explanations

The Ultimate Guide to Sex and Disability

/ sarahlcurtiss

the guideThis book by Miriam Kaufman, Cory Silverberg, and Fran Odette is eye opening.  It’s written by people with disabilities for people with disabilities and focuses on the joys of sexual intimacy.  As a typically developing person, it challenged a lot of my assumptions about sex and made me think about new things.  Chapters include: Myths About Disability and Sex; Desire and Self-Esteem; Sexual Anatomy and Sexual Response; Communication; Sex with Ourselves; Sex with Others; Oral Sex, Penetration and Positioning; Sex Toys, Books, and Videos; Yoga and Tantric Sex; S/M; Sexual Health; Sexual Violence and Sexuality; Resources; and Glossary of Gender and Sex Terms.   I want to share two passages with you.

Sex and Spontaneity

“We’re taught that sex is suppose to be spontaneous, something that just comes naturally (like ‘true love’).  This belief is damaging to everyone, but is a real problem for people living with disabilities, because any amount of planning makes sex not spontaneous.  Believing in this myth pretty much ensures a lously sex life.
While sex has many meanings, at its heart sex is a process of communication.  Whether we are flirting from across a crowded room, giving someone head for the first time, or making love while listening to a piece of music that totally turns us on, being sexual is being in contact with ourselves and our surroundings.  The idea that this process can happen without thinking, talking, or planning is ridiculous.
Maybe we are willing to buy into the myth of sexual spontaneity because talking about our desires is difficult.  It’s risky, and makes us feel exposed and vulnerable, and often vulnerability is equated with weakness.”

This made me think a lot about the way I teach reproduction and sexual intimacy.  I tend to focus a lot sexual behavior, but not as much on the planning and communication that comprises that behavior.  Also, I do a lot of role playing, planning out what you’re going to say in advance, and scripting.  I’ve never really done that around negotiating intimacy.

Privacy

“If we were taught anything about sex at all when we were younger, many of us learned that sex was something private, inappropriate to talk about or do in front of others.  Privacy becomes a requirement for sexuality.
From someone living in an institution, or using attendant services, or needing the assistance of someone else to facilitate communication, privacy is a completely different reality.  The definition of privacy changes when you have no lock on your door, or when you request private time at a specific hours knowing that it will probably be written down in a log-book.  This myth is one of those ‘no-win situations,’ because we’re told that real sex is a private matter and, guess what, you can’t have that kind of privacy.”

This passage really challenged me to think about how I teach privacy and how I teach about relationship types.  I think sometimes I might ignore that what a lot of people think of as privacy and the individual I am working with reality of privacy are two disparate things.

I do wish this book focused a little more on people with intellectual disability and was written at lower reading level.  I do think people with ID/DD could read it with support, especially sections.  Much of the book is testimonies by people with disabilities and I think these passages could be great teaching tools.  There are also suggested exercises- one of the exercises was about looking at your body.  I teach antimony all the time, but I don’t think I’ve ever said, “when you’re at home, alone in your bedroom, look at and feel your body and check out the parts we’ve been talking about, you can even use a mirror.”

Sexual Health- Pelvic Exams

/ sarahlcurtiss

Many women with development disabilities are under anesthesia during pelvic exams or don’t get them at all (or as recommended).  However, educating about pelvic exams may be an important part of teaching sexual health.  I’ve included the link to a video that may help.

This is a brief video that goes through the basic procedure of a woman having a pelvic exam.  This could also be a good video for teaching about female anatomy.  It has a lot of technical terminology but it also moves nice and slow.

Relationship Pyramid

/ sarahlcurtiss

Here is an example of a five point scale that was developed by April Keaton, LCSW, to explain the different levels of relationships.  The pyramid shape was used to convey that you might have a lot of “friendly acquaintances” but much fewer “long term relationships”.  It was important for this person to connect the level of the relationship with the level of intimacy so you see examples of intimate behaviors at each level of the pyramid.  There’s also an element of time built into the descriptions.     You wouldn’t have to start with pyramid filled out.  You could start with a blank pyramid and support an individual with filling in the levels.  You could add names of individuals at each level.  You can download the pdf of this image by clicking here.

How to be in Middle School

/ sarahlcurtiss

In the crushes unit of Human Sexuality 101 for middle school, we used this video on handling a crush.  We were talking about this during The Birds and the Bees workshop in Champaign today and it reminded me that I should probably highlight this resource on its own.

The How to be in Middle School series covers topics such as how to invite someone to a dance, how to go to a dance, first kiss, handling kissing games, and many more topics (including less relationshipy videos like how to clean your room quickly).  The videos present clear rules and how to guides.  We planned an activity around the rules in our group.

Explaining Anatomy

/ sarahlcurtiss / 2 Comments

I had a blast in Carbondale (thank you all)!  People really responded to the time we spent thinking about how to explain concepts like arousal and orgasm.  In the anatomy lesson of the curriculum we’ve been did this summer, I have similar explanations for explaining the reproductive parts of the body.  I’m going to include the entire list here, but if the entire list is too overwhelming for your students choose 3-5 physiological parts to focus on per gender.  I would recommend reading over the full WEB MD definitions of these terms (click here for the worksheet Body Part Functions)- you may come up with better explanations!

Some general ideas I try to convey…

  • Some people’s reproductive organs are mostly inside the body and some people’s are mostly outside the body.
  • Reproductive organs are a system of tubes, canals, and storage centers that connect to one another.
  • Reproductive organs produce genetic information and try to bring it together. 

Vulva: A part of a person’s body that is used for reproduction, urination, and pleasure. The vulva is outside the body. Every vulva looks a little bit different, but they all have folds of skin, openings into the body, and a clitoris. During puberty, the folds of skin become covered in hair.

Labia majora: Skin that protects the vulva

Labia minora: Skin that protects the opening to the vagina

Clitoris:  Skin and nerves that cause pleasure

Vagina (birth canal): The vagina is used for reproduction and pleasure. During reproduction, the job of the vagina is to connect the uterus to the outside world. When a baby is born, the vagina squeezes in a special way to help the baby out of the uterus. When being used for pleasure, the vagina can be touched to make the body feel good.

Uterus:  Where a baby grows

Ovaries: Holds the eggs (which hold genetic information)

Fallopian Tubes:  Connects the ovaries and the uterus


Penis: A part of a person’s body that is used for reproduction, urination, and pleasure. The penis is outside the body. Every penis is a little bit different but they all are shaped like tubes with a small hole at the end.

Scrotum: A tissue sack that holds the testes. During puberty it gets covered with hair.

Testicles (testes): Produces sperm (genetic information)

Epidermis: Where sperm mature

Vas deferens: Brings sperm to the urethra

Ejaculatory ducts: a connector.

Urethra: carries urine and semen out of the body

Seminal Vesicles & Prostate Gland: Produce sperm energy

Bulbourethral gland (Cowper’s glands): Produces lubricant (makes things slippery)

How to Explain Sex to Someone with an Intellectual Disability

/ sarahlcurtiss

This may be more difficult than it appears at first.  I like to communicate and teach broad and complex ideas about what sex is, but this can be really difficult for folks to grasp at first.  I usually start out talking about reproduction because it’s a little more concrete and then move into sex more generally once reproductive intercourse, erection, ejaculation, and arousal have been covered.  So lets start with those (and I’ll toss in a couple other concepts that may be difficult to explain).  These are how I explain these concepts, but a curriculum you use may have other suggestions you find helpful.  I used board maker pictures here, but real pictures would also be appropriate in many cases.

Arousal: “When you have sexy feelings and you feel tingly or excited all over your body especially in your private area*.”

*You could substitute genitals, vulva, or penis for private area to be more concrete.  Sometimes with middle school students I say “you know where” to be intentionally more vague- but only if I’m confident they do know where.

Erection: “When blood fills the penis making it harder and bigger”.  I follow this up with the why it happens, “because you have sexy feelings.  You feel aroused.”

Sometimes I add, the blood fills up the spongy tissue of the penis, but other times I omit the blood part and just say the penis gets harder and bigger.  This would depend on the level of complexity the individual can handle.

Ejaculation/Orgasm: “You have sexy feelings, your body feels really good, and you get so excited that you have an orgasm- a big burst of sensation*.” If they have a penis, I add “then fluid comes out of the penis.”  If they have a vulva, I add “then some fluid may come out of the vagina”.  If they ask what kind of fluid you could add, “a sticky milky fluid” and then if they have a penis, “with sperm in it.”

*If sensation is an inappropriate word you could replace it with feelings.

Reproductive Intercourse: “When a person put their penis in another person’s vagina and releases sperm, ejaculates.  If the sperm meets with an egg then the person might get pregnant.  A baby might grow inside the uterus.”

As students are first learning I do call this sex but once they have this I build that sex is bigger than just one act.  It is heteronormative* to present reproductive intercourse as if it was sex.  It could make students who are not interested in vaginal intercourse feel as if their form of sexual expression is less valid.  At the same time, the students that I work with are often overwhelmed by all the new information and have difficulty navigating all the nuances.  When I call this form of sex, “sex”, I do match it with vaginal sex, reproductive intercourse, or intercourse to allude to the idea that there are other forms of sex.

*If you’re not familiar with the term heteronormative, it refers to when heterosexuality is used as the default.  It also refers to other lifestyles that are considered the default.  For example, a heteronormative definition of family would be if you used, implicitly or explicitly, a husband, a wife, and children as the definition of family.

Wet Dream: “Sometimes when you’re sleeping you have have sexy feelings.  These feelings can be so good that you may get really excited in your sleep.  You may feel so good that fluid comes out of your body.”

If they know erection and ejaculation, you can use those words too but I try to limit my use of those words if I’m not confident they have a full conception of the terms.

People with vulvas can have wet dreams too! Regardless of whether there is ejaculation, having organisms and arousal during sleep can be scary. It is an important thing to prepare children for as their bodies change with puberty.

Sex: “Sex is when two people have sexy feelings they want to share with each other so they touch each other’s private parts to make each other feel good.”  You can expand it further, “A person might put their penis inside a person’s vagina.  Sometimes people kiss and lick each other’s vulva or penis.  A person might put their penis inside a person’s anus*.”  If they ask why someone has sex, I would answer “Either because they want to have a baby, because they love each other and they want to share those feelings, or because they want to have fun.”

*I would use butthole if I thought that was a word the person understood better.  In this definition, I’ve defined sex as anal, vaginal, or oral intercourse.

Sperm/Egg: The cells inside a persons body that have genetic information.

Not all folks will grasp the concept of genetic information but they will probably know that it means scientific or medical information.

Next week, well be covering reproduction in Human Sexuality 101 so look check out the curriculum for that section for more information.