverty than men. Khanna, with the Positive Women’s Network, said surveys of her members found that 85 percent make less than $25,000 a year, and roughly half take home less than $10,000.
Schools can’t always afford the bus or BART tickets she needs to get to doctor appointments and support group meetings, relying instead on rides from friends — or sometimes skipping events altogether. She gets her food primarily from food banks. Her wardrobe is dominated by T-shirts she gets from the HIV organizations with which she volunteers.
“With Social Security, $889 a month, that ain’t enough,” Schools said. “You got to pay your rent, and then PG&E, and then you got to pay your cell phone, buy clothes — it’s all hard.”
At a time when other women her age might be thinking about retirement or at least slowing down, advocacy work has taken over Schools’ life. She speaks out for women with HIV and their needs, demanding financial and health resources for them. In her support group and at AIDS conferences, she offers her story of survival as a sort of jagged road map for other women struggling to navigate the complex warren of services they’ll need to get by.
The work gives her confidence and purpose. She feels she can directly influence women’s lives in a way that seemed beyond her when she was young, unemployed and directionless.
“As long as I’m getting help and support,” Schools said, “I want to help other women — help them get somewhere.”
Billie Cooper is tall and striking, loud and brash. Her makeup is polished, her nails flawless. She is, she says with a booming laugh that makes heads turn, “the ultimate senior woman.”
For Cooper, 58, HIV was transformative. Like Radigan, she had to find her way out from under addiction and prostitution to get healthy, and stay healthy. Like Schools, she came to understand the importance of role-modeling and advocacy.
Cooper arrived in San Francisco in the summer of 1980 — almost a year to the day before the first reports of HIV surfaced in the United States. She was fresh out of the Navy and eager to explore her gender identity and sexuality in San Francisco’s burgeoning gay and transgender communities.
Growing up in Philadelphia, she’d known she was different from the boys around her, though it was decades before she found the language to express it and identified as a transgender woman. But seeing the “divas on Post Street, the ladies in the Tenderloin, the transsexual women prostituting on Eddy” — Cooper was awestruck.
She slipped quickly into prostitution and drug use. When she tested positive in 1985, she wasn’t surprised and barely wasted a thought worrying about what it meant for her future — or whether she’d have any future at all.
“I felt as though I still had to keep it moving,” Cooper said. “I didn’t slow down and cry or nothing.”
Transgender women have always been at heightened risk of HIV. Some studies have found that more than 1 in 5 transgender women is infected, and today about 340 HIV-positive trans women live in San Francisco.
What makes them more vulnerable is complicated. Trans women often have less access to health care and less stable housing than others, and they face higher rates of drug addiction and sexual violence, all of which are associated with risk of HIV infection.
Cooper was homeless off and on through the 1980s and ’90s, trapped in a world of drugs and sex work that felt glamorous at the time but in hindsight was crippling. “I was doing things out of loneliness,” she said, “and I was doing things to feel love. That’s why I prostituted, why I did drugs.”
She began to clean up around 2000, though it would take five or six years to fully quit using. She found a permanent place to live. She collected Social Security. She started working in support services for other transgender women battling HIV. In 2013, she founded TransLife, a support group at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.
“I was coming out as the activist, the warrior, the determined woman I was always meant to be,” she said.
Cooper never developed any of the common, often fatal complications of HIV — including opportunistic infections like pneumonia — that killed millions in the 1980s and 1990s. But she does have neuropathy, an HIV-related nerve condition that causes a constant pins-and-needles sensation in her feet and legs and sometimes makes it hard to walk.
Far more traumatic for her was her cancer diagnosis in 2006. The cancer, which may have been related to HIV, was isolated to her left eye, but after traditional therapies failed, the eye was surgically removed on Thanksgiving Day in 2009.
The cancer and the loss of her eye was a devastating setback for a woman who had always focused on her appearance, on looking as gorgeous as the transgender women she so admired in the Tenderloin, on being loved and wanted for her beauty.
Rising from that loss has been difficult, she said. And she’s continued to suffer new health problems, including blood clots in one of her legs. Recently, she’s fallen several times, in frightening episodes that may be related to the clots, the HIV or something else entirely.
Since Thanksgiving she’s been in and out of the hospital, and though she tries to stay upbeat, it’s clearly trying her patience.
But if HIV and cancer and everything else have tested Cooper’s survival in ways she never anticipated, these trials also have strengthened her resolve. She’s becoming the person she always wanted to be.
“A week before they took my eye, I got my breasts,” she said coyly one recent afternoon, thrusting out her chest. Behind the sunglasses she wears almost constantly now, she was smiling and crying, all at once.
Aging with HIV has been strangely calming, in some ways, giving her a confidence that in her wild youth was elusive.
Now she exults in being a respected elder in the HIV and transgender communities. She loves it when people open doors for her or help her cross the street, offer to carry her bags or give up a seat on a bus.
Simply, she said, “I love being Ms. Billie Cooper.”
Complete Article HERE!
Rheumatoid arthritis and sexual dysfunction: Impact and tips
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is accompanied by sexual dysfunction in one-third of all RA patients, both men and women. The study found that there are a number of issues that affect RA patients, including low libido, painful intercourse, orgasmic dysfunction, premature ejaculation, and non-satisfactory sexual life.
Dr. Pedro Santos-Moreno, lead author, said, “Sexuality is an important dimension of an individual’s personality, and sexual problems can have a seriously detrimental impact on a couple’s relationship. It is, therefore, rather surprising that, up until now, very little quality research on sexual disturbances in RA patients has been published in the literature, bearing in mind how common the problems are.”
Factors associated with rheumatoid arthritis and sexual dysfunction
There are many factors that affect the prevalence and aggravation of sexual problems, but the relationship between sexual dysfunction and RA disease activity has never been statistically significant. On the other hand, there is a connection between not being sexually active and disease activity.
The study examined three types of factors – precipitating, predisposing, and maintenance – to see how they would influence the prevalence and worsening of sexual disturbances in rheumatoid arthritis.
Precipitating factors for sexual dysfunction in women and men with RA included infidelity, insecurity in a sexual role, and biological or physical causes. The range of predisposing factors in women and men were related to image changes, infidelity, anxiety, and loss of attraction.
Factors believed to be responsible for sexual disturbance in RA included biological causes, infidelity, general alteration of a couple’s relationship, partner’s sexual dysfunction, depression, and anxiety.
The relationship between these factors and disease activity was not found to be statistically significant.
Effects of rheumatoid arthritis on sexual activity
Rheumatoid arthritis may pose some challenges when it comes to sex, but maintaining a healthy sex life while living with RA is very possible. For starters, it’s important to maintain an open conversation with your partner about your needs, feelings, desires, and challenges. Intimacy may have to be changed with different touches, techniques, sexual devices, and new positions to accommodate the condition.
Sexual activity should take place when you are feeling your best throughout the day, which means saving sexual activity for the nighttime may not always be a viable option, as many people feel their worse at this time. Avoid cold temperatures as they can worsen rheumatoid arthritis symptoms. Lastly, keep a good attitude and remember that the goal of intimacy is the emotional closeness.
Aspects that can affect the sexual expression of a rheumatoid arthritis patient include severity of the disease, levels of fatigue, degree of pain, physical limitations, contribution of movement and touch, self-perception, side effects of medications, and effects of surgery.
Tips to manage sexual function with rheumatoid arthritis
Here’s what you can do to manage sexual function with rheumatoid arthritis:
- Plan ahead for sex – choose times when you know you are feeling your best and most rested.
- Nap before sexual activity.
- Take a warm shower or bath, or use a heating pad to relieve stiffness.
- Time pain medications so they are at peak effect during sex.
- Use massage to help relax muscles and joints.
- Pile up pillows or rolled sheets to offer support.
- Pace yourself to save energy.
By trying out some of these tips, you can improve your sexual function despite living with rheumatoid arthritis.
Complete Article HERE!
The Vulnerable Group Sex Ed Completely Ignores & Why That’s So Dangerous
By Hallie Levine
[W]hen Katie, 36, was identified as having an intellectual disability as a young child after scoring below 70 on an IQ test, her parents were told that she would never learn to read and would spend her days in a sheltered workshop. Today she is a single mum to an 8-year-old son, drives a car, and works at a local restaurant as a waitress. She blasted through society’s expectations of her — including the expectation that she would never have sex.
Katie never had a formal sexual education: What she learned came straight from her legal guardian, Pam, who explained to her the importance of safe sex and waiting until she was ready. “I waited until I was 19, which is a lot later than some of my friends,” Katie says. Still, like many women with disabilities, she admits to being pressured into sex her first time, something she regrets. “I don’t think I was ready,” she says. “It actually was with someone who wasn’t my boyfriend. He was cute, and he wanted to have sex, so I said I wanted it, but at the last minute I changed my mind and it happened anyway. I just felt really stupid and uncomfortable afterwards.” She never told her boyfriend what happened.
Katie’s experience is certainly not unique: In the general population, one out of six women has survived a rape or attempted rape, according to statistics from RAINN. But for women with intellectual disabilities (ID), it’s even more sobering: About 25% of females with ID referred for birth control had a history of sexual violence, while other research suggests that almost half of people with ID will experience at least 10 sexually abusive incidents in their lifetime, according to The Arc, an advocacy organisation for people with intellectual disabilities.
When it comes to their sex lives, research shows many women with intellectual disability don’t associate sex with pleasure, and tend to play a passive role, more directed to “pleasuring the penis of their sex partner” than their own enjoyment, according to a 2015 study published in the Journal of Sex Research. They’re more likely to experience feelings of depression and guilt after sex. They’re at a greater risk for early sexual activity and early pregnancy. They’re also more likely to get an STD: 26% of cognitively impaired female high schoolers report having one, compared to 10% of their typical peers, according to a study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
Katie, for example, contracted herpes in her early 20s, from having sex with another man (she says none of her partners have had an intellectual disability). “I was hurt and itching down there, so I went to the doctor, who told me I had this bad disease,” she recalls. She was so upset she confronted her partner: “I went to his office crying, but he denied everything,” she remembers.
Given all of this, you’d think public schools — which are in charge of educating kids with intellectual disability — would be making sure it’s part of every child’s curriculum. But paradoxically, kids with ID are often excluded from sexual education classes, including STD and pregnancy prevention. “People with intellectual disabilities don’t get sexual education,” says Julie Ann Petty, a safety and sexual violence educator at the University of Arkansas. Petty, who has cerebral palsy herself, has worked extensively with adults who have intellectual disabilities (while not all people living with cerebral palsy have intellectual disabilities, they face many of the same barriers to sexual education). “This [lack of education] is due to the central norms we still have when thinking about people with ID: They need to be protected; they are not sexual beings; they don’t need any sex-related information. Disability rights advocates have worked hard over the last 20-some years to get rid of those stereotypes, but they are still out there.
“I work with adults with disabilities all the time, and the attitudes of the caretakers and staff around them are, ‘Oh, our people do not do that stuff. Our people do not think about sex,’” Petty says. “It’s tragic, and really sets this vulnerable population up for abuse: if they don’t have knowledge about their private body parts, for example, how are they going to know if someone is doing something inappropriate?”
Historically, individuals with intellectual disabilities were marginalised, shunted off to institutions, and forcibly sterilised. That all began to change in the 1950s and 1960s, with the push by parents and civil rights advocates to keep kids with ID at home and mainstream them into regular education environments. But while significant progress has been made over the last half century in terms of increased educational and employment opportunities, when it comes to sex ed, disability rights advocates say we’re still far, far behind.
“What I find is shocking is I’ll go in to teach a workshop on human sexuality to a group of teenagers or young adults with cognitive disabilities, and I find that their knowledge is no different than what [young people with ID would have known] back in the 1970s,” says Katherine McLaughlin, who has worked as a sexuality educator and trainer for Planned Parenthood of Northern New England for over 20 years and is the co-author of the curriculum guide “Sexuality Education for Adults with Developmental Disabilities.” “They tell me they were taken out of their mainstream health classes in junior high and high school during the sexual education part, because their teachers don’t think they need it. I’ve worked with adults in their 50s who have no idea how babies are made. It’s mind blowing.”
“There’s this belief that they don’t need it, or that they won’t understand it, or it will actually make them more likely to be sexually active or act inappropriately,” adds Pam Malin, VAWA Project Coordinator, Disability Rights Wisconsin. “But research shows that actually the opposite is true.”
Indeed, as the mother of a young girl with Down syndrome, I’m personally struck by how asexualised people with intellectual disabilities still are. Case in point: When fashion model Madeline Stuart — who has Down syndrome — posted pictures of herself online in a bikini, the Internet exploded with commentary, some positive, some negative. “I think it is time people realised that people with Down syndrome can be sexy and beautiful and should be celebrated,” Madeline’s mother, Roseanne, told ABC News. Yet somehow, it’s still scandalous.
Ironically, sometimes the biggest barrier comes from parents of people with ID — which hits close to home for me. “A lot of parents still treat their kids’ sexuality as taboo,” says Malin. She recalls one situation where a mom in one of her parent support groups got attacked by other parents: “She was very open about masturbation with her adolescent son, and actually left a pail on his doorknob so he could masturbate in a sock and then put it in the pail — she’d wash it with no questions asked. I applauded it: I thought it was an excellent way to give her son some freedom and choice around his sexuality. But it made the other parents incredibly uncomfortable.”
Sometimes, parents are simply not comfortable talking about sexuality, because they don’t know how to start the conversation, adds Malin. Several studies have also found that both staff and family generally encourage friendship, not sexual relationships. “It’s a lot of denial: The parents don’t want to admit that their children are maturing emotionally and developing adult feelings,” says Malin. An Australian study published in the journal Sexuality & Disability found that couples with intellectual disability were simply never left alone, and thus never allowed to engage in sexual behaviour.
I’m doing my best — but despite all my good intentions, it’s certainly not been easy. This fall, I sat down to tell my three small children about the birds and the bees. My two boys — in second grade and kindergarten — got into the conversation right away, and as we began talking I realised it wasn’t a surprise to them; at a young age, they’d already picked up some of the basic facts from playmates. But my daughter, my eldest, was a whole different story. Jo Jo is in third grade and has Down syndrome, so she’s delayed, both with language and cognition. And because of her ID, and all the risk that goes along with it, she was the kid I was most worried about. So it was disheartening to see her complete lack of interest in the conversation, wandering off to her iPad or turning on the radio. Every time I would try to coax her back to our little group, she would shout, “No!”
Lisa Shevin, whose 30-year-old daughter, Chani, has Down syndrome, says she’s never had a heart-to-heart with her daughter about sexuality. “The problem is, Chani’s not very verbal, so I’m never quite sure what she grasps,” says Shevin, who lives in Oak Park, a suburb of Detroit. While Chani has a “beau” at work, another young man who also has an intellectual disability, “They’re never, ever left alone, so they never have an opportunity to follow through on anything,” says Shevin. “I feel so frustrated as her mother, because I want to talk to her about sex ed, but I just don’t know how. I’ve never gotten any guidance from anyone. But just because my daughter is cognitively impaired, it doesn’t mean she doesn’t have the same hormones as any other woman her age. You can’t just sweep it under the rug and assume she doesn’t understand.”
In one interesting twist, sex educators say they tend to see more women with intellectual disability than men being sexually aggressive. “I worked with a young woman in her late 20s who would develop crushes on attractive male staff members at her group home,” recalls Malin. “She would try to flirt, and the guys would play it off as ‘hah hah funny,’ but eventually she called police and accused one of them of rape.” While the police investigated and eventually dropped charges, Malin was brought in to work with her: “We had a long conversation about where this had come from, and she kept talking about Beau and Hope from ‘Days of Our Lives’,” Malin recalls. “It turned out she had gotten so assertive with one of the male staff that he’d very adamantly said no to her, but her understanding of rape boiled down to gleaning bits from soap operas, and she thought that if a man in any situation acted forcefully with a woman then it was sexual assault.”
While most cases don’t escalate to this point, sometimes people with intellectual disability can exhibit behavior that causes problems: Chani, for example, was kicked out of sleep-away camp a few years ago after staff complained that she was hugging too many of her male counsellors. “She’d develop little crushes on them, and she never tried anything further than putting her arms around them and wanting to hang out with them all the time, but it made staff uncomfortable,” Shevin recalls. Chani’s since found a new camp where counsellors take her behaviour in stride: “They’ve found a way to work with it, so if she doesn’t want to do an activity, they’ll convince her by telling her afterwards she can spend time with Noah, one of the male counsellors she has a crush on,” says Shevin. (At the end of the summer, Noah gave Chani a tiara, which remains one of her prize possessions.)
So what can be done? Sadly, even if someone with ID is able to get into a sexual education program, the existing options tend to severely miss the mark: A 2015 study published in the Journal for Sex Research analysed 20 articles on sexual education programs aimed at this group and found most fell far short, mainly because people who unable to generalise what they learned in the program to an outside setting. “This is a major problem for individuals who are cognitively challenged: They have difficulty applying a skill or knowledge they get in one setting to somewhere else,” explains McLaughlin. “But just like everywhere else, most get it eventually — it just takes a lot of time, repetition, and patience.”
In the meantime, for parents like me, McLaughlin has a few tips. “Take advantage of teachable moments,” she says. “If a family member is pregnant, talk about it with them. If you’re watching a TV show together and there’s sexual content, don’t just sweep it under the rug — try to break down the issues with them.” It’s also important to be as concrete as possible: “Since people with ID have trouble generalising, use anatomically correct dolls or photographs whenever possible, especially when describing body parts,” she says.
Some local disability organisations also offer workshops for both teenagers and adults with intellectual disabilities. And the Special Olympics offers protective behaviours training for volunteers. But at this point there’s a dearth of legislation and organisations that are fighting for better sexual education, which means parents like myself have to take the initiative when it comes to educating our kids about their burgeoning sexuality.
It’s a responsibility I’m taking to heart in my own life. Now, every night when I bathe my daughter, we make a game of identifying body parts, some of which are private, and I explain to her that no one touches those areas except for mommy or a doctor. Recently, she’s started humping objects at home like the arm of the sofa, and I’ve begun explaining to her that if she wants to do something like that, it needs to be in the privacy of her own room. It’s taken a lot of repeating and reinforcing, but she seems to be getting the message. I have no doubt that — like every other skill she’s mastered, such as reading or writing her name or potty training — it will take time, but she’ll get there.
As for Katie, with age and experience, she’s become more comfortable with her sexuality. “It took me a while, but I’m confident in myself,” she says. “I am one hundred percent okay saying no to someone — if I’m pressured, there’s no way in the world now I’ll do anything with anybody. But that means when it does happen, it feels right.”
Complete Article HERE!
Sexual Healing for Cancer Survivors
By KATIE KOSKO
[S]exual health can be an uncomfortable or embarrassing topic to discuss for many people, and for patients with cancer, survivors and their partners, it can feel even more awkward. In fact, sex ranks among the top five unmet needs of survivors, and a new digital health startup, Will2Love, has been launched to help fill this void.
Sixty percent of cancer survivors — 9.3 million individuals in the United States alone — end up with long-term sexual problems, but fewer than 20 percent get professional help, according to Leslie R. Schover, PhD, Will2Love’s founder. Among the barriers she cites are overburdened oncology clinics, poor insurance coverage for services related to sexual health and an overall lack of expertise on the part of providers, many of whom don’t know how to talk to patients and survivors about these issues.
Sexual issues can affect every stage of the cancer journey. Schover, who hosted a recent webinar for health care practitioners on the topic, has been a pioneer in developing treatment for cancer-related problems with sexuality or fertility. After decades of research and clinical practice, she has witnessed firsthand how little training is available in the area of sexual health.
“Sex remains a low priority, with very little time devoted to managing sexual problems even in specialty residencies,” she adds.
The problem is twofold: how to encourage oncology teams to do a better job of assessing and managing sexual problems and how to help those impacted by cancer to discuss their sexual concerns.
Schover says that simple, open-ended questions such as: “This treatment will affect your sex life. Tell me a little about your sex life now,” can help to get the conversation started.
Sexual side effects after cancer treatment vary from person to person, and also from treatment to treatment. Common side effects for men and women include difficulty reaching climax, pain during sexual intercourse, lower sexual desire and feelings of being less attractive. Men specifically can experience erectile dysfunction and dry orgasm, while women may have vaginal dryness and/or tightness, as well as loss of erotic sensation such as on their breasts following breast cancer treatment.
Sexual dysfunction after cancer can often lead to depression and poor quality of life for survivors and their partners.
Cancer treatment can impact hormonal cycles, nerves directing blood flow to the genitals, and the pelvic circulatory system itself, explains Schover. In addition, side effects like prolonged nausea, fatigue, and chronic pain also can disrupt a patient’s sex life.
“Simply to give medical solutions rarely resolves the problems because a person or couple needs to make changes in the sexual relationship to accommodate changes in physical function,” Schover stresses. “That kind of treatment is usually best coming from a trained mental health professional, especially if the couple has issues with communication or conflict.”
Schover hopes that Will2Love will bring much-needed attention to the topic by providing easily accessible resources for patients, survivors, their partners and health care providers. (Box)
Currently visitors to the website can subscribe to its e-newsletter and receive a free introductory five-part email course covering topics related to what your doctor may not be telling you about sex, fertility and cancer. After the fifth lesson, users will receive a link to the Will2Love “Sex and the Survivor” video series. “Sexual health is a right,” Schover stresses, and oncology professionals, patients and survivors need to be assertive to get the conversation started.
Complete Article HERE!
Disability and desire
Martha explores how to feel loved when you find it impossible to love yourself
“So, we’re autistic” said the man on the screen, flatly. I played the clip over and over again, searching for the joke. “So, we’re autistic.” “So, we’re autistic.” The meme was a clip from the show The Undateables, and it had surfaced on my news feed because someone I’d recently hooked up with had liked it. I typed out various increasingly explicit formulations on the response “Undateable? that’s not what you said the other night” before deleting them and throwing my phone across the room, furiously wiping tears from my eyes and a warm wave of familiar self-disgust churning through my stomach.
Confession: the main reason I don’t tell anyone about being autistic is that it isn’t very sexy. Disability in all its forms is utterly desexualised in our society – autism particularly so, in part due to it’s inaccurate representation as something which primarily affects young children. Autistic characters don’t have sexual relationships unless their clumsy attempts at doing so are a source of comedy for neurotypical viewers. We are “undateable.”
Young autistic women exist in a strange and dangerous contradiction. Young women are taught their primary value is their sexual attractiveness; disabled people are constantly publicly desexualised. As a result, I spent much of my teenage life obsessively chasing something which would always be, by definition, just a little out of my reach.
No matter how hard I worked to look pretty enough, sound smart enough, deliver flirty and funny enough comebacks, something about me still felt inherently undesirable. I cut my hair a different way every few months and saved my school lunch money for fake nails, a rainbow of lipsticks and boxes of hair dye in bright red, peroxide blonde, jet black, pastel pink and chocolate brown, hoping that one day I’d hit on some magic combination of chemicals that erased what felt like a ugly, rotten core.
Like many young women who’ve always felt something was a little out of place, I was drawn to fourth-wave feminism’s mantra of self-love and body positivity like a moth to a bulb. But while I saw women around me flourish in these spaces, they weren’t what I was looking for. In fact, as a slim, white, blue-eyed blonde, I am slightly incongruous in them; women who look like me are already constantly validated as being physically attractive. My sense of inadequacy hadn’t been coming from my body; conversely, I realised, I had been using making my physical self look as good as possible in order to to compensate for the insecurity I felt about my disability. When your insides feel uglier than your outside, the concept of inner beauty just makes you feel worse.
It’s not hard to predict how this deep-rooted sense of undesirability can manifest in unhealthy relationships. While the logical, stridently feminist, #StrongIndependentWoman side of me knows to take no shit from creepy men who feel entitled to my body, there is a part of me, larger and more influential than I’d like to admit, which feels someone like me should be pathetically grateful for sexual or romantic attention. Even when it comes to full relationships, it’s still very difficult for me to separate genuine attraction to a man from intense gratitude at his interest in me. Whether it’s likes on a selfie or a series of incredibly inadvisable involvements with boys I should theoretically despise, I am constantly looking for ways to compile quantifiable proof that I am desirable.
Women with invisible disabilities struggle with sex and relationships in many different ways; some of us become terrified of engaging in sex or dating at all; some of us attempt to fill our deep sense of inadequacy with as many flings and one night stands as possible. Some of us become prime targets for abusive relationships due to our predisposition to self-doubt and our fear that nobody else will accept us; some of us hold partners at arms length or self-sabotage as quickly as possible, fearing that if anyone gets close enough to find out what we’re really like they will be repulsed and hurt us more.
It sounds like a cheesy platitude, but you can’t conduct healthy relationships when you don’t truly believe that anyone could ever be in love with you, and you can’t believe that anyone could be in love with you until you’ve learned to love yourself. It’s hard to do this when you’ve only ever seen people like you degraded and mocked for their efforts to feel wanted. A lot of the people cracking jokes about your disorder will have no idea how many brilliant, captivating, engaging disabled people they’ve been attracted to. If that makes you “undateable” to them? Their loss.
Complete Article HERE!
Cancer patients and survivors can have trouble with intimacy
[P]eople who survive cancer treatment — a growing group now topping 5 million — often have trouble with intimacy afterward, both from the actual treatment and physical recovery and from the psychological damage of feeling so vulnerable.(Photo: Getty Images/Comstock Images)
In the mirror, Kelly Shanahan looks normal, even to herself.
But she does not feel like herself.
The breasts she had reconstructed eight years ago look real, the nipples convincing. But her breasts have no sensation. The only time she feels them at all is during the frigid winters of her South Lake Tahoe, Calif., home, when they get so cold, she has to put on an extra layer of clothing.
“For a lot of women, breast sensation is a huge part of sexual pleasure and foreplay. That is totally gone,” says Shanahan, 55, who has lived with advanced breast cancer for three years. “It can be a big blow to self-image, even though you may look normal.”
Kelly Shanahan of South Lake Tahoe, Calif., has been battling breast cancer for eight years. She’s a big believer in doctors and their patients discussing sexual health. (Photo: Kelly Shanahan)
Shanahan is part of a growing group of patients, advocates and doctors raising concerns about sexual health during and after cancer treatment.
“None of us would be here if it weren’t for sex. I don’t understand why we have such a difficult time talking about it,” she says.
Though virtually all cancer diagnoses and treatments affect how patients feel and what they think about their bodies, sex remains an uncomfortable medical topic.
Shanahan, an obstetrician herself, says that until her current doctor, none of the specialists who treated her cancer discussed her sex life.
“My former oncologist would rather fall through the floor than talk about sex,” she says.
Major cancer centers now include centers addressing sexuality, but most community hospitals still do not. The topic rarely is discussed unless the patient is particularly bold or the doctor has made a special commitment.
There’s no question that cancer can dampen people’s sex lives.
Hormone deprivation, a common therapy for breast and prostate cancer, can destroy libido, interfere with erections, and make sex extremely painful. Weight gain or loss can affect how sexy people feel. Fatigue is unending during treatment. Body image can be transformed by surgeries and the idea that your own cells are trying to kill you. The constant specter of death is a sexual downer, as are the decidedly unsexy aspects of cancer care, like carrying around a colostomy bag. Then, there are the healthy partners, feeling guilty and terrified of causing pain.
And once people start to associate sex with pain, that can add apprehension and muscle tightness, which makes intercourse harder to achieve, says Andrea Milbourne, a gynecologist at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
There’s almost never a medical reason cancer patients or survivors shouldn’t be having sex, says Karen Syrjala, a clinical psychologist and co-director of the survivorship program at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. Even if there is reason to avoid intercourse, physical closeness and intimacy are possible, she says, noting that the sooner people address sexual issues the less serious those issues will be.
“Bodies need to be used and touched,” she says said. “Tissues need to be kept active.” Syrjala recommends hugging, romantic dinners, simple touching, “maybe just holding each other naked at night.”
There are ways to improve sexual problems, starting with doctors talking to their patients about sex. Milbourne and others say it’s their responsibility, not the patients’, to bring up the topic.
Communication between partners also is essential. “A lot of times, it’s unclear, at least in the mind of the other partner who doesn’t have a cancer, what has happened. ‘Why does this hurt? Why don’t you want to do anything?’ ” Milbourne says.
For women who have pain during sex, Milbourne says one study found benefit to using lidocaine gel to numb vaginal tissue.
Jeanne Carter, head of the female sexual medicine and women’s health program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, recommends women do three minutes of Kegel exercises daily to strengthen their pelvic floor muscles and improve vaginal tone, and to help reconnect to their bodies.
For women sent abruptly into menopause, moisturizing creams can help soften tissue that has become brittle and taut. Carter says she’s conducted research showing that women with breast or endometrial cancers who use moisturizers three to five times a week in the vagina and on the vulva have fewer symptoms and less pain than those who don’t. Lubricants can help smooth the way, too.
“We’ve got to make sure we get the tissue quality and pain under control or that will just undermine the whole process,” Carter says.
Sex toys also take on a different meaning after cancer treatment. Specialized stores often can offer useful advice and the ability to examine a product before buying. Rings and other equipment, in addition to medications such as Viagra, can help men regain erections.
Doctors and well-meaning friends also need to stop telling cancer patients that they should simply be glad to be alive, Shanahan says. Of course she is, but eight years after her initial diagnosis and three years after her disease advanced, Shanahan wants to make good use of the time she has left.
And that, she says, includes having a warm, intimate relationship with her husband of 21 years.
Complete Article HERE!
Expert Shares Tips for Talking Sexual Health With Cancer Survivors
by KATIE KOSKO
Sexual health can be an uncomfortable or embarrassing topic to discuss for many people, and for patients with cancer and survivors it can feel even more awkward. Nevertheless, sex ranks among the top 5 unmet needs of survivors, and the good news is, proactive oncology practitioners can help fill that void.
Sixty percent of cancer survivors—9.3 million individuals in the United States alone—end up with long-term sexual problems, but fewer than 20% get professional help, according to Leslie R. Schover, PhD, founder of the digital health startup, Will2Love. Among the barriers she cited are overburdened oncology clinics, poor insurance coverage for services related to sexual health, and an overall lack of expertise on the part of providers, many of whom don’t know how to talk to patients about these issues.
And, oncologists and oncology nurses are well-positioned to open up that line of communication.
“At least take one sentence to bring up the topic of sexuality with a new patient to find out if it is a concern for that person,” Schover explained in a recent interview with Oncology Nursing News. “Then have someone ready to do the follow-up that is needed,” and have other patient resources, such as handouts and useful websites, on hand.
Sexual issues can affect every stage of the cancer journey. Schover, who hosted a recent webinar for practitioners on the topic, has been a pioneer in developing treatment for cancer-related problems with sexuality or fertility. After decades of research and clinical practice, she has witnessed firsthand how little training is available in the area of sexual health for healthcare professionals.
“Sex remains a low priority, with very little time devoted to managing sexual problems even in specialty residencies,” said Schover. “I submitted a grant four times before I retired, to provide an online interprofessional training program to encourage oncology teams to do a far better job of assessing and managing sexual problems. I could not get it funded.”
In her webinar, she offered tips for healthcare practitioners who want to learn more about how to address sexual health concerns with their patients, like using simple words that patients will understand and asking open-ended questions in order to engage patients and give them room to expand on their sex life.
Schover suggests posing a question such as: “This treatment will affect your sex life. Tell me a little about your sex life now.”
Sexual side effects after cancer treatment vary from person to person, and also from treatment to treatment. Common side effects for men and women include difficulty reaching climax, pain during sexual intercourse, lower sexual desire and feelings of being less attractive. Men specifically can experience erectile dysfunction and dry orgasm, while women may have vaginal dryness and/or tightness, as well as loss of erotic sensation such as on their breasts following breast cancer treatment.
Sexual dysfunction after cancer can often lead to depression and poor quality of life for both patients and their partners.
According to Schover, oncologists and oncology nurses should provide realistic expectations to patients when they are in the treatment decision-making process.
“Men with prostate cancer are told they are likely to have an 80% chance of having erections good enough for sex after cancer treatment,” Schover says. “But the truth is it’s more like 20 to 25% of men who will have erections like they had at baseline.”
To get more comfortable talking about sex with patients, Schover advises role-playing exercises with colleagues, friends, and family—acting as the healthcare professional and then the patient. When the process is finished, ask for feedback.
Brochures, books, websites and handouts are also good to have on hand for immediate guidance when patient questions do arise. But Schover is hoping for a bigger change rooted in multidisciplinary care and better patient–provider communication to find personalized treatments tailored to each individual’s concerns and needs.
Cancer treatment can impact hormonal cycles, nerves directing blood flow to the genitals, and the pelvic circulatory system itself, she explained. In addition, side effects like prolonged nausea, fatigue, and chronic pain also can disrupt a patient’s sex life.
“Simply to give medical solutions rarely resolves the problems because a person or couple needs to make changes in the sexual relationship to accommodate changes in physical function,” Schover stressed. “That kind of treatment is usually best coming from a trained mental health professional, especially if the couple has issues with communication or conflict.”
Schover wants to make sure that those resources are easily accessible to patients and survivors. Thus, she has created the startup, Will2Love, which offers information on the latest research and treatment, hosts webinars, and provides access to personalized services.
“Sexual health is a right,” concluded Schover, and both oncology professionals and patients need to be assertive in getting the conversation started.
Complete Article HERE!
How a sex worker helps my wife and I maintain good sexual health
So, here we go. We are coming out to the nation. Jenni and I have sex with other people. There, it’s done.
But, lets wind back three decades and place this in context.
It is my first job after leaving school. I’m at the Sydney-based Spastic Centre’s sheltered workshop. It seemed very large to a pimply faced 17-year-old fresh from one of the centre’s two special schools. I found the morning tea and lunch breaks in the cafeteria particular daunting when I was one of about 300 wheelchair users trying to be served and assisted to eat before the bell rings to return to the factory floor.
I had seen Jenni at our hostel over the years and she carried an air of importance, with her father being on the board. I soon found her favourite table in the cafeteria. I would try to race to it each day hoping to sit next to her and, perhaps, share a support worker. The time spent together soon extended beyond the lunch table to include activities other than talking.
The mid-’80s in saw a change in the national disability policies from large residential facilities to much smaller group homes spread throughout communities. I was among the first to be de-institutionalised. While Jenni and I weren’t housed together she frequently visited.
After a long courtship, mostly by correspondence, we married on 1 December 1990 in the small university chapel at Armidale NSW, where I was fortunate enough to be accepted to study. Our Byron Bay honeymoon was so delightful that we returned the following year.
We moved to Canberra in search of employment after my degree and to work towards a second qualification. Together, Jenni and I had to survive a number of ‘homes’ that were less than ideal. One was at an Australian National University residence where the bedroom was so small we had to leave our wheelchairs in the public access hallway. In a later house, the bedrooms were not even big enough to accommodate our bed, so we used the living room as a bedroom.
Notwithstanding these challenges, we were doing remarkably well with support from ACT government-funded home care services. That was until September 1, 2008 when Jenni over-balanced transferring from the bed to her wheelchair. She landed awkwardly and broke bones in her left foot, which weren’t properly diagnosed or treated for several months.
This fall had long-lasting consequences on Jenni’s health generally and on our sex lives. Her prolonged and mostly unsuccessful recovery resulted in Jen having further reduced mobility in and out of bed. It meant we had to take extreme care not to touch or bump her foot. We had been fully independent in bed but after the fall the effort involved became too much. We tried different toys and different positions without joy.
Two years after the fall we were at a point where we had to make a decision to either give up on enjoying sex or to investigate the possibility of allowing a third person into our bed.
We were way too young to stop having sex.
Sex is important in most long-term relationships because it increases the pair-bonding by releasing the ‘love hormone’ oxytocin. There is also scientific evidence to suggest that sex has a range of health benefits associated with our immunity, heart, blood pressure, reduced risk of prostate cancer, pain and stress relief.
In early 2011 we arranged for sex worker, Joanne, to begin working with us. With each visit we had to remind ourselves that she wasn’t there to make ‘love’ to us. Rather, in the same way that our support staff ensure that we remain in good physical health – by showering, feeding, and dressing us – Joanne helps us to maintain good sexual health.
Also in 2011 we successfully approached the ACT government to extend the funding of our disability care support to cover these conjugal support services. In December 2015, the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) agreed that, in our situation, a modest allowance for conjugal support service would be reasonable and necessary.
Jenni and I still enjoy doing a lot of activities together. For instance, we work out at the Spastic Centre’s (now the ‘Cerebral Palsy Alliance’) Canberra gym, challenge each other at online Yahtzee, visit our favourite local cafe for morning coffees, and cuddle up in front of our favourite television shows and movies.
Doubtlessly, sex is critical to all marriages. Our love for one another and shared history means sex is important for our marriage too. And, just as with other activities, we just need the right support to make this part of our life happen.
Complete Article HERE!
The film making us face the idea disabled people have sex
‘Yes We Fuck’ is an uncompromising look at the reality that disabled people have sex lives too. We caught up with director and disability activist Antonio Centeno to find out more
BY Sirin Kale
As a society we’re becoming more accepting of sexuality in all its guises and forms – and rightly so. 2015 could be seen as the year when trans issues finally broke through into the mainstream after decades spent on the margins of society, while more and more women in particular are joining the sexually fluid revolution. And yet for all of our talk, there’s one conversation that we’re not having – about how disabled people have sex.
Spanish director and disability activist Antonio Centeno wants to tackle this prudishness head-on. His film Yes We Fuck (which is co-directed with Raúl de la Morena) is a no-holds barred look at the world of disabled sexuality, with uncompromising visuals (of people having sex) and a strong sense of moral purpose. Centeno shows human intimacy in all its forms, and what strikes you from watching the film is that the issues faced by disabled people when it comes to their sex lives aren’t so dissimilar to those faced by the rest of the population.
Watching the film, which recently showed at the British Film Institute’s Flare festival, at times makes for uncomfortable viewing. You’re discomfited by the fact that the sexuality depicted on our TVs and in popular culture almost uniformly represents one experience: that of heterosexual intimacy between two able-bodied, cis-gendered people.
Yes We Fuck is an uplifting, refreshing corrective to the narrative that disabled people are in some way sexless, made noble by the struggles they undergo to assimilate into a society that is in many ways ableist. The film isn’t perfect – sections are too long, and while Centeno wants to depict the reality of disabled people having sex, at times the camera lingers too long or in a way that feels intrusive. It’s clear that this is very much a passion project from the fledging director, and one which could perhaps have profited from tauter editing. Nonetheless, it’s rare to see a film which so profoundly makes you confront your own prejudices to recognize that we all of us share a common humanity and a common desire to express that humanity through the most natural act of all – the act of fucking, of course.
To find why we need to get on board with the fact that disabled people fuck like the rest of us, Dazed caught up with Centeno at the BFI. Below is the transcript of our conversation, which has been edited for flow and clarity.
Off Limits? The Best Sexual Positions for People with Limited Mobility
Aging brings changes to our physical and emotional states. These changes can have both positive and negative affects when it comes to sexual intimacy. While it’s not a given that desire and frequency of sex decrease as we get older, it may be necessary to accommodate the limited mobility many of us experience over time. Painful joints, decreased flexibility, and physical disabilities can all contribute to restricted mobility. Rather than allow limited mobility to get in the way, we’ve provided illustrated positions to help you and your partner continue to be intimate. Remember that not all positions work for every individual or couple. Do what feels best for you and your partner and pay attention to any discomfort. Read on for our suggestions that appropriate for various conditions.
Complete Article HERE!
Topping As A Disabled Person
By Lyric Seal
People are often surprised when I say that, for me, topping is more vulnerable than bottoming.
I remember going to a sex party with a bunch of other queer people of color, many of them sporting strap ons and saying that they weren’t interested in receiving penetration, but that they would gladly top, as that was an empowering, safer place for them. From multiple gender and racial standpoints, I deeply understand this, but it is not what my body knows. The reasons are even more complicated than perhaps I am ready to admit. But I am going to try.
Even now as I write this, I feel a welling up in my face, under cheek meeting eye. This is tear territory. I want to write you a ferocious little article, a tasty little piece, like me, but topping with a physically and visibly disabled body is a place of uncertainty and fear for me. Luckily, they say I’m brave.
When interviewed by .Mic on the subject of being an “alt/disabled porn performer”, I was asked to speak on the issue of disabled people being desexualized by an ableist society. I told my interviewer that. as a disabled child, I was nonconsensually sexualized and yet also constantly infantilized by people around me. There are many disabled femmes (can I get an AMEN?) who know the complex plight of being a sexy baby in a lover’s or society’s eyes, whether or not we choose it.
Some identify with this; in my personal, intimate sexual life I have a Daddy. I love being topped. I love knowing I have someone wrapped around my finger. I love being taken care of. But I am not only this. I am an adult too.
I have choices. I have desire. And there is a fire in me.
When my own desire and agency tried to creep through the baleen-like filter through which I was understood by minds inside bodies not like mine–able bodied people fed on ableism with narrow understandings what my body was for–I felt like this hunger of mine was monstrous, too big for me to let out or in.
I know all too well that bottoming is not passive; even when we are touched against our will, it takes every fiber of one’s being to receive, or to not receive, psychically or physically. When I am bottoming, submitting, opening to my lover, there is that fire too, that hunger, that capacity for desire. Maybe it’s that I feel I can let loose when I am bottoming. I feel I can be a screaming hole. I feel I can be a possessed banshee. I feel I can be a taken siren/muse. When I trust what I am opening to, I can be so generous.
Perhaps it’s the performance I fear with topping. It reminds me more of dance than of song. It feels more visual. It seems it requires precision. It is only naked, or near a bed, or bench, or car, or miraculously accessible rooftop with all my clothes on, about to have sex with someone who wants me to top them, that I get such stage fright.
Socially, I’m a great top. As a wheelchair user, with a visibly disabled body in other other ways too, with the privileges of being neurotypical with a quick tongue, I learned to make speech my tool, my entry point, my point of connection and flirtation. I don’t even always know when I’m flirting; t’s my comfort place. I like to make people blush! Have since I was a teenager and all my friends were having sex with their boyfriends in private and I was having no sex but coming onto awkward boys in public
If I don’t think someone’s a charming top, I don’t like being hit on by them in an aggressive way. I’m particular about tops. I have the best one now already.
With switchy people, with subs, I’m all about the bait and switch. I’m all about the talking and dancing not leading to anything. I am hung up. I am scared. I have created a locus of control through my social interaction, in which you can view me as powerful for my words, my dancing on my own, my compliments, my insight, my tease. Physically, once we are touching, I am less confident of my abilities, or that my desire will be received, once someone feels/sees how awkward the form. What if I am too slow? Too imprecise? What if I stop for pain or discomfort?
I had a girlfriend once, who encouraged me to practice topping her, which was wonderful, and then she would embarrass me by telling new dates in front of me that I was a “big domme”. Proud parent with bad boundaries much?
It was like she was saying, EVERYONE! NEVE HAS A PERFORMANCE THEY WOULD LIKE TO SHARE! My partner, my daddy, actually does invite me to top him sometimes. And the practice is heart-altering. I become a more well-rounded me. Despite my Picasso body.
When you are learning the dance of how to top someone well, in the way they like, in the way you like it, it can take time and experimentation. It can take translation, modification. It can take making up a whole new way to move and relate to another body from scratch. Especially if you are physically disabled, if your partner is, if you both are.
I have been learning, slowly, that while there are tricks of the trade on how to top or dominate someone safely, there is no rulebook (thank goddess) on what it actually means to top someone. I am learning to take the time I need with my gimp body to top in a way that is true to me.
When you are learning a new dance, you begin slow. In fact, some bodies will only ever be able to replicate a dance slowly, and some do not replicate at all. Fuck replication. This is not to say that there are not disabled people who have topping on lock. I am not one of them! But I’m sassy as hell.
Complete Article HERE!
Price of Intimacy: The Time I Hired a Sex Worker
“Though I’d been learning to embrace my life in a wheelchair—a result of cerebral palsy—going without touch, or even access to my own body, was taking a toll.”
By Andrew Gurza
I’d never considered the price of intimacy until I hired a sex worker. Though I’d been learning to embrace my life in a wheelchair—a result of cerebral palsy—going without touch, or even access to my own body, was taking a toll. Even so, I didn’t come to my decision lightly. I was worried about shame, stigma, and fear, and concerned I’d pay for time and still not get what I needed. I spent weeks quieting the voices in my head telling me that using the services of a sex worker was not a good idea. Would this be the only way I could find intimacy? Would someone even want to do this with me, or would he only view it as a charitable opportunity to help a cripple? Despite all these questions, I sat in my apartment reflecting on my nearly year-long celibacy. It was time to take care of myself.
After scouring site after site with rows and rows of horny men holding their hard-ons, I found David. His smile was warm, inviting, and intriguingly devious all at once. He was older than me, in his mid-40s, and his photos showed off a powerful body, a strong charisma, and an undeniable charm. I’d often felt physically invisible within the mainstream LGBT community, but David possessed everything I longed for.
I sent David a cursory email, telling him that I was interested in using his services, but that I had never done this before, that I was nervous. I also casually explained as best I could that I lived with a disability and used a chair. He emailed back some hours later, letting me know that he had experience working with clients with disabilities. David wrote bluntly: “If I’m unsure of something, I’ll just ask.” It was a refreshing change from all the guys who tripped and tumbled over their discomfort.
We ironed out the logistics—a time, a location, a fee. Knowing that my sexuality would be broken down into a succinct session was daunting, and it took away from the fantasy and spontaneity I had dreamed of. But this, perhaps, was the cost of getting what I wanted, what I needed. David gently reminded me that I was paying for his time, and whatever happened happened. On our very last exchange, just a day before we’d meet, he called and asked me a simple question, though one I have never been asked before: “What do you want?”
Shyly and nervously I outlined my likes and dislikes as well as my abilities. I wanted kissing. I craved body contact. I couldn’t bottom for him because of my spasticity and tight muscles. I’d need help undressing and being put in bed. I paused, smiled. My needs were at the forefront.
On a rainy, blustery Saturday afternoon, my iPhone blinked with the message that David was in my lobby. I looked at myself in the mirror: a long-sleeve shirt, cozy winter sweats, a baseball cap. I headed downstairs in the elevator. When the door opened, I recognized him immediately. “Hey there! How are you?” he said, giving me a big hug as if we were long-lost friends. I kept watching him, in part because I still couldn’t believe this was happening, and because he looked really good in those tight blue jeans and that leather jacket.
A sexy man was in my house. We made small talk, waiting for someone to strike. He led himself into my bedroom and asked me about the transfer device I use to get into bed. I told him he would have to lift my legs while I held on to two gymnastic rings fastened to a hydraulic lift in my ceiling. I continued babbling, watching him get closer to me, taking off his coat, revealing a tank top and thick, muscled arms. He then straddled my chair, bent down, and kissed me. As I reached and pawed at him—my limbs flailing, not wanting to miss an inch—he stopped me. He looked into my eyes, past the rejection and pain caused by other lovers, and spoke with a firm honesty. “It’s OK.”
David drank in my disability and I dared not stop him. He lifted me out of my chair and held me in his arms. He grabbed me, cradled me, and kissed me. I curled up into him so he could feel the scars, curves, rods, and contractures that inform my disability. I felt sexy. He took off my shirt, and together we revealed my skin. As he moved down my body, and took off my pants and shoes, I worried what he would do when he saw my leg bag and my toes, which curled into each other. But David made this act of care exciting and real for me. When I was finally naked with him on the bed—my body going into spastic fits as a result of CP—I started to tense even more as I neared climax. In a piercing moment of release, I felt my two identities collide: queer and crippled came together in a surge of pure, uncomplicated pleasure.
The afterglow was setting in as David lay beside me. He held me tight and kissed my forehead. He told me that I was handsome, and as I looked at his arms wrapped around my spindly legs, I felt he meant it. Moments passed and he placed me in my chair, planting one last soft kiss on my lips before ending our session and saying goodbye. As I sat alone, my adrenaline became diluted by a calming bliss. I could not shame this experience because it marked a passage greater than a fleeting carnal exchange. It was the start of my own physical assertion. I would not settle for an affectionless existence, and I had to strive to honor what I wanted as a seated, but sexually alive, man. I finally had someone see me, and regardless of the cost, I finally showed myself to someone else.
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