Category: sex and disability
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Weekend Reading: When shopping for sex toys is a radical act.
The Internet is giant! It’s a library that will never get full (at least, I hope it won’t) and has decades of material. Most of us can barely get through news (fake or not) and opinions posted each day, let alone find the gems of the past. This week’s post is from Dave Hingsburger, published…
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Your Sexual Choices Shouldn’t Belong to Anyone Except You
It happens when parents send their gay children to “conversion therapy” to “turn them straight.” It happens when doctors withhold sexual health information, or sterilize a patient without that patient’s informed consent. It happens when the medical establishment performs medically unnecessary surgeries on babies because their genitals and other sex characteristics don’t match what medical…
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The Erasure of Sexuality in the Health Care System
When was the last time you felt comfortable asking about your sexual health, or mentioning your sexual relationship, at the doctor’s office? Sexuality is always a potential part of healthcare – we don’t usually leave our feelings, our relationships, our reproductive choices or experiences, and all the other pieces that can be part of our…
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The Kylie Jenner Photo Shoot Is Confused about Sex and Disability Tropes
We need to talk about the fact that Kylie Jenner, a conventionally beautiful able-bodied woman who fits societal standards of beauty in almost every way is allowed to be sexy and edgy in a wheelchair, when that reality is so often denied to many wheelchair using women. We need to talk about the fact that…
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Ready, Sexy, Able Voices: Kaleigh Trace
Writer and sex educator Kaleigh Trace “works with words and dildos.” I first met Kaleigh when she presented at the Guelph Sexuality Confrence on disability, desirability, and resistance. She’s thoughtful and charmingly funny in person, as well as an ace presenter. She’s also a refreshing voice in the sex and disability field, with lots of…
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Asexuality, Poetry, and Maternal Identity: Breaking silences Day 1
Thoughts and observations from day one of Breaking Silences, Wright State University’s first sex and disability conference. I opted for participating in discussions over taking notes, so these session summaries are just that, summaries of the content and my reactions to it. Bringing (A)Sexy Back: Exploring Disability and Asexuality Cara Liebowitz of That Crazy Crippled…
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Ready, Sexy, Able Voices: Interview with Sexologist Bethany Stevens
I first met Bethany Stevens at American University, where we were both speaking on the Exquisite, Beauty is Disability ableism awareness panel. Right away I noticed her confidence and passion (not to mention her brilliant mind that didn’t seem to miss a thing) and have been following her work for the past three years. Bethany…
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Book Review: Hot, Wet, and Shaking by Kaleigh Trace
Honesty, self-awareness, a wicked sense of humour, an unflinching sense of the ridiculous. You generally need all of these to be able to talk as candidly about your sex life as Kaleigh Trace has done in Hot, Wet, and Shaking: How I Learned to Talk About Sex. These essays are about a lot more than…
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How do disabled people have sex, anyway?
Can we all agree that asking random people on the street (or in the mall, or anywhere, really) about their sex life is just plain creepy? People with disabilities are asked, much more often than you’d think, how, or if, we have sex. No, really, this happens all the time. If it’s not about sex…
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Ready, Sexy, Able July News Round-Up
Welcome to the Ready, Sexy, Able news round-up for July. This month we have news and opinions from all over the world, about everything from sexual health rights for disabled people to the changes that can happen in a relationship after disability. I have also included some sex education articles that aren’t disability-specific, as well…