I wrote over the weekend an opinion blog article about disability and consent and I am still at a loss for resources on it and I see that this is an on going problem. But we all understand that yes means yes and No means no, but what about for people who have issues with decision making how do we help them if they want to have romantic relationships to have them as we see that this is seen as the last “taboo” subject around disability.
But I want to make something very clear and that is that we are humans and that means with time, understanding and respect that we are sexual beings to and need to be taught about consent, and I am not only talking about sexual consent but consent in general, So this could be consent around treatments, therapies and even good and bad touch. As well as being able to hold them to account around good and bad touch, as sometimes impulse control can be a massive issue for people with disabilities and this can potentially get them into a lot of trouble, and I am going to make a very controversial statement hear that disability isn’t an excuse, it can be a reason but never should be used as an excuse, and we see that this needs to be heard a lot more from people with disabilities.
This goes to a much wider social issue around disabilities the perception that we are an eternal teen and need to be treated as such, but a teen is taught about relationships and how their bodies work and how this can affect them as well.
I know for a lot of people “physical intimacy is something that is difficult and challenging to talk about so they push it under the rug until it’s to late to do anything about it and we see that this is where we need to start having the conversation early not only to protect people with disabilities but to protect their care givers as well.
As they are at just as much risk of harm from their clients if their clients haven’t been taught about healthy relationships and “Physical touch.” I know that I struggle with reading some but not all social cues and am prone to impulsivity we see that this can become a massive issue at times and can lead to me being taken for a ride at times or being exploited, but I am capable of learning boundaries and how many other people are capable of learning this as well.
We see that people wrongly assume that people with intellectual disabilities aren’t interested in having romantic relationships but we see that this is wrong and that we need to be aware that the are and that things like basic sex education needs to be taught as well as the correct names for body parts and for the person to be able to speak up about relationships and how they work and the different types of relationships.
This is something that we really need to be aware of different types of relationships and how they can effect someone’s lives as we see that sometimes parents of a person with a disability can actually unintentionally harm a person with a disability due to the fact that they assume that the person won’t be capable of understanding consent, they assume that the person needs more protection than they do and they just don’t know how to address the facts of life that we all need to be taught and this can be difficult to accept and to understand that people with disabilities do want to have relationships like everyone else and to accept that messiness that comes with being human, and wanting connection and that might be physical connections as well.
It's not something that we can hide from for much longer and I see that their isn’t a lot of resources out there for teaching people with a disability about consent and it’s long been seen that they aren’t capable of understanding consent in a sexual context in some cases this is true but in others this isn’t and it can leave people very frustrated and they don’t know why do the physical release that physical intimacy does give to people.
I know that there is an ongoing debate around the access to sex workers and having it in a persons plan in some cases this might be appropriate, but where is the fun in this where is the romance, where is the feeling of being desired, it’s all something that we need to be very aware of and to work on as it’s something that we need to have a conversation about and work on as a society.
To prevent harm from coming to people with a disability and there care givers as well we need to be aware that this can be seen as “the to hard basket” and that people do shy away from dating people with a disability as they do fear becoming their care givers at times and this is a valid concern but anyone at any time can become disabled and there is the NDIS and other programs that people need to be aware of and to work with these programs to work towards their goals and see where life can take them and that we need to be aware that not everything is negative about disability and we need to be so much more aware of this. I am also in the process of looking for resources for people with disabilities to be able to have support workers use them to educate people about their bodies and respect in relationships.
As it can be hard for some people to have this separation and we see that it’s not great at times for them to have the health outcomes that they do.
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