ABSTRACT
To start with what this chapter is not: it is not a chapter about sexual dysfunction and psychosexual interventions. It is also not a chapter that lists speci®c diseases, categories of mental illness or sensory and physical impairments and how sex relates to these. Other books have specialised in these areas in more depth and will be mentioned through this chapter. What this chapter considers is how sex and sexuality interact with the lives of individuals who do not ®t within the social `norm' of good health. This social norm is that which is portrayed whenever sex or sexuality is used in advertising or ®lms: it belongs to those who are ®t, young, healthy, ablebodied, mentally well, high-achievers (how else could they afford to purchase the designer product being sold with the help of their bodies?). This chapter considers commonalities in issues of sex and sexuality for people who ®t outside this box and suggests interventions at both the individual and community level, i.e. to the environments that impose on people's sexuality (e.g. ward or residential settings).
