It is useful to consider which of these myths we may still promote in our own lives, and also which ones we believe in respect of physically or intellectually impaired people.
If we look at the myth around sex being spontaneous and natural, many couples have found that the use of viagra, for example, takes away this spontaneity, as there is a window of opportunity for a limited period only. And does thinking about it and planning it really take away the enjoyment? Sometimes the anticipation is the best part! A couple who have arthritis, for example, may need to plan their sexual activity to coincide with the effect of any painkillers, in a place where the hip, or knee is comfortable and at a time when both are relaxed and happy. Is this wrong or less enjoyable? Older women sometimes have the idea that masturbation is harmful or wrong, and there may be a religious taboo that makes it a shameful or prohibited activity. This myth is quite prevalent. Carers who hold onto these beliefs in their own personal lives need to be aware that these will not necessarily apply to their clients.
Sexual experience is a learning opportunity also and people with disabilities have less opportunity than others to find out what their sexual likes and dislikes are. If they never find a partner they will forever wonder about this and the frustration they may feel will be hard to cope with, especially if there is no privacy to masturbate.
As in the general population, there will be impaired clients who have high sex drives, as well as those with no interest in sex at all, and a whole range of people in the middle, some of whom may have enjoyed a good sex life prior to becoming disabled but now with illness and medication have decided to live and love without it.
There are two outlooks: one says that providing opportunities for sexual expression for disabled people gives them a false sense of what is possible and breeds discontent, so taking the option away is kinder in the long run. The other view is that if we start from a point of realisation that we all start life with a sexual potential, and some people develop this fully while others never do, we leave the door open for this to happen if it is right for the client, and in providing sex education, an open forum to ask questions and opportunities to make and develop friendships, those of people who wish for sexual experience are enabled to find it. Time and again, disabled people have confounded their advisors and consultants and become sexual beings, married, given birth and undertaken enormous challenges. We may think we know what's best for them, but we have no right to impose this on them, when perhaps the biggest myth we hold on to is that they cannot make decisions for themselves about this.
