ABSTRACT

This handbook provides a much-needed holistic overview of disability and sexuality research and scholarship. With authors from a wide range of disciplines and representing a diversity of nationalities, it provides a multi-perspectival view that fully captures the diversity of issues and outlooks.

Organised into six parts, the contributors explore long-standing issues such as the psychological, interpersonal, social, political and cultural barriers to sexual access that disabled people face and their struggle for sexual rights and participation. The volume also engages issues that have been on the periphery of the discourse, such as sexual accommodations and support aimed at facilitating disabled people's sexual well-being; the socio-sexual tensions confronting disabled people with intersecting stigmatised identities such as LGBTBI or asexual; and the sexual concerns of disabled people in the Global South. It interrogates disability and sexuality from diverse perspectives, from more traditional psychological and sociological models, to various subversive and post-theoretical perspectives and queer theory. This handbook examines the cutting-edge, and sometimes ethically contentious, concerns that have been repressed in the field.

With current, international and comprehensive content, this book is essential reading for students, academics and researchers in the areas of disability, gender and sexuality, as well as applied disciplines such as healthcare practitioners, counsellors, psychology trainees and social workers.

part |36 pages

Introduction

chapter |34 pages

Introduction

Contextualising disability and sexuality studies

part I|82 pages

Theoretical frames and intersections

chapter 1|14 pages

Theorising disabled people’s sexual, intimate, and erotic lives

Current theories for disability and sexuality

chapter 2|15 pages

Theoretical developments

Queer theory meets crip theory

chapter 4|12 pages

A critical rethinking of sexuality and dementia

A prolegomenon to future work in critical dementia studies and critical disability studies

chapter 5|9 pages

Combating old ideas and building identity

Sexual identity development in people with disabilities

chapter 6|13 pages

Sexuality and disability in Brazil

Contributions to the promotion of agency and social justice

part II|50 pages

Subjugated histories and negotiating traditional discourses

chapter 8|12 pages

Disability rights through reproductive justice

Eugenic legacies in the abortion wars

chapter 9|14 pages

Sexuality and the disregard of lived reality

The sexual abuse of children and young people with disabilities

chapter 10|11 pages

Sexuality and physical disability

Perspectives and practice within Orthodox Judaism

part III|64 pages

Politics, policies and legal frames across the world

chapter 13|11 pages

“Tick the straight box”

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT+) people with intellectual disabilities in the UK

part IV|72 pages

Representation, performance and media

chapter 16|14 pages

Missing in action

Desire, dwarfism and getting it on/off/up—a critique and extension of disability aesthetics

chapter 18|13 pages

Dynamics of disability and sexuality

Some African literary representations

chapter 19|15 pages

Flaunting towards otherwise

Queercrip porn, access intimacy and leaving evidence

part V|98 pages

Sexual narratives and (inter)personal perspectives

chapter 22|16 pages

Flowing desires underneath the chastity belt

Sexual re-exploration journeys of women with changed bodies

chapter 23|11 pages

(Il)licit sex among PWDs in Trinidad and Tobago

Sexual negotiation or compromise?

chapter 25|12 pages

Disability and asexuality?

chapter 26|13 pages

Through a personal lens

A participatory action research project challenging myths of physical disability and sexuality in South Africa

chapter 27|12 pages

“That’s my story”

Transforming sexuality education by, for and with people with intellectual disabilities

part VI|100 pages

Accommodation, support and sexual well-being

chapter 30|17 pages

Paid sexual services for people with disability

Exploring the range of modalities offered throughout the world

chapter 33|14 pages

Disability and social work

Partnerships to promote sexual well-being