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Sex and disability

The title of this book should clearly announce what it is about, two subjects brought together that can conjure many thoughts and raise many questions. This is not the first book about sex and disability and not the first to consider sexuality from a social, theoretical and political perspective. In 1987, and later in 1993, Ann Craft began to talk about the sexual rights of people with an intellectual disability and in 1996 Tom Shakespeare, Kath Gillespie-Sells and David Davies wrote The sexual politics of disability (Cassell). These truly groundbreaking books did a great deal to progress thinking and practice that supported people with a disability to be seen as being sexual and to live sexual lives. However, there is still much thinking and action needed to continue this cause. The question I raise in relation to this need and the present book is does it or can it progress thinking and action to support sexual self determination for people with a disability and the social change needed to enable this? Perhaps this was not the aim of the authors and editors. The introduction suggests there might be a more personal aim for the editors: to determine where they are positioned in relation to sexuality and disability personally. Whilst reflection of this nature is worthwhile perhaps for the authors, it does not add a great deal for the reader – and for this reader it was frustrating. There are many real and evidenced issues and ideas that do need to be considered in a book about sex and disability. One of these is addressed in this collection of essays. The chapter by Michel Desjardins on the forced sterilisation of people with an intellectual disability is well researched, theoretically underpinned and very well written. It highlights the ongoing struggle between rights and practice for this group of people with a disability who are most at risk of not being seen as, or supported to be, sexually self-determining. Whilst sexual rights may not be the only issue for people with a disability, this chapter reminds us that they are still significant and we do need to think more about the contradictions that are occurring even within a more informed world that has perhaps begun to accept that disability does not mean unable or unhuman. Much of this book, however, does not engage with the topic of sex and disability in a way that informs the reader about the issues as they are lived by people with a disability. Russell Shuttleworth’s chapter is an exception. In his chapter, based on his ethnographic work with men with physical disabilities in the 1990s in the USA, he introduces the reader to the men he did his research with and their thoughts and experiences about sex, sexuality and intimacy in their lives. Most importantly, he reminds us that whilst it is important to continue a theoretical consideration of sex and disability and cultural transformation these aims are ‘far removed from most disabled people’s immediate concerns’ (66). He tells us through the insights of the men that their aspirations were more practical and immediate – to be able to have sexually intimate relations.