This comprehensive book offers an in-depth look at sexual functioning with disability and chronic illness. The basics are covered: taking a sexual history, the sexual response cycle, and how sexual functioning changes with age. This book also deals with special issues such as ethical considerations, sexual abuse and disability, and treatment of the partner of the person with a disability. Separate chapters deal with specific illnesses and disabilities, with an explanation of how that illness or disability affects sexuality and sexual functioning in both men and women. Practical issues such as positioning and helpful tips are also defined for each disorder.

The Ultimate Guide to Sex and Disability is the first complete sex guide for people who live with disabilities, pain, illness, or chronic conditions. Useful for absolutely everyone, regardless of age, gender, or sexual orientation, the book addresses a wide range of disabilities — from chronic fatigue, back pain, and asthma to spinal cord injury, hearing and visual impairment, multiple sclerosis, and more. Expertly written by a medical doctor, a sex educator, and a disability activist, The Ultimate Guide provides readers with encouragement, support, and all the information they need to create a sex life that works for them. The authors cover all aspects of sex and disability, including building a positive sexual self-image; positions to minimize stress and maximize pleasure; dealing with fatigue or pain during sex; finding partners and talking with partners about sex and disability; adapting sex toys; and more.

Offering a current, comprehensive, and intersectional guide for students, practitioners, and researchers, this book synthesizes existing scholarship on culturally responsive practices that assist in exploring, understanding, and affirming the sexuality(ies) of disabled, chronically ill, neurodivergent, and Mad individuals. Drawing on an intersectional framework, it integrates insights drawn from an interdisciplinary body of scholarship including psychology, social work, sociology, history, political science, women and gender studies, cultural studies, and education along with perspectives from the practitioners who are actively defining the next generation of best practices. By highlighting the incredible resilience and resistance of disabled individuals’ and communities’ sexuality and sexual well-being, this book challenges narratives that rely primarily on a one-dimensional view derived from the medical model and the view of disability as something to be “fixed” – or at least tolerated – rather than celebrated. In a world that pathologizes and devalues the sexual existence of disabled individuals, it illustrates how to create thriving communities and relationships, and how they can organize to find their voice, providing a counter-narrative of empowerment that fosters hopefulness, power, and health. It will be of interest to all scholars, students, and professionals across a variety of professions, including social work, psychology, counseling, policy, healthcare, education, community organizing, and multiple social service settings.

Individuals with disabilities are often “desexualized” in our society, yet they have the same need for intimacy, self-worth, and social belonging as people without disabilities. Sexuality and Disabilities addresses persons with physical, sensory, intellectual, and cognitive disabilities and their concerns in the areas of intimacy, family issues, sexuality, and sexual functioning. It offers suggestions for professionals who work with persons with these disabilities to help them work more competently with disabled persons in the sexuality arena. These concrete ideas are excellent for staff training and education and for enhancing professional development for those working with persons with physical disabilities. The contributing authors create an awareness that all people need individualized consideration and that the special needs of all individuals are important, especially for those who may have previously been left to discover things on their own--usually unsuccessfully. Sexuality and Disabilities focuses on a wide range of disabilities, including physical, developmental, and learning disabilities, mental retardation, and conditions that may have an impact on people later in life such as strokes, heart disease, or other chronic illness. Chapters discuss education and support issues for both practitioners and clients. Some of the topics examined include: components of a staff training program on sexuality and disability specific recommendations for sexuality education and counseling with people with spinal cord injuries and other acquired severe neurological disabilities a program model serving parents with mental retardation and their children specific ways educational programming, social work intervention, and policy efforts can address the special learning needs of people with cognitive impairments sources of support and stress for families caring for developmentally disabled children an analysis of special vulnerabilities and challenges relating to sexual victimization that confront people with disabilities An extremely helpful tool for human service practitioners, Sexuality and Disabilities is also a valuable resource for graduate and undergraduate students who have an interest in working with people with physical, cognitive, or mental disabilities and helping them explore this basic facet of their lives.

This multi-disciplinary and inclusive collection brings together theoretically informed and empirically focused research on sex, intimacy and reproduction in relation to young people and adults with life-shortening conditions. Advances in healthcare mean that increasing numbers of young people with life-shortening conditions are transitioning into adulthood. Issues such as sex and intimacy, dating and relationships, fertility and having children are increasingly relevant to them and to the people that support them, including families, carers, practitioners and professional education, health and social care agencies. This three-part book explores the relevance and significance of this field, examines everyday experiences, and highlights the challenges faced by individuals and organisations in addressing the needs of such people in daily life and in the context of practice. Drawing on perspectives from sociology, disability studies, epidemiology, health policy, psychotherapy, legal studies, queer studies and nursing, this ground-breaking volume is written by academics, policy makers, practitioners and experts by experience. It is an essential read for all those practising and researching in the fields of sexuality, chronic illness and disability and transition.