As the Beatles once said, “All you need is love. All you need is love, love, love.” Love is so hard to find even if you don’t have any disabilities. It is nearly impossible to find love for young adults or adults with disabilities. If you manage to, you are lucky.
Let’s chat about sex
Let us talk about SEX! Okay, may I ask you this: Do you enjoy sex? Now, let me ask you: Do you think adults with disabilities enjoy sex? To be frank, YES, we sure do! I believe disabled people should have a healthy sex life. They have sexual needs, just like you do. This subject always hits hard. I do enjoy having sex, but no able-bodied man wants to touch me. The few who do are lousy guys only out to use me like a toy. The sad part is that I might never know what “great sex” is. Yet I want to ensure that young, disabled adults and, in fact, all adults with a disability can have a good sexual experience.
Sex workers and people with CP
Prostitution is the world’s oldest profession. Why do we deny the needs of our adult sons and daughters with CP while we turn a blind eye to our husband that sometimes goes out to a strip bar? Really, this is messed up thinking, to me. The last time that I looked, sex falls right under the category of health. We have all kinds of services that address other areas of health, like occupational therapy, physical therapy, and speech therapy.
Sexual health and healthcare
Did you know that healthcare covers abortions? I find this so shocking. This is wrong on so many levels that I don’t even know where to begin. We are killing young souls that cost 350 to 2,000 dollars instead of letting disabled adults feel the joy of an orgasm? In the Netherlands, they have “sex care”, and they report the following. Studies have shown that people who have sex are usually happy and less frustrated. Every human being needs physical touch and intimacy, whether they are disabled or not. What if healthcare were to cover sex care and not abortion? Why not? Adults with a disability such as autism, cerebral palsy, or Down syndrome, no matter what their mindset is, need sex, just like everyone else. I am not talking about rape here.
My mindset
To me, sex is just something I see in the movies, on T.V., and in books. It is much the same as Santa Clause. Why not let sex workers work with adults with disabilities, make a connection before having sex, like any therapy?
Go and see the movie The Sessions. It is based on the article On Seeing a Sex Surrogate by Mark O’Brien, a poet paralyzed from the neck down due to polio, who hired a sex surrogate to lose his virginity. This is something I relate to strongly because I did, in fact, hire a sex surrogate to lose my virginity to because I wanted my very first time to be safe. However, I read that a national study reported that 70% of people with disabilities that were surveyed reported that they had been sexually abused. That made me call it off.
I ended up losing it over a fast, one-hour session at Motel 6 to someone I never knew. I view this as one of my many mistakes.
Soulmates but can’t act on it
At least Romero and Juliette ran off to make love. This story is like Romero and Juliette, but without the death. I once knew a fantastic couple that loved each other. Their names were Jake and Julie. Jake and Julie each had a disability. Each lived at home, still with their parents. They had been together for over ten years and wanted to get married. Jake’s dad was a bible beater that did not want them to get married for some unknown reason. I should mention, both Jake and Julie were over the age of 40. It makes me sad to see my friends playing kindergarten games and such at nights, knowing that we don’t let them explorer the wonders of making love. If sex care was something we practiced here, I bet they would help Jake and Julie be sexual with each other. WHERE IN THE LAW OR THE BIBLE DOES IT SAY THAT PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES CANNOT HAVE SEX?
I want to say THANK YOU SO DEARLY to the APA Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct–their ethics code– that keep me from making love with the man I love and was saving myself for years. That rule still hurts me. It’s like someone kicked me in the heart. I was in love with Elwin and Elwin loved me back. Were we Soulmates? It sure did feel like it. We wanted to spend the night in a 5-star hotel together, making beautiful love. Yet with a heavy heart, I must admit that Elwin and I never made it to our bed of roses. I still live with this pain, and I shall until my ending day. I know if I did make love to the man that I dearly love, then my outlook on sex would be different.
Written by: Amanda Fino
