Sexuality in People with Disabilities

This week we learned about a subject that I have never learned about before. Coming from a religious background, talking about sex at all was taboo and sex was certainly something that was saved for after marriage, and between a man and a woman in order to procreate. Because of these assumptions I grew up with, I assumed that people with intellectual and physical disabilities did not engage in or desire sex. I was so wrong. After learning a lot more about sex this semester, and throughout my life after I have distanced myself from the narrow view of sex I grew up with, I understand that almost everyone desires and engages in sex in some way.

I love how this group made sure to include different kinds of disabilities because the nature of every single disability is different, but that doesn't mean that treatment is impossible. In fact, one of the most important things I learned this week is that no matter what the disability is, a couple with a disability who comes in for sex therapy will likely be receiving similar treatment to a couple without disability. The main difference was the part about having to be open to being more creative in trying different things to make each partner feel sexual. However, in any type of relationship both partners should be open to trying things that would make their partner enjoy sex so working with a couple where one or both partners has a disability is not likely to be entirely different.

The main difference, and this is something that I have known for many years but was reinforced today, was how important it is not to talk down to someone with a disability and to approach them with the assumption that they are adults of average intelligence. It is important to gauge how much sexual education they have and what their personal experiences have been, but ultimately not to compare them too much to the general population of people with their disability because we cannot make assumptions about how it manifests in them.

In looking through the wiki, my favorite part was the myths and facts about how people with disabilities treat sex and the pictures and visuals that showed creative ways they can and do enjoy sex. I have also worked with kids and teens with intellectual disabilities and know that the idea of sex is shielded from them a lot of the time, so I felt that the inclusion of that section was crucial.

Orgasm Disorders- Reflection

This past week my group did our presentation on orgasm disorders and focused on Female Orgasmic disorder. It was much more difficult to find information on this disorder than we anticipated, and most of what we found was either about female sexual dysfunction (umbrella term encompassing multiple types of sexual disorders in women) or anorgasmia (one subtype of FOD). While most of the research was lacking in information or contained some misinformation, we were able to find a few factual sites and studies that aided us in learning more about the disorder.

One of the things that surprised me the most, which we included in the wiki but not in the class presentation, is that the only way to diagnose FOD is based on self-report. There is no test or objective way of knowing exactly whether or not a woman has FOD other than if what she says matches what is in the DSM. I found this to be sketchy, and it make me question the utility of the DSM. I have other issues with the DSM that I will likely rant about in future posts, but for now I will focus on the fact that many of the disorders in it are only based on self-report, which indicates that there is no criteria for what is "average" or "normal", which I believe means there is no basis for there being a disorder. Sexuality and orgasms are experienced on a very wide spectrum, so to say that the way one person or group experiences it is a disorder is difficult for me to come to terms with.

All that being said, I found this to be an interesting topic and it will definitely be helpful if I end up working in a place that does make diagnoses. This is a topic that definitely needs more research, as most of the studies we looked at indicated. Orgasms in general are something that everyone could use more psychoeducation about because I found myself learning things that seemed like they should be basic, common sense, but for some reason I had never been told. I still have questions about how mens' bodies function during arousal and orgasm so I would not be surprised if men have a lot of questions about how women's bodies function during those processes.

SIAD Reflection

In reading through the SIAD wiki page, I began to think about how this diagnosis might be different for the LGBT communities. In particular, I was thinking about one of the sexual events I went to for this class a few weeks ago in which a person told his story about how he self-defines as asexual. I was looking through the DSM criteria for a woman to be diagnosed with SIAD, and almost all of the criteria implies that women should want to be having sex and should be deriving pleasure from it. This made me think about how we have been talking about how so many different populations differ in what they find sexually appealing and what makes sex exciting, but how can all of this be applied to people who aren't even on the spectrum we have created? If a person identifies as asexual would they meet the criteria for a sexual disorder or would they be in a different category entirely?

Another thought I had while reading this blog had to do with the video of Russell Brand talking about porn. I took a particular interest in this video because I wrote my research paper last semester about the effects of pornography on relationships, and found that generally the effects were minimal and not harmful. However, the things Russell Brand was saying about how porn is only capturing one aspect of sex relates to a lot of what I had read about how men and women perceive the effects of porn differently and even use it differently. Overall, I thought this video was a good illustration of some of the main points that researchers have been looking at regarding viewing porn within the relationship construct.

I really liked how well this wiki highlighted the differences in desire for men and women. I have been struggling with the idea that men and women shouldn't be looked at as two entirely different entities so as not to make global generalizations about either group, but more and more evidence is showing that at least sexually, men and women truly are different. Some of the pictures and diagrams helped me to conceptualize how the sexual response cycles and sexual desire levels actually do differ, and it really helped me to be able to accept the different treatment approaches for men and for women.

Lastly, I really enjoyed the section about treating couples presenting with these types of problems in a therapeutic setting. It helped drive home the main points of the whole wiki and to give some practical application ideas for how to actually put these ideas into use. I particularly liked the list of thoughts women have about how men perceive sex, and assume there are just as many thoughts men assume women have about sex. I think this just proves how different people are and that a therapist who makes assumptions would be making a serious error.