Disability, sexuality and sociosexual relationships in women's everyday life

Abstract

This article draws on a qualitative study in Sweden in which 21 women from three generations, with congenital physical disabilities, were interviewed about their daily life. Using a social constructionist perspective on both disability and sexuality, this paper focuses on sexuality and sociosexual relationships as part of these women's everyday life. Data indicate that disabled women in younger generations might accumulate experiences of sexuality differently from women in older generations. But regardless of generation, the most common pattern is that these women recount their teenage years as an unhappy period in terms of exclusion from sociosexual relationships. One conclusion drawn is that issues of autonomy, independence and personal assistants in these women's everyday life are brought to a head when they are related to private sexual life. Also, there is still a way to go as regards integration and enabling interventions in the field of women, disability and sexuality. © 1999 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.