The ultimate blasphemous act is committed when you talk about sex openly. Plus, if you are
talking about the sexual desires of the disabled (or as they say nowadays – ‘differently able’),
you are doing such a heinous crime that is not enough for your penance.
So, I recently went to attend a talk on the topic of “sexuality in disability”, held at a University by the Centre for Gender and Sexual Studies.
Haryana, mark my words, is the last place to talk about sexuality. Adults here still teach
their adolescent children that babies are a gift of god, and there is nothing called as “sex “in this
world. Jokes apart, the seriousness of the topic beckoned me to the class where this talk was
being given by a speaker. Recently I went to a movie screening of “Margrita with a straw “, which is a story of a disabled girl, who wants to express and experiment her sexuality. This was my first insight to the topic of disability and sexuality. It intrigued me enough to reckon how our society is not accommodative of people with such “sexual desires”, and if you are disabled plus sexually expressive, you are simply either a nymph or a freak. The speaker, runs the “sexuality and disability” project, and is the editor of ‘online journal’. The severity of this problem struck me hard when she started talking about the experiences of the disabled women who have went through the moral policing of their families and friends about being independent and sexually active. It is a pre conceived notion that as you are disabled, it is out of the world for you to think about sex. Quoting the speaker here, “ people think that as you have only one hand, you can’t masturbate with your other or as you have no legs, you can never feel something between your ‘legs’”.
The total amount of people with some form of disability in india are about 21 million, out of
which 9.3 million are women. It seems totally whacky and preposterous to label this population
as asexual or devoid of sexuality. The initiative of “online Journal” started by the speaker is a beacon of hope for such women who want to come up and talk about their experiences. This platform has become the maverick for these women who are looked upon derogatively by society. It just reiterates the fact that it is completely normal to be sexual and in no ways it is morally or ethically wrong if you are expressing your sexual desires. No matter what people say, those so called “differently able” are not actually different.
They are humans and they have all the right to do what other humans do,and sex is no different.
