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Impairment, socialization and embodiment: The sexual oppression of people with physical disabilities

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Abstract

People with disabilities face multiple forms of social exclusion, discrimination, and oppression, including in the domain of sex and sexuality. From a critical psychoanalytic viewpoint, social responses to persons with impairments are strongly unconsciously mediated, and often dominated by projections based on archaic anxieties about dependency, vulnerability, and shame. Where disability meets sexuality, these defenses may be more prominent still, resulting, for one example, in the prejudiced myth that people with disabilities are disinterested in, or not capable of, sex. Using this theoretical stance, this paper examines how the developmental role of family and societal influences on the social constructions of sexuality and disability are internalized, resisted, and negotiated by two South Africans with physical disabilities. Data are drawn from interview material elicited via photovoice methodology. The interview narratives and photographic images are used to explore how sexual oppression may be internalized, creating intra-psychic barriers to inclusion for this already structurally disadvantaged group.

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Funding

Funding was provided by the International Foundation of Applied Disability Research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, CO4 3SQ, UK

    Poul Rohleder

  2. Division of Disability Studies, Department of Health and Rehabilitation Science, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

    Brian Watermeyer

  3. Department of Health Research, SINTEF Digital, Oslo, Norway

    Stine Hellum Braathen

  4. Institute for Life Course Health Research, Department of Global Health, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa

    Xanthe Hunt

  5. Department of Psychology, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa

    Leslie Swartz

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  1. Poul Rohleder
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  2. Brian Watermeyer
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  3. Stine Hellum Braathen
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  4. Xanthe Hunt
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  5. Leslie Swartz
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Correspondence to Poul Rohleder.

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The images used in this manuscript were collected as data as part of a research project. Participants consented as part of their participation in the project for the images to be used for dissemination purposes. Thus, the images are the property of the authors, and no third party permission is required. Some of the images are already available in the public domain (www.disabilityandsexualityproject.com).

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Rohleder, P., Watermeyer, B., Braathen, S.H. et al. Impairment, socialization and embodiment: The sexual oppression of people with physical disabilities. Psychoanal Cult Soc 24, 260–281 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41282-019-00128-6

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