Editor’s note: This feature kicks off a Playboy exclusive series penned by Playboy creator, podcaster, and sex educator Cate Osborn, aka Catieosaurus.
One of the most remarkable things about being a visibly disabled person is the peculiar way in which strangers concern themselves with my sex life.
To a certain extent, I understand — I am known for my kink and intimacy content, I openly talk about sex and intimacy online and I’m passionate about it, so I usually don’t mind the opportunity to turn an awkward interaction into a teachable moment.
Usually.
It is early, sticky summer in Georgia and my new wheelchair has finally arrived. She is midnight blue and I am so excited, because she is freedom. I can finally go places without pain, I can participate in my own life without exhaustion, and I am ready to take her for a test drive. We decide on an inaugural trip to the grocery store.
Somewhere between the bananas and the cantaloupes, I am flagged down by an older woman. Her chunky gold jewelry jingles as she insistently waves.
“Excuse me! Excuse me miss! Is that YOURS”?
It takes me a moment to process that she’s talking about my wheelchair. Yes, I explain, it’s mine.
She sighs in performative relief. “Oh thank goodness, I thought you’d taken a store chair from someone who actually needs it.” There is a subtle stress on the word “actually.”
“Well, this is mine, so— “ I am cut off again as she peers at me, eyeing me up and down. “You don’t look like you need a chair. You’re young,” she says, accusatorially.
This is where my usual teachable moment would begin. I quickly flip through my mental index of Fun Disability Facts, but before I have the chance to speak, she suspiciously eyes my partner.
“Do you have sex? With her?” She directs her inquiry to him, not me. Her eyes move rapidly between us and I watch her visibly try and make it make sense.
He is old-Hollywood movie star handsome, tall and blonde and broad shouldered with annoyingly perfect hair. He grins.
“Why yes ma’am”, he says earnestly, the picture of a young southern gentleman. “We fuck.” She has the audacity to look offended and shuffles off muttering about “language.”
When I get home, we laugh and call her the Chair Enforcement. Then I cry. I am embarrassed, but I cannot say why, exactly.
Disabled people fuck. And, like everything else, sex and disability is not a monolith. Our desires, preferences, and abilities are vast. Some of us are queer, some of us are asexual, some of us are kinky, some of us are resolutely vanilla.
About 16% of the world’s population, or 1.3 billion people, are physically disabled. Another 15% are neurodivergent. Men have a 43% chance of becoming seriously disabled during their working years. Women have a 54% chance.
The World Health Organization estimates that one in four people will experience a mental illness, and one in three will experience a disability.
Despite all of this, most sex education doesn’t include anything about disability or neurodivergence. What results is a massive chunk of the population left out of the conversation, alienated, desexualized, and infantilized, creating more stigma and confusion around topics that are, at their core, pretty simple. Consent is important, communication is vital, and you are worthy of pleasure as you are.
I live with a volatile and complex combination of neurodivergence and physical disability. The days when my desire matches my physical and mental capacity are rare and precious.
Sometimes, it is my physical body that betrays me — my joints feel like they’re filled with red hot concrete, I can’t sit or stand without glass shards ripping down my back. These are the easy days. These days are easier because I know the pain is real, I can see my muscles spasming, I can physically measure my range of movement and watch it shrink as the day goes on.
Sometimes, all I want is to be touched, but to be touched is to be in pain and I have to decide if my longing for connection outweighs my discomfort.
It’s harder on the days when the thing keeping me from enjoying intimacy is sensory overload or a depressive episode or I can’t focus on what is happening between my legs because the ceiling fan is clicking and the neighbor is mowing his lawn.
Despite years of unpacking my internalized ableism, I still find myself thinking things like “I’m a bad partner, I’m a bad lover, I’m a bad person.”
For a long time, I felt broken. I felt unlovable, undesirable, and unworthy, like an inconvenience. I disastrously pushed through, ignored my boundaries, said yes when I actually meant no, and it wasn’t until I started learning about how disability and neurodivergence impact sex and intimacy did I realize that I’d never learned how to be intimate on terms that worked for my brain and my body.
At no point did anyone ever explain how to handle discussing consent in conversation with memory issues or time perception difficulties. At no point did anyone explain what sex positions might be more comfortable on failing knees or herniated discs.
At no point did anyone talk about how birth control can impact ADHD symptoms. At no point did I see disability represented as beautiful or desirable or sexy.
The whole time, I’d been learning about sex and intimacy through the myopic lens of “Of course everyone is able-bodied and neurotypical because who would ever want to fuck a cripple, who would ever make concessions for a partner with depression?” And yet, 1.3 billion people exist, living full, rich lives, enjoying complex relationships.
Specificity is important because it allows us to know ourselves. Definitive boundaries such as “I cannot bend my arm that way” protect us. Individualized accommodations allow us to build an intimate experience that works for us.
For some people, this idea is radical and revolutionary. Disabled and neurodivergent people are often expected to shrink, to make convenient, to endure, to downplay, because it is easier and simpler and more comfortable for everyone around us.
In intimacy, in sex, we must meet our bodies and our minds as they are in the moment. Through negotiation and communication, we gain the ability to name the conditions of our pain and pleasure. It doesn’t have to be difficult, either.
The five-word difference between “good girl” and “Good girl, do you need another pillow?” might seem small and insignificant, but for some of us, not only is it meaningful to be seen in our disability but it is also the difference between enduring and enjoying.
Yet, a lot of well-meaning, well-intentioned partners still don’t know how to start that conversation or the right questions to ask.
And that’s why it’s so important to talk about disability and neurodivergence. For many people, the conversation is just beginning. Talking about disability and intimacy is powerful.
In naming our needs, in teaching others what questions to ask, we take ownership of our pleasure and contribute to theirs. In doing so, we acknowledge the beauty and the validity of our wants and needs and the strengths of our desires. It is in those sacred moments that we meet ourselves. We embrace ourselves, as we are, whole and deserving.
Catieosaurus is on The Playboy Club. Talk to her here.
