write:These emerging sexual identities have at least two significant characteristics. First they represent disability not as a defect that needs to be overcome to have sex but as a comp

employment and other areas of life
” Tom Shakespeare explains
“was all about making personal troubles into pub-lic issues. But the private lives of disabled women and men were not seen as being equally worthy of concern” (“Disabled Sexuality” 159–60). Furthermore
the social construction model favored by critics of the built environment tends to neglect physical aspects of disability related to sexuality (Shakespeare
“Dis-abled Sexuality” 162). Consequently
we know much more about the public di-mension of disability than about its private dimension; we are at the beginning of a period of sexual investigation for disabled people
where information is scarce and ethnography and sharing of practices need to be pursued. Nevertheless
there are signs that people with disabilities are claiming a sexual culture based on different conceptions of the erotic body
new sexual temporali-ties
and a variety of gender and sexed identities. These emerging sexual identities have at least two significant characteristics. First
they represent disability not as a defect that needs to be overcome to have sex but as a complex embodiment that enhances sexual activities and pleasure. Second
they give to sexuality a political dimension that redefines people with disabilities as sexual citizens. It is crucial to understand that sexual citizenship does not translate merely into being able to express sexuality in public—a charge always levied against sexual minorities—but into the right to break free of the unequal treatment of minority sexualities and to create new modes of access for sex. In the case of disabled people
sexual citizenship has particular stakes. Some specific agenda items include access to in-formation about sexuality; freedom of association in institutions and care facili-ties; demedicalization of disabled sexuality; addressing sexual needs and desires as part of health care; reprofessionalization of caregivers to recognize
not deny
sexuality; and privacy on demand. While certain aspects of the body are not open to transformation
sexual desire and erotic sensation are remarkably flexible. For example
people with paralysis
who have lost feeling in traditional erogenous zones
have found ways to eroticize other parts of their body. They also develop new ways to please their partners by creating erotic environments adjustable to differently abled bodies. As feminists have made clear
normative sexuality requires a distinctive mapping of the body into limited erogenous zones (Irigaray). A parallel geography exists between the places on the body marked for sex and the places where bodies have sex. Although it is considered kinky to have sex in out of the way places
it does not usually cross one’s mind to summon sexual feelings in places on the body This content downloaded from 131.179.61.153 on Tue
06 Dec 2022 21:39:54 UTCAll use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms