A Very Public Private Matter: A Case Study of the Post-Institutional Control of Disabled Sexuality

Abstract

Introduction This article explores how sexuality is conceptualised and managed in a Spanish residential care unit for recently injured people. The institution operates under the banner of independent living, a key belief of the international disabled people’s movement, which champions self-determination, autonomy, and control over their support. Methods A focused ethnography was conducted between September 2021 and February 2022, with semi-structured interviews and participant observations with the residential care unit’s service users (n = 13), staff (n = 12), and managers (n = 7). Results Managers and staff organise the support in ways that prevent service users’ autonomy, privacy, and intimacy, contrary to the independent living philosophy. Service users’ behaviour, relationships, and whereabouts are constantly monitored and controlled in a gendered, desexualising manner. When sexuality is discussed, it often concerns sexual assistance—a service offered by some organisations in Spain—effectively redirecting attention to a therapeutic approach and shifting focus away from institutional responsibilities towards an individual (male) issue. Conclusions Critical disability studies and organisational theory inform an analysis that finds the institutional policy for managing sexuality is ‘strategic ignorance’: sexuality is simultaneously silenced and controlled in the name of professionalism. This post-institutional way of organising disability services is highly gendered and desexualising, resulting in ‘anti-independence’. Policy Implications Residential care managers and staff should be trained to work ethically and professionally with sexual rights. Training should be based on the independent living philosophy, which empowers disabled people to take control over their lives.