Category: sexuality and disability
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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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Sexual Health And Disability: Are we afraid to talk about it?
There’s something we’re not talking about. There’s something the news articles and personal essays, the films and poetry, the sexy photo spreads and opinion pieces about sex and disability are leaving out – safer sex and sexual health. To be fair, most mainstream discussions of sex and sexuality aren’t talking about sexual health either, at…
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Sexuality Attitudes, Disability Myths, and Shopping For Sex Toys
Of the five sex toy stores I’ve personally visited over the past 15 years, only one had a flat entrance. Of those five, only three had employees who didn’t respond to me as a visibly disabled person with obvious anxiety, and, in one case, hostility. — Sex toys – It’s one of the first things…
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2015: The year sex and disability voices were louder and prouder than ever.
2015 really does feel like it was a turning point – no, a launching pad – for sex and disability conversations. Here’s just a small sampling: Mainstream media outlets approached sex and disability in ways they rarely have before, including coverage from the CBC, Cosmo, The atlantic, and The Sydney Morning Herald. Toronto saw its…
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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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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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Disability, Desirability, and Resistance
Last month I attended the 37th Annual Guelph Sexuality Conference. The lineup was amazing, and I learned so much – about consent, about community-based research with youth who have HIV, about how to use gender-neutral language to talk about sexuality and relationships – and about sexuality and disability. Kaleigh Trace presented Desirability as Resistance: Reading…