Yes, we fuck! Challenging the misfit sexual body through disabled women’s narratives

Abstract

Southern European society has been described in sociological literature as ableist, patriarchal and male-oriented. Under such conditions, many disabled women face multiple oppressions on grounds of gender, disability, class, age, sexual orientation, 'race' and ethnicity. The social construction of the impaired body as passive and dependent is conducive to a process of desexualization, presenting disabled people as inadequate for a full intimate life. The dominant biomedical model reinforces this process. This article draws on selected works in feminist disability studies to argue that rather than a body which is unfit, or does not fit, the 'misfit' is instead a cultural failure in accommodating and cherishing diversity. The authors also suggest that the desexualization of disabled women is replicating, as well as resulting from, historical tendencies to dehumanize and infantilize women. The empirical data is drawn from a larger project 'Disabled Intimacies? Sexual and Reproductive Citizenship of Disabled Women in Portugal'. Biographical narrative interviews with disabled women are analyzed to explore the notion of 'misfit' sexual bodies. Theirs are stories of counter-norms and the struggle for sexual fulfilment and recognition. The women's discussions of sexuality point to a need to change the ways that disability and intimacy are addressed in mainstream scholarly literature, institutions and the state. Narrow, heteronormative and ableist understandings of sexual intercourse and the linear character of mainstream stories of intimacy are shown as hindering the prospect of the recognition of disabled women as sexual citizens.

“The Disabled Community Is Still Waiting for Equality”: What do Users Have to say About Sexual Reproductive Health of Persons With Disabilities in Online News Comments

“…Disability has been constructed from a masculine ideology; it tends to focus more on the interests of men with disabilities (i.e., sexuality and employability) as compared with their female counterparts (Oliver, 1990;Santos and Santos, 2018). Some commenters addressed the issue of gender roles in society, specifically in the way the sexual needs of men with disabilities are perceived differently from those of women with disabilities.…”

Towards an agency-based model of intersex, variations of sex characteristics (VSC) and DSD/dsd health

“…Crip theory asks important questions regarding the places in which compulsory heterosexuality and able-bodiedness are enacted (McRuer 2006), arenas which clearly overlap in the surgical modification of functional intersex children's genital form. Santos and Santos (2018) argue that the heterosexist assumptions behind socially normative models of sexual life are ableist; they rely on notions of a valid sex life consisting of specific steps leading to penis-vagina intercourse. Some of our research contributors mirrored Hester's (2006) findings that 'healing' was more often described by individuals in terms of self-acceptance, as opposed to compliance to sex and gender norms.…”

Politics of the body, fear and ubuntu: Proposing an African women’s theology of disability

“…With respect to the Ndebele people, a deformed or disabled body is referred to as isilima or isigoga. Santos and Santos (2017) explain that the disabled body is therefore seen as both passive and defying socio-cultural notions of normalcy and containment. Susan Wendell a feminist theologian specialising in disability argues that, 'the oppression of disabled people is closely linked to the cultural oppression of the body ' (1989:104).…”