Disability and Sexuality: International Analysis in India.

Abstract

The sexuality of the disabled person has largely been ignored. If it is at all acknowledged, then it has been largely through a ‘medical lens. The understanding of sexuality not only as a personal dimension of the individual self but also as a political act with reference to the collective is brought out in this paper. It specifically explores how the sexual and reproductive health needs and concerns of persons with disabilities have been ignored if not denied. The focus here is specifically on women with disabilities and how the added dimension of gender makes disabled women’s sexuality even more ambivalent. The discussion of this paper is framed within the larger context of other interrelated domains of life like employment, education, marriage and family because it is contended that disability, sexuality and reproduction cannot be understood in isolation.