Sex Tips For People with Disabilities and Chronic Conditions
A disability or chronic condition, whether it results in muscle weakness, pain, paralysis, or loss of sensation doesn’t necessarily have to cripple your sex life. Some impairments will directly affect your sexual functioning in a negative way, but fortunately there are treatments available. Others will indirectly affect your sexual life by throwing a monkey wrench into your usual sexual routine or messing with your head. Many will do both. Communication, creativity, and adaptive equipment are all key ingredients in creating accessible sex.
Note: Don't forget to follow my personal blog, So about what I said, for up-to-the-minute updates and quirky fun!
Having a physical disability has made me keenly aware – and more so over the last few years – of two things: I’ve grown to be overly honest (not such a bad quality) and that being disabled and the delicate art of flirting are not two things that naturally go together.
At least that has always been the case for me. Flirting is like learning a new language: there’s a window of opportunity where your mind can absorb it all like a Swiffer sponge: the key phrases, the vocabulary, the weird rules. Once that window closes, though, all you’re left with is the instruction manual – clueless and puzzled.
I hope you enjoy Part II of my look into disabilities and misconceptions as they relate to the dating world. As always, read more on my personal blog, So about what I said...I sometimes like to think of myself as a Wonder Woman of sorts. I, as I’m sure you can imagine, take great pride in taking my gigantic foot and stomping all the misconceptions away. Misconceptions about women with disabilities, that is (I may be mighty, but I am only one woman, remember). I honestly don't think people mean to form these misconceptions, and maybe it never even occurred to them that they ARE misconceptions in the first place. But never fear. Yours Truly is here yet again to save the day - and save the world, perhaps?
Let's just clear a few more rumors up, shall we?
*NOTE: My use of "you" shall refer to men in the following scenarios. I’m sure you men know who you are. It’s time we put a solid stop to your sorely ill-informed way of thinking*
Happy Monday, all! As usual, don't forget to follow my adventures on my blog, So about what I said...I recently sat flipping through my old journals. I immediately stopped when I got to a particular entry. it was from sometime during my high school heyday and my teenage self matter-of-factly wrote something along the lines of:
Guys just don't like girls in wheelchairs. Or with any sort of disability, it seems.
It read back to me like some sort of socially agreed-upon law like the sort that easily rolls off your tongue (First Amendment, anyone?). It was, or at least in my eyes, the sort of social code everyone had memorized, and I probably (OK, I'm certain) didn't think twice when I wrote those words.
Note: Don't forget to follow my continuing journey on my personal blog, So about what I said..
I've come to dread a seven-word question. I call it the Grand Inquisition because, literally, that’s what it feels like. I’m sitting in a courtroom on the witness stand, poised to speak the whole truth and nothing but the truth to a jury – a jury that, as I glance in their direction, seem intent on staring me down.
The jury, you probably guessed, is my peers. But why I always seem to be on trial isn’t so easy a question to answer, at least for me. The judging. The assumptions. The constant questioning. Truthfully, it all starts to take its toll after awhile. And why this question holds so much power and leads to such badgering is, quite frankly, beyond me.
Note: As always, you can continue to follow my journey of life and love with a physical disability on my personal blog So about what I said...
I’m many things to many people: daughter, sister, friend, coworker, quirky comedian. All these parts of me harmoniously exist together; in fact, people are amazed at the sheer fact that I don’t topple over from wearing all these different hats.
So when I recently tried to seamlessly insert just two more ‘dimensions’ of myself, I couldn’t help but feel a bit of resistance. Eyebrows raised. Noses scrunched. People stood utterly perplexed by my recent admission, as if I were speaking a foreign language.The two pieces of me: My womanhood and my physical disability.
Oooh, the two most polar opposite things in the world [insert sarcasm]. The two, it seemed, could never, ever, under any circumstances, intersect, or, as people have led me to believe, the entire universe would implode.
Note: Don't forget that you can ready more about my journey with a disability on my main blog, So about what I said...
“I’m so ugly,” I stammered in front of my oversize bathroom mirror one June morning.
I didn’t mean to utter the three simple words. The declaration simply came out faster than my tongue could reel it back in and hide my transgression from Girl Empowerment.
As I washed my hands, the wet streams running over my fingers as water droplets bounced against the white porcelain of the sink, I couldn’t bear to look up and see her. Me.
Note: As always, you can follow my life and love with a physical disability on my personal blog, So about what I said...
I've had three great loves in my life, all three of which rejected me. They were all silent rejections too. No words were said, and no reason was given for said rejection, such as “I need my space,” “This just isn’t working for me” or “I met someone else [read: someone who is prettier, smarter, less clingy, etc]
I’d even settle for the classic “I just want to be friends” routine.
But then again, I didn't need them to say the reason out loud. I already knew what it was: my physical disability. It was my own Scarlett Letter, a sort of man repellent, I thought, that seemed to make men want to stay at least 50 feet away from me. At. All. Times.
