The Disability Sex Rights Movement

For the past several decades the disability movement has been an active part of intersectionality. The modern disability movement “draws a distinction between physical impairment and disability” (Wentzell 371). It focuses on the social and cultural framing of disability rather than the medicalization of different impairment conditions. The disability movement is the parent movement to the disability sex rights movement. The disability sex rights movement addresses the “psychosocial, sociocultural, historical, and political influences on the sexual self-definition and sexual expression of individuals within the disabled community” (Wentzell 371). There are numerous stereotypes regarding people with disabilities and what activities they should …show more content…
They may also be characterized as bring “incapable of giving or receiving physical pleasure” (Hershey 472). The fact of the matter is that women with disabilities are generally as sexual as other adults. However, the cultural taboo of sexuality and disability causes problems for women with disabilities who wish to engage in sexual acts. To begin with, the negative messages that women with disabilities receive regarding their sexualities translate into “difficulty with dating, decreased likelihood of marriage, and higher divorce rates” (Hershey 472). Furthermore, the prevailing asexuality myth limits these women’s access to reproductive health information. Even trained healthcare providers neglect to ask their disabled patients about their sexual lives and screen for problems including STIs and unwanted pregnancies (Hershey …show more content…
The leader of the disability sex rights movement, Barbara Waxman, called for “material changes in medical practice and government policy around sexuality, sexual health, and reproductive issues” (Wentzell 371). In order to ensure safety for women with disabilities, there must be some limited institutional intervention regarding sexuality to prevent sexual exploitation and assault. However, by using a disability rights framework to critique cultural assumptions of disability and sex, disability sex rights activists work to change society’s views of sexuality and disability, rather than trying to change the disabled woman’s expression of her sexuality. Disability sex rights activists call for the recognition of “the rich and creative array of noncoital sexual behaviors and expressive styles that persons with disabilities have developed without professional guidance” (Wentzell 371) as a legitimate expression of sexuality. They call for a reframing of the definition of sex as something more or different than “penetrative intercourse” (Wentzell