Enabling Sex for the Disabled.

international | gender and sexuality | opinion/analysis

Sunday September 03, 2006 16:58

by sofia

Professional sexual services for the disabled are well established in several EU states including Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark & Sweden. Their development as part of a long-term full recovery strategy & therapy for adults who had lost mobility due to accidents soon expanded to addressing questions of "how do parents of disabled children be that disability mental or physical facilitate full sexual development & maturity?"
The UK first saw co-habitation of young adults with Downes Syndrome with minimal input by either parents or social services in the early 90's. And now the Swiss group "FABS" has started the ball rolling in the Alpine country to provide a "full service" which goes beyond "erotic touching" to full sexual intercourse.

Dr Steven Hawkings provoked consternation at the revealation of his married life & its problems. How could so great a man be so normal?

Detractors of the two schemes outlined above claim that training social workers to engage in sexual activity is prostitution "plain & simple" whilst others think the idea of adults with downes syndrome being allowed & encouraged to form lasting & phsyically fulfilling relationships "dangerous".

Morally & socially. For the reason that at present in Germany, the UK and Sweden female mentally handicapped individuals engaging in these co-habitation options are sterilised before hand.

This is obviously a topic which demands debate. & one which has interested me for almost 20 years. I was lucky enough to work the Ashdown Eurythemy group, a group who tour the UK offering Steiner Eurythemic performance training and opportunities to young adults with serious mental disabilities. I was lastingly touched by the strength of friendships these performances enabled, and the romanticism I witnessed between young adults, a romanticism which is for the moment in Ireland

" a love that dare not speak it's name

Ireland's "disablity" campaigners such as the MEP Kathy Sinnott (as proponents of a far right contraceptive & abortion agenda) have never touched such issues & i suspect are on the "other side" of this "equality issue". But one thing is certain, all parents ought see their children grow to maturity & that includes sexual fulfillment. The notion of excluding disabled children from an area of vital importance as was usual in the past & in the present of Ireland is.... "anachronistic" & compounds the cruelty of marginalisation.

I apologise that most of these links are in German, but English ones & specific cases including one Irish instance will appear in the comments.

The swiss group:-
http://fabs-online.ch/
The home site of psychotherapist Aiha Zemp who has long championed such sexual equality issues
http://aiha-zemp.com/en/home

& here's a lot more links which Ms Zemp likes people to look @
which offer additional information on subjects important to her: self-determined life, living and disability, critical information about gene and reproduction technology, gender research, power/powerlessness and art.

Women and disability

avanti donne www.behindertefrauen.ch
Bundes organisationsstelle behinderte frauen www.behindertefrauen.org
HANDIFEM www.ortegalink.com/
Zentrum für Selbstbestimmtes Leben: www.zslschweiz.ch
Independentliving: http://www.independentliving.org
http://www.bifos.org
Agile, Behinderten-Selbsthilfe Schweiz: www.agile.ch
Bizeps- Zentrum für selbst bestimmtes Leben: www.auva.sozvers.at/themen/Linklistneu.htm
People first: http://www.peoplefirst.de
Nogerete: www.expage.com/page/nogerete
Basler Appell: www.baslerappell.ch
Blauen-Institut: www.blauen-institut.ch
Gen-ethisches Netzwerk e.V. www.gen-ethisches-netzwerk.de
Gender research
Genderlink: www.genderlink.com
Power/Powerlessness
Mariella Mehr: www.mariellamehr.com