ABSTRACT
Attitudes to the sexuality of people with intellectual disabilities have changed considerably over the years (Kempton and Kahn, 1991; McCarthy, 1999). At the turn of the twentieth century, during the eugenics era, the general population seemed to think that people with intellectual disabilities were either asexual eternal children (despite their physical development) or risky oversexed individuals who were liable to reproduce to excess, commit crimes and be a risk to the rest of society. Thus, as McCarthy (1999: 53) says, two contradictory beliefs were held: that society needed protection from the sexuality of people with ID and that people with ID needed protection from sex in society.
