The Ultimate Guide to Sex and Disability Read Online Free PDF

sharing that identity with the important people in your world. You are boldly stating "This is who I am, here and now, and it's not worth it for me to pretend or 'pass' anymore."
    The ways that mainstream heterosexual society forces people to pass (that is, pretend to be heterosexual in public) are similar to the ways in which nondisabled society marginalizes the rest of us. Mainstream, nondisabled society has very specific rules for living with a disability.
    After my accident my friends rallied around and visited me in the hospital, sent flowers, all that stuff. After a while though, I think they just wanted me to get on with things; it was like the disability was yesterday's news. I had done the disabled thing, now I could just stop being so boring and drop it. It wasn't like I talked about it all the time, or ignored their needs, but they just wanted it to be a total nonissue, which it could not be, mainly because of access issues and stuff.
    Coming out to others about your disability is, in part, about holding onto your right to take care of your own body and to maintain a close connection to it. Knowing when you get tired, realizing your limits, sensing when you're aroused by even the slightest physical cue—all are things that come with practice and are gifts that many others don't have. It's often assumed that disability creates a split between a person and their body because of the things they "lost." While this may happen to some, for many of us it's more true that learning to live with our disabilities brings us closer to our bodies.

    DESIRE AND SELF-ESTEEM • 23
    How I feel about my body greatly affects my sexuality and how I feel about my body is that it is great! I don't have a traditional body but I have one that I am intimate with and one that has given me many moments of pleasure. I love my body! I think of myself as sexy and, therefore, others do too. I accent the positive and deempha-size the negative. The only time I've had trouble with my image of my body is when I have been unfortunate enough to allow a jerk to impact the way I feel about myself; however, I've always rebounded from those moments of embarrassment, though sometimes it's taken a while to build the ego back up. Chronic pain sometimes makes it hard to love my body because it makes me hurt, but even then, I can usually find nice ways to treat myself and make the body feel good.
    Our society tends to define people as single issues. So our disabilities may become who we are to some people, rather than just one aspect of our lives. Everything about us is blamed on or credited to the disability. Sexually, this can have devastating consequences. We may be viewed as "heroic angels" who are too good to have sex, or as helpless victims, unable to do anything, especially have good sex.
    My disability is very visible, but I can cover up the physical aspects of my disability sitting on a stool or a regular chair. The fact that I try to cover up my disability shows I do feel insecure about it. When I am on my knees people tend to put two and two together and I get praise for my "courage." But sometimes I just want to hear, "you have a nice smile, I like your body, and man can you party." Hearing about my courage and inspirational ability to meet my challenges becomes repetitive. I guess I want my disability to be set upon the back burner. But most of the time people seem to place it in the front.
    I think my disability affects my self-esteem. I am about to graduate from college and possibly go to law school, which is something that many people whether or not they are disabled never do, but with

    all my achievements I still often feel as if other people don't really see those accomplishments because I am in a wheelchair.
    It's all connected for me. I see myself as very sexual, and I think this makes me feel good about myself. My positive feelings about myself are pretty obvious, I think, so then other people see me as sexual and interesting and see my