Sex and sexuality can be highly taboo to talk about or a challenging and uncomfortable topic to address for so many people. Now, let's just imagine this for someone who identifies as having a disability... One of our absolute favourite topics to learn about is how sexual wellbeing is fundamentally apart of being human, able bodied or not. Folks with a variety of disabilities are systemically excluded from conversations, access to resources, denied intimacy, pleasure and are often wrongly mislabelled as being a-sexual. We believe it is so important to break the stigma that people who identify as having a physical, intellectual or developmental disability have no sexual needs or desires at all. That is just simply not the case and is an archaic and outdated view that has real, harmful consequences.
Disabilities come in many different forms and affect everyone differently, therefor it's so incredibly important to keep in mind the complexity and uniqueness of each individual. Sex and pleasure are experienced by everybody differently. We all have different wants, likes, needs, dislikes, desires, turn ons and turn offs. That is all apart of the beauty in embracing our diversity. There is absolutely no right or wrong when it comes to pleasure so long as it's consensual, respectful and enjoyable for both parties involved. Every single person is equally deserving of having the ability to nurture their sexual wellbeing in what every way is comfortable and authentic for them.
Now that that's out of the way, where do you learn more? It is so important to understand sexuality for people on a spectrum through their own perspective and lived experiences so we've created a list of some of our current go-to podcast episodes on pleasure, disability & ableism that will change the way you think about sex. These podcast episodes shatter what you may have once thought about sexuality and will most certainly challenge your knowledge on inclusive pleasure and sexual wellness.
🧠 One thing we've learnt is some able-bodied, culturally acceptable and socialized views on sex can be so outdated, boring, uninspired, and let's just say overall we've created a very singular way to view pleasure that lacks creativity, representation and inclusion.
Our Top 5 Episodes in no Particular Order.
All of these can be accessed through most podcast streaming services like Spotify.
1. Sex Out Loud with Tristan Taormino
2. Better in Bed with Sara Tang
Learning about sex from the perspective of people on a spectrum of disabilities can transform the conventional notions we have on pleasure and we believe it can inspire thinking about it in new & exciting ways. Alchemy is all about celebrating inclusive & accessible pleasure regardless of any identity or ability.
