Disabled Sporting Bodies as Sexual Beings

‘I am proud of my back’: an ethnographic study of the motivations and meanings of body modification as identity work among athletes with spinal cord injury

“…Disabled bodies are often portrayed as non-gendered and asexual (Sparkes, Brighton and Inckle, 2014). Acting against this, tattoos can operate to reassert and confirm masculine and feminine identities in specifically sexual ways, as indeed tattoos often do for ablebodied men and women.…”

Corpos Transviados, Corpos Falhados: A Arte Queer Do Fracasso No Desporto

“…Pessoas com deficiência são remetidas ou para o abandono desportivo ou para o desporto adaptado, algo que não seria necessariamente negativo se o desporto adaptado fosse tratado com o mesmo valor que o desporto para homens é, e tornado acessível a toda gente, nomeadamente em termos geográficos já que para quem mora longe das grandes cidades tem dificuldade em encontrar opções de clubes com modalidades adaptadas. A este respeito, estudos mostram que pessoas que nunca praticaram desporto encontraram aí uma nova forma de vida que lhes trouxe autoestima tanto na sua auto-perceção estética como relacional (Sparkes et al, 2014).…”

Bodies Matter: Professional Bodies and Embodiment in Institutional Sport Contexts

“…Sport is a context where the use of queer theory could be useful because both heteronormativity and other practices of inequalities play a dominant role for both males and females, albeit in different ways (for examples of queering of binary structures in sport, see Tamburrini, 2014; Torsson, 2013, and of queering intersections between disability, sexuality, and sport, see Sparkes et al, 2014). The queering of bodies and embodiment of professionals working in sport has rarely been addressed in the literature.…”

“…A queer approach therefore focuses on deconstructing and disrupting what are common sense binaries and identities in different contexts (e.g., Bendl, Fleischmann, & Walenta, 2008 ; Caudwell, 2009 , 2014 ; King, 2008 ; Sykes, 2006 ). This deconstruction can not only include gender and sexuality but also be used to interrogate other categories, for example, pertaining to race, ethnicity, (dis)ability and body size and shape (e.g., Sparkes, Brighton, & Inckle, 2014 ; Sykes & McPhail, 2008 ; Van Amsterdam, 2013 ).…”

“…Such findings also suggest that use of queer theory should not be confined to the experiences of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders, and nonbinary individuals, but should be used to explore how heteronormativity and other embodied social categorizations are maintained and disrupted in organizational practice (see, for example, Cherney & Lindemann, 2014 ). Sport is a context where the use of queer theory could be useful because both heteronormativity and other practices of inequalities play a dominant role for both males and females, albeit in different ways (for examples of queering of binary structures in sport, see Tamburrini, 2014 ; Torsson, 2013 , and of queering intersections between disability, sexuality, and sport, see Sparkes et al, 2014 ). The queering of bodies and embodiment of professionals working in sport has rarely been addressed in the literature.…”