Research Article on Disability and Sexuality

An excelllent research article titled ‘Disability and sexuality: claiming sexual and reproductive rights’ was authored by Renu Addlakha, Janet Price & Shirin Heidari, published on the international journal Reproductive Health Matters. The article sheds a light on people with disabilities and their sexuality and sexual and reproductive health and rights.

The topic brings questions to our minds, such as, quoting from the article- what barriers do people, especially women with disabilities, experience in accessing SRH services, particularly in the health sector? What context-specific strategies should be developed to facilitate recognition of the sexuality and reproductive rights of people with disabilities, particularly women with disabilities? How can appropriate SRH services be made available to people with disabilities in their communities?

People with disabilities are infantilised and held to be asexual (or in some cases, hypersexual), incapable of reproduction and unfit sexual/marriage partners or parents. The sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) of people with disabilities continue to be contested, and there are particular concerns in relation to women with disabilities. For women, disability often means exclusion from a life of femininity, partnership, active sexuality and denial of opportunities for motherhood.^[2],[3]

Download the Research Article: Disability and sexuality: claiming sexual and reproductive rights

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2. Asch A, Fine M. Disabled women: sexism without the pedestal. In: Deegan MJ, Brooks NA, editors. Women and disability: the double handicap. New Brunswick: Transaction Books; 1985. p. 6–22.

3. Meekosha, H. Body battles: bodies, gender and disability. In: Shakespeare T, editor. The disability reader: social science perspectives. London: Cassell; 1998. p. 163–180.