ableism

As a person on the Autism spectrum, I know all too well that living with any sort of disability brings about a barrage of challenges. Your own difficult experiences living with those challenges are important and you have a right to feel all kinds of emotions about them, including frustration at the larger world. However, just as your own humanity and emotions should not be discounted, the same goes for other human beings.

There isn’t a one-size-fits-all process for tackling this issue, but here's a little help from one person with Autism to another, so you can figure out some concrete ways of scaling what can feel like an immense social mountain.

It took a long time for me to come to terms with my singledom, but now that I'm here, I couldn't be happier.

As we change the narrative on disability and sexuality, we need to acknowledge that disabled asexuals exist.

I'm always so sad to hear anyone who has the idea that needing -- or just plain wanting! -- lubricant is some kind of problem, means something is wrong with someone, or that that need is unusual. I also always find myself struggling to understand those feelings, even though I have heard many women...

Many people with evident physical impairments — like those that require the use of mobility devices — encounter rude questions from nondisabled people on the regular. Those with chronic illnesses and other impairments that might not always be immediately obvious certainly come in for their share as well. Sometimes it feels like we should be selling tickets to the freak show.

When we talk about disabled people having awesome sex lives, sometimes something dehumanizing creeps into the mix: Some (usually nondisabled) people profess an "attraction to disability." What they mean is they find disabled bodies — not disabled people — sexually stimulating. That means seeing your body as a sexual object. If that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, you're not alone.

Being disabled doesn't mean you can't have a rewarding and awesome sex life.