By Tuppy Owens
Sex is one of the most powerful human drives and those with disabilities share that drive. Some may therefore feel angry and resentful if this drive is ignored and sexual expression is denied to them.
The sexual needs of people with disabilities are exactly same as anyone else: to enjoy masturbation, sexual experimentation, and to enjoy their kind of sex with the gender/s of their choice. They definitely need privacy, and they may also need double beds, hoists, bedside rails, firm support cushions, sex toys, porn, massage, striptease or sexual services. Some even need support to enjoy even the most basic sexual pleasure such as masturbation, for example those with athetoid cerebral palsy, quadriplegics, those with short arms and people lacking movement or strength in their hands or arms.
Failing to recognise service users as sexual beings confirms to them that their bodies are simply a part of them which experiences pain and causes them inconvenience and embarrassment. Some even feel their bodies don’t belong to them. They may need support to gain body confidence, acceptance and pride.
Once a little sexual confidence is achieved, they may be ready for sex: perhaps first with a professional to learn what their bodies are capable of and how to please a partner. They may need support to access services (for example, though the TLC website which provides opportunities, advice and support to disabled adults so they can find appropriate sexual and therapeutic services). Offering such support is not against the law. In fact, it is discriminatory to a disabled person not to support them to enjoy what others enjoy in the privacy of their own homes.
They may need a little support then to start dating. OnlineDatingExperts provides a good guide and there are clubs and special interest groups and online forums. The club I set up, Outsiders, provides peer support and dating in a secure online clubhouse. One of our patrons gave this advice to disabled men who feel nervous about approaching a woman:
“Finding a lover/partner is all about maximising circumstance: make them laugh; be very polite, and figure out what they want and give it to them. A wheelchair does not come into the equation. Few say they want someone to climb Everest with them. Usually, they want respect, appreciation, someone to listen, but overall the best aphrodisiac is laughter. Make her/him feel like the centre of the universe.”
Outsiders has been thriving for 34 years, providing socially and physically disabled people with support as well as safe dating opportunities at both social events and online, yet some disabled people are still too afraid to join up. Stars in the Sky (a website for friendship and dating for people with learning disabilities) and clubs such as Beautiful Octopus are designed for learning disabled people but there are sadly no dating clubs for people with mental health problems and acquired brain injury.
As you can imagine, when disabled people start to enjoy sexual pleasure, they become much happier and will be far easier and more delightful to work with. You will see the looks of joy on their faces as they find sexual happiness and perhaps fall in love.
One gay disabled man who found mutual love with a man he was having wild sex with, spoke of his delight that he’d found someone to care for (mentally not physically) after having been cared for all his life. However impaired, disabled people find ingenious ways to give pleasure to another human being and many settle down in relationships.
Tuppy Owens is the founder of Outsiders, a group providing peer support and dating opportunities for physically and socially disabled people. She also set up the Sexual Health and Disability Alliance (SHADA) for health and social care professionals. She has worked with and supported disabled people with their sexual lives for over 35 years.
Her book Supporting Disabled People with their Sexual Lives is published by Jessica Kingsley this month (November 2014).
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No one has the right to use another person for sex if that person does not want it. Prostituted women and women who are filmed whilst being prostituted often have no choice. Many of them are sucked into the life whilst still in their teens. PTSD is more prevalent among prostituted women than among soldiers. It is also illegal to pay for sex if the woman/man involved has been trafficked and, here’s the kicker, you can’t tell.
The presumption that disabled people require assistance of this kind to have a sex life, or indeed that sex is imperative to have any kind of successful life is a nonsense.The implication is that disabled people don’t already have sex lives. They do. No one has the right to sex and many people live without it, very happily.
The procuring of another person for sexual services, for a person with disabilities, by a third party puts the person in a very vulnerable position. Carer’s, often on minimum wages are being asked to behave as pimps. I am aware of a young woman who was asked to stand outside the door of a client while he had sex with a prostitute because the man was known to be violent. Luckily the staff member and the prostituted woman were both ok.
Of course I am in no way promoting the idea that people with disabilities should not have relationships, including all the possible human relationships there are. Just that buying another human being should not be part of it….not just for people with disabilities but for everyone.
Excellent response from Ali Bee. Of course disabled people should be recognised as sexual beings but social care staff must also recognise the rights of sex workers when considering assisting a person to buy sex. Ok, dating agencies and the like are the norm to assist disabled people in finding a date or a longer term partner. Fine. Great. But this article also alluded to procuring sex. It’s prostitution. It’s illegal and hardly ethical is it??
Sexual procurement is persuading or forcing someone into prostitution. My article simply suggests that some disabled people may benefit from seeing escorts. I am talking about escort who specialise in disabled clients and who love their work, and do it out of choice. Such escorts don’t appreciate other people making assumptions about them and their choice of work – and they are rarely asked what they think! Pease don’t make assumptions. I have lawyers advising me, I listen to the sex workers, trust me.