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Transcript

Sexuality in Disabilities · Why We Do What We Do

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You're listening to Why we do what we do? Welcome
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: to Why we do what we do. I am your
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: reality check host Abraham, and I'm your Hey Be Nice
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: of People host Shane. We are a psychology podcast. We
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: talk about the things that humans and non human animals do,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: and if you're joining us for the very first time,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: then welcome. We are currently in the middle of a
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: suite of episodes that are all meant to stand alone,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: but they're also all on the same topic, and the
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: topic du jour or due month at this point is
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  Speaker 1: accessibility and disability, and we're taught we're just tackling a
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: variety of specific aspects of that. There's a space in
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: which we work and have worked quite a bit, but
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: it's a group of people about which we feel strongly in.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: As I said this episode, you don't need the other
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: episodes that we have done to be able to participate
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: in this one. But we decided that if we were
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: going to talk about this, we didn't want to try
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: and cram them all into one nine hour episode, but
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: we'd split them across multiple different episodes where we could
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: tackle one sort of issue at a time and just
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: have them come out altogether. This is actually the third
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: year in a row we've done something like this, and
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  Speaker 1: that's where we find ourselves. If you're a returning listener,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: you might already know that and welcome back. We're glad
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: that you keep finding your way to us. I think
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: that's what I have to say before we sort of
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: start getting into things.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I think it's lovely. That's great.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Perfect. Well, anyway, since you're all here, Happy International Day
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: of Persons with Disabilities? Wow? Is that real?
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Is that of the day? That's really the day? Like,
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: what's synchronous?
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  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, we did so good man. Usually we're
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  Speaker 1: off by a little bit or by a lot. Well,
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  Speaker 1: we're almost never right on the dot. But that's the day.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was pretty perfect. It's also International Spirit of
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Game Day.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna interpret that the way that I would interpret that.
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  Speaker 1: It is National let's Hug Day. Oh I love that.
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  Speaker 2: That's so sweet. It's also make a Gift Day.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: It is National apple pie Day. There's a joke in
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: there for people who were around in the nineties and
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: watching movies.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, Blinkway's who makes a cameo insaid movie. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: it is national green Bean Castle.
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  Speaker 3: All Day.
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  Speaker 1: You know, I used to not like green bean Castle,
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  Speaker 1: but I kind of do now.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know, I you know, I think I think
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  Speaker 2: it's an old person food and I think that tells
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: us exactly what we need to know about this show. Wow.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Okay, So here we are is National package Protection Day,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: So get your ring doorbell cameras ready, yeah, or get
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: your like, you know, protective cup.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: If you're playing sports, it's a national roof over your
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  Speaker 2: head day.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Oh my, it is Women Wednesday, and it is cookie
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  Speaker 1: Cutter Week.
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  Speaker 2: Very nice.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: And of course we're kind of in the like fall
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: festive spirits. So if you're into the Christmasy things then
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: or Jewish the holiday things or other holiday things that
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: are going on, then happy holidays whatever those holidays might
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: be that you're celebrating. All right, So we are talking
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: in this episode about sexuality and disabilities. So if that's
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: something if it's difficult for you to listen to topics
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: about sex, this might be one that you would find
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: a little uncomfortable. But to be clear, we're going to
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: do very little talking about having sex. Like this is
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: not meant to be a super get into the weeds
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: of like intercourse type thing. And this is a lot
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  Speaker 1: more about dispelling myths around the topics of people with
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  Speaker 1: disabilities and sexuality, Right, does that make sense?
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: That is exactly it. So this is not going to
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  Speaker 2: be explicit, but it is going to be in the
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  Speaker 2: topic and it is a sensitive topic for people. So
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: like just so as you kind of dive in, just
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  Speaker 2: know that we're not going to be like, here's the act.
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  Speaker 2: We're going to be really kind of talking about like
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: just like some general things that people think about, and
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  Speaker 2: we are going to talk about topics that are going
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  Speaker 2: to come from ablest and sexist and patriarchal spaces, So
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  Speaker 2: like just we are going to unpack a lot of
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  Speaker 2: cultural things inside of this. Yeah, but yeah, we're not
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  Speaker 2: going to talk about the actual act itself.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's another good PSA that like on top of
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  Speaker 1: the fact that we have sort of sex as sort
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: of the topic, I mean it is, but it's more
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  Speaker 1: like about misconceptions about it. Is the fact that there's
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: then also the angle that there's like insensitive language and
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: topics around this because there's like a decent amount of
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: bigotry around people and what it has to do with
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  Speaker 1: sexuality and other people and people feeling they need to
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  Speaker 1: police that space for others. But yes, anyway, I hope
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  Speaker 1: that you enjoy what you hear in this episode today.
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  Speaker 1: I think it's going to be a good one. But
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  Speaker 1: I wanted to get that out there in case you
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  Speaker 1: weren't comfortable with the topic of sex and any capacity.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: You know that that's what's happening. And also, if you
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: do like what you hear in this episode or any
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: episode of ours, and you would like to support us,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: there are free ways you can do that. You can like,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: subscribe of a rating and a review, tell a friend,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: all those things. If you would like to support us financially,
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: you can pick up some merch or join us on Patreon.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: I'll talk more about all of the ways that we
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: can and that you can help us at the end
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: of this discussion. But I think we're ready to dive
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: into our topic today.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. So we
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: are going to talk and unpack the intersection of sexuality
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: and disabilities, which is which is a complex topic in itself.
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  Speaker 2: This topic could go in a variety directions, and we
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: could spend time on the high rate of gender variation
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: among autistic individuals, which we will talk about a little bit,
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: but we're not going to spend that could be an
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: episode itself. We could also spend time unpacking the infantilization
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  Speaker 2: of people with IDDD diagnoses assuming that they don't have sex,
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: which is also not the case, or that they shouldn't
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: which or they shouldn't which is a myth that we
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: will unpack, but it's a the whole thing that comes up, right,
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  Speaker 2: Or we could tackle the overarching issue of sexuality education
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  Speaker 2: in America, we're over ninety percent of students with disabilities
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  Speaker 2: never get an option to attend sex ed classes. We
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  Speaker 2: could tackle all those things.
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  Speaker 1: And it's easy for and probably many other folks to
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: immediately assume that when we're talking about sexuality and disabilities
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  Speaker 1: we specifically mean intellectual disabilities or developmental disabilities. While that
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: will be a large portion of the topic because that
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  Speaker 1: is a place where there are a lot of opinions
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  Speaker 1: about it, unfortunately, we are also going to talk about
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  Speaker 1: other disabilities and how those are impacted by the world
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: of sexuality. And you maybe mentioned this in here, but
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Mary Roach and her book Bonk actually addresses this. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: in some cool ways. We can bring that up a
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  Speaker 1: little bit later.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, So at the end of the day,
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: we could arguably do an entire suite on this topic alone.
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  Speaker 2: We could spend so much time time with this, and
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  Speaker 2: maybe we will one day. Yeah, But what we're going
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  Speaker 2: to try to do in this episode is to provide
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  Speaker 2: an opportunity for the audience to kind of dip your
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  Speaker 2: toes into the world of sexuality and disability, so you
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: can see how pervasive the misconceptions are and how it
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: may have informed your own worldview and biases in this space.
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  Speaker 2: And that's right. If you did know and you weren't aware,
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: Welcome to another WWD WWD myth busting episode. Baby.
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  Speaker 1: Those are fun and they're some of my favorites to record, actually,
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  Speaker 1: and some of my favorites to go back and listen to.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe other people don't like them as much, and certainly
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: we've gotten some of our most critical feedback has been
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: about myth busting episodes, because invariably, when you start saying
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: like this is a thing that's wrong, somebody hears that
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: and says like you're telling you're making me wrong, like
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: you're saying that I'm a wrong person. And sometimes those
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: people are right that they are wrong people. But most
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: of the most of the time, we're just trying to
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: address the topic at hand and anyway point being that, like,
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  Speaker 1: it's a place where people get sensitive when they're being
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  Speaker 1: told that the thing that they believed was a myth.
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  Speaker 2: That's when we get the emails that say nahuh yeah.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or or people who like leave reviews where it's
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: like that's not right.
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  Speaker 2: I'm like, oh yeah, oh yeah, we'll share.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, we cited our sources. So yeah, anyway point may
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  Speaker 1: and we're here, let's talk about this. Are you ready, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: let's do it, all right. So we wanted to tackle
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  Speaker 1: this topic because, just like other areas of sexuality, there's
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  Speaker 1: so much misinformation related to the topic of sexuality among
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  Speaker 1: folks with disabilities or impairments. It seems like it's important
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  Speaker 1: then to just get out in front of this because
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: you probably fall into one of three camps. This is
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  Speaker 1: stuff you already know. You are potentially someone who works
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  Speaker 1: in this space, or you have relationships with people in
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  Speaker 1: this space, or you're someone who did not really know
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  Speaker 1: about this and maybe has some misconceptions ideas, or someone
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  Speaker 1: who knows about this but you maybe were fed incorrect
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  Speaker 1: information by like a church. I'm just gonna say, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that's that's.
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  Speaker 2: Uh, we're gonna actually, you know what, We're gonna talk
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  Speaker 2: about churches in a little bit too. So hold on
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  Speaker 2: to your bibles, babies. That's gonna be a ride. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: I think that that's it's important to bring up because
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  Speaker 2: there's lots of systems in place that work against people
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  Speaker 2: with disabilities here, like besides churches and systems of religion
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  Speaker 2: and stuff that really have take that take more conservative approaches.
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  Speaker 2: I want to provide a little bit more context. So,
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  Speaker 2: like sex education in the US has always been a nightmare.
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  Speaker 2: It's always been a problem in that even the most
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  Speaker 2: liberal states tend to be pretty conservative because every single
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  Speaker 2: state in the United States requires some level of abstinence
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  Speaker 2: training as part of their sex side curriculums. Abstinence training
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  Speaker 2: so basically, like how do you prevent babies? Don't do it?
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  Speaker 2: And that's just not helpful. And I think that that's
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  Speaker 2: something that people really just like when we talk about this,
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  Speaker 2: it's not it's it's such a small slice of the
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  Speaker 2: larger pie of sex education, and the US just misses
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  Speaker 2: the mark on it for lots of reasons.
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  Speaker 1: I am adding abstinence only sex education as a topic
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: for the future, because I think, yes, even if we
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: just like run through the studies that have been done,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: it'll be a full length episode. It'll t.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's that quote from Mean Girls, right, like, don't
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  Speaker 2: have sex because you'll get pregnant and die.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: That's what they say.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: That's that's what I hear at least.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, as far as far as I know, that's
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: absolutely true. Everyone who's ever had sex is dead now.
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  Speaker 2: Yep, they will eventually, so I guess there is mortality
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: rate with that eventually.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, that is kind of the joke. It's the
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: like they took Thailand all and they died. It was
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: ninety years later, but they did die.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: We will all eventually die. Sorry, we'll get the alert.
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  Speaker 1: I guess if you didn't know that that was the case.
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  Speaker 2: Unless you're that guy that's like transfusing his son's blood
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: into himself to make himself younger. That's a weird thing.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: But he's also doing that to try to stay younger. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: he's gonna die probably sooner because of the trauma that
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: he's putting his body through.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's exactly right, it's like, don't put other people's
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: blood and he don't take people's blood less, Like, yeah,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: I'm a medical professional. Professional needs to be guiding this
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: and also just generally don't do it, Like if you're
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: for cosmetic purposes, don't do it, but like if you're
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: doing it for like medical reasons. Anyway, we've gotten way
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: off track, so I guess it's at.
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: Time perfect perfect, Okay, we've had a moment to reset,
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: We've found our center.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: We are talking about sex, which should have been a
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: really easy topic to stay on topic with, sure, But
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: point being that before the break, Shane, you were saying
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: that the education around sex in the United States has
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: already been weak sauce, And I think we would broadly
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: classify it as at the very least somewhat inadequate in
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: its job. And so as a result, our sex education
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: system has a lot of gaps, some glaring gaps in
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: the information just in general through through there. And then
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: you add to this, the majority of sexuality research is
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: very male dominated and oriented. It took nearly ten years
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: for researchers to start evaluating female arousal after looking at
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: male arousal whole decade before they were like, huh, I
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: wonder if we should talk about other people who might
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: also have sex besides the ones we've already been interested in.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah yeah.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Additionally, sexuality research often neglects to answer or support any
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: kind of impairment that somebody might have disabled people. It
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: might occur in tangential research like studying spinal injuries in general,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: mainly to inquiries about bodily functions, but it was rarely
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: or or never for a while the question that they
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: were asking. They kind of landed on it at some point,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: but it wasn't what they were they were starting with
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: their inquiry, right.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: And then culture plays a huge critical factor in this
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: when it comes to research and what people were willing
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: to approve and look at and have conversations about. So,
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: in the US we largely started as a Puritan country
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: when colonization began at least, and European settlers came here
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: and desperately wanted to have a free nation, which was
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: there way of saying that they wanted things. They were
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: basically saying things were too loosey goosey in Europe. So
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: we want to practice more strict religious rights, which is
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: exactly how the like what happened here, Like the pilgrims
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: that came to the United States were kicked out of
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: England because they were too conservative. It wasn't because they
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: were like, oh, we want like freedom of religion. They
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: wanted freedom to practice extremely conservative views. Versions of God
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: are pervasive in our culture. And so you're going to
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: find lots of influences from the Bible in sex education unfortunately,
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: which is where abstinence training comes in.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like, we want we want to be free
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  Speaker 1: to take away other people's freedoms. We want to be
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: the ones calling the shots about taking away freedoms.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, absolutely one, that's what they were doing.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: They won't let us do that. Yeah, so we need
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: to go we can't do that. Yeah, anyway, and that
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: tradition does continue today.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's baked in. It's baked into the legislation here, truly.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: And notably carried with a red red hat.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Yes, moving on with our topic, d Joor, which is
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: actually the issue here that we're talking about the culture.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: We're talking about research and understanding and I think you
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: could broadly say values around this topic, whatever those might be.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: And so importantly here the disabilities population is overlooked, and
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: as we've said, like this is important, they are overlooked,
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: they're infantilized. They are neglected in any topic or space
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: related to sexuality, and likely as a result of the
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: previously mentioned factors that we just listed. But here's a
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: quick summary. So terrors and the general population aren't educated,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: so they will hold antiquated and just misinformed views on things.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: Laws are highly preventative oriented, resulting in unnecessary restrictions or
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: reliance on Again, the sort of history of misinformation and disinformation,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: and the culture adds layers of guilt and coercion that
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: ultimately result in somewhat similar restrictions. And this idea of
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: like moral outrage around sexuality with people with disabilities.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so hear it. Why we do what we do.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: We like to solve problems, and that's what we're going
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: to do today. Obviously, we're going to solve every problem
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: that comes up in the space. So we want to
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: start by kind of I mean I say start, we're
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: gonna spend the rest of this episode talking about a
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: few myths that we want to break wide open. So
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: get your pen and paper, take notes, because this is
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: going to kind of challenge some of maybe your own
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: personal biases and viewpoints as it pertains the disabilities and sexuality.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: And in a way I kind of hope it does.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: So I want to just quickly summarize all the things
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: that we said, because I think this is where we're
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: kind of already getting into the myths a little bit.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: But I think I just want to summarize. I think
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: the view we've espoused so far, which is this idea
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: that people just pretend that once you're in a disability
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: space congenital acquired, what have you, cognitive, intellectual, physical, whatever,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: the disability is, that you cannot and should not have sex,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: or that there's at least misinformation about it. We sort
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: of think or we don't think about it. It's sort
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: of like the topics of sex don't apply to this group.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: And that's just like what we're saying is these are
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: human beings and they are biological organisms, right, and biological
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: organisms that need to reproduce. That is how evolution has
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: driven them. That is what they're going to try to do,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: regardless of what they look like or how they're sort
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: of moving most of the time, like there are conditions
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: under which they won't try to reproduce with or without
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: a disability. But the Venn diagram does not indicate a
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: correlational relationship necessarily, and that people, I think treat it
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: as if it cannot be talked about, it shouldn't be approached,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: or it's like, I don't know, I think it's this
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: prudishness around. We can't have this conversation and we shouldn't
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: think about it. We shouldn't create ex diessibility for that
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: group of people. And with respect to that is the
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: value we as as a couple of professionals disagree with that. Yes,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: all right, which I think leads nicely into our very
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: first myth, which is the idea that people with disabilities
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: don't have sexual feelings very inaccurate m again with their
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: human beings, like, there's still people, right. We are a
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: species that has evolved through sexual reproduction, like most mammals
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: and most other vertebrate species. Many folks assume that individuals
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: with intellectual disabilities or developmental disabilities are asexual. This is
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: not the case. And just in case you weren't sure
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: what a sexuality means, quick definition, being a sexual is
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: that is characterized by a lack of sexual attraction to
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: others whatsoever. Important to note that this does not mean
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: that they are always celibate or always abstinate, but they
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: have very low sexual attraction, like low to zero but
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: maybe not zero, but not very much well.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: And also it's on a spectrum, so there's folks that
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: are gray sexual or like sexually attracted to people emotionally
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: or sapio sexual, which they're attracted to people who have
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: intellectual like certain hot levels of intellectualism. So like, it's
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: not strictly they are not interested in sex and will
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: never have sex. It's that's not at all what it is.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: So I think there is also that misconception on that
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: end too, which again we could probably do a whole
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: episode on a sexuality because that's its own topic to unpack,
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: and again lots of miss unpacked there.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's like types of asexuality too that I'm aware
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: of that when you get to that end of the spectrum,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: they've sort of come up with other names for preferences
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: in that space.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this idea that individual's disabilities are
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: not sexual this likely comes from able a spaces where
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: either the person is infantilized to a degree that sexuality
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: is not necessary or important for them because the person
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: has never had the opportunity to learn about sex or sexuality,
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: or because caregivers are worried that the person may be
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: at risk for harmful sexual behavior, among other reasons. Can
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: speak this a little bit because I've worked with a
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: lot of guardians that have been like hyper protective of
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: their loved ones. And what ends up happening a lot
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: of times is you'll hear phrases like, oh, that just
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: doesn't come up, or they're not interested in this, or
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: you know, they don't really engage in this, and it's
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: not always the case. It's just really more so an opportunity,
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: Like if I never knew that some experience existed, then
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: I would I would probably never have an interest in
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: it because I just had no knowledge about it. So
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: that's the sex education piece. But the other part is
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: these naturally occurring motivations are occurring for this person and
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: they maybe don't have language for it, or like they
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: are are never given an opportunity to speak about it
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: or any of those things, and it's neglected by the
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: people who are in like who are caring for them.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: I've worked with caregivers who are immediately interested in getting
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: their folks on birth control, and just because they're doing
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: it from a protective space, even though the person has
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: no say or no interest in getting birth control. I've
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: had caregivers as about getting their son's vasectomies and like
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: kind of doing that just to prevent them from having
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: children without that person. Say, like, we've had these conversations.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: It's really dark, these some of these conversations. But these
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: are conversations that we have had with caregivers that are like, no,
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: you can't do that. That's actually like a really big problem.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: And most of the time, I could say that it
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: almost never comes from a place of like harm or
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: like meanness. It always every time I've had a conversation
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: with a caregiver, it always comes from a place of
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: I just want to protect my child. Yeah, and that's
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: the infantilization part, where they're not having conversations with these folks,
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: they're not having conversations with their loved ones, and they're
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: making decisions for them that they think that isn't the
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: best interest of their child.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like their heart's in the right place. Yeah,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: you can sort of understand and resonate with their values,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: and like they want to do the right thing. But yeah,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: they're thinking of this this person as like someone who,
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: as you said, is like asexual or is like it
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: can't be a thing that can be accommodated for them
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: without involving them in that conversation or like you know,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: thinking about the fact like that actually might be exactly
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: what they want. And so I don't know, I can
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: hear that. And for people who maybe hear us, we
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: keep saying infantilization essentially is like treating someone as if
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: they're like a baby, like they have the level of
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: decision making, autonomy and abilities as as an infant, and
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: that that's an appropriate way to think about it. And
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: like they're in most of the spaces where we're talking
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: about this, these are adults, Like these are people at
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: the very least to our teenagers, but most of them
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: were like well into the space of adults and acknowledging
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: that like this is going to be a drive that
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: they have, right, So absolutely, yeah, and actually it leads
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: us beautifully into our second myth. But myth one point
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: five is ads.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: And the myth is that they're effective these ads.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: All right, we're back, and you you ended that the
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: idea that the myth that as are effective. I actually
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: talked to someone recently who like knew someone who worked
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: in an advertisement, like they worked in advertising, and they
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: asked to like, does it like you guys think so
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: much money in this? I think some some businesses are
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: sinking millions of dollars into advertising, Like does this change behavior?
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Like do you get increased revenue? Like the amount of
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: money you're spending on this, does it pay off? And
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: the person that like works in advertising was like, we
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: don't know, great, Like I don't. I don't think it does.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: You guys, I think you're spending your wheels and ruining
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: everyone's lives for no reason.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I think there's probably some degree it does, right,
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: Like I think I feel like to me, the most
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: effective marketing is jingles, Like as a song get stuck
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: in my head and I'm like, okay, now I think
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: of double mint gum all the time.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: I do you think jingles? And then just general like
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: awareness of a thing. Yeah, Like, I think to that
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: point it works, whether it actually like those mobile ads
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: where you can't close them unless you hit the X
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: ten times and it just moves all over the screen.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: You have to wait for thirty seconds or a minute
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: or something. Yeah, the ones where it's like they keep
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: they go out of the way to create is like
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: over the top ludicrous ads with like a list actors,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, does that actually do more people buy
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: the product or engage with this because of this ad?
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: I'd be surprised if it does. Much Like, yeah, you
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: sunk in five million dollars and your turn on investment
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: was like five thousand dollars.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: You're right, right, right, right, And I guess it depends
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: on the product, right, probably works for movies. But anyway,
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: fair point, we're not talking about any of that, Like
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: what are we doing? Like this is we are from
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: an ad break and just talked about the empty ads.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: What's happening right now? Okay, all right? So myth number two, No, no, no,
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: it's I think it's both of us and it just
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: you know, it speaks to our friendship and I love that.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: So okay, myth number two. Sometimes people will say that
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: individuals with disabilities should not have children, and this is
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: just I think, just a weird, a weird belief, Like
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: I just think it's strange. Disabilities do not preclude somebody
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: from being a good parent. I have worked with adults
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: with disabilities who have children, who their children are very
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: involved in their lives as well, who have lived excellent,
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: wonderfully loved lives like their caregiver, their parents loved them
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: and helped care for them and took care of them
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: and showed them a level of love that you might
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: not see in other parenting spaces. So I think it's
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: a really strange experience or a belief to have where
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: you say, somebody with disabilities should not have children, because
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: that feels, first of all, that that like rings of
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: like pseudo eugenics a little bit, like it was like, oh,
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: they shouldn't be just orrange genics. Yeah, yeah, I mean
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: I was trying to be charitable, but like, also, really,
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: it's a really strange thing. And I've watched I've watched
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: parents with disabilities be better parents than their neurotypical peers.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: I've watched them do things that their neurotypical peers wouldn't do.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: I've watched them care in different ways. Like I've seen
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: this in a space where you just kind of go like, oh,
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: like there's no because at the end of the day,
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: there's no parenting handbook. So I just think this is
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: just a strange kind of take on, like, oh, if
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: you have a disability, you shouldn't have kids.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: Funny you say that because people have said there's no
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: parenting handbook. I know a person who a couple of
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: like research professors who wrote the handbook on infants, yeah,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: and toddlers. And it's really funny because they make it
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: look like a manual for like a car, on purpose,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: because it's like kind of a joke, and so they
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: like they're like a diagram of a baby, and they're
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: like food goes here, poop comes out here.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: That's beautiful.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: I love that sometimes your device will make loud noises.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: It's very funny.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: There is no reset button.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: There's no reset button, so there kind of is a handbook.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: Now. I love that.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: I don't know how accessible it is, but it exists.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah for sure.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: All right. So yeah, the point here being that, like
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: parenting is learned behavior, people without disabilities do a terrible,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: terrible job of this a lot. So I think that
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: they have not shown that they should or have any
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: kind of dominance in this space whatsoever. Right, And so
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: us feeling like we need to police that choice for
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: people feels kind of asinine and inappropriate, But it does
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: mean that because parenting is learned, and many parents don't
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: learn how to do it and then become parents anyway.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: But people can learn the skill, and that means anyone
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: can learn how to be a parent with the right support, resources,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: training and experience and to go the hardcore progressive in me,
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: that feels like something that should just be made available
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: for free as classes to all families. Is like, anybody
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: who is going to become a parent free classes for
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: how to do that thing, because like we've done the research,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: we know how behavior works, we know how to help
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: people when they run into situations they don't know what
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: to do. And it drives me. I don't understand and
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: how in movies this happens all the time. I know
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: it's just you know, screenwriters and this is maybe not real,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: but I think that people say this, which is like
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: they'll say I'm their father or I'm their mother, I
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: know what's best for my kid. I'm like, just knowing
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: how to have sex doesn't make you good at being
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: a parent, right, Like I think you can always learn things,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: and like you don't. You aren't given some like God
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: gifted ability to make good decisions just because you figured
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: out how to.
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: Have sex, right like Mac's wife how bingo, Oh my
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: gosh's fire anyway, So that's I think people understanding that,
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: like you could actually learn some things, like people have
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: figured some things out, people do their people who do
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: a really good job of.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: Being a parent, and they often had support for that
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: because yeah, or some kind of access to education. I
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: keep going on tangents. I'm sorry, we need to need
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: to move more efficient.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: I love it. No, I actually love it all right,
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: So myth number three. Sometimes people will say that autistic
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: people don't want to be in relationships, and that is
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: patently false. As a matter of fact, many autistic folks
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: are likely to have more relationships and actually richer relationships
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: and more fun relationships and more varied relationships. Some researcher
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: even suggest that they are likely to have more relationships,
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: but they will have sometimes shorter relationships than their neurotypical peers,
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: and a lot of times because they're just not wasting time,
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: they're going, h this isn't working, I'm done with this,
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: And they're more likely to be able to terminate a
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: relationship that they don't feel like is meeting their needs.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: Sounds like a superpower, right, all right, good, that was efficient.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Smith four. Young people at disabilities don't need information about contraception. Okay,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: so people at disabilities shouldn't have children, but they also
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: shouldn't have information about how to avoid becoming a parent.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: If this isn't the Republican agenda of holding two opposing ideas,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: I do not know what is this is. So it's absurd,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: It's yeah, it's this is the criticism I often have.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, I wish I could have these arguments
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: with someone who's on that end of the political spec
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: because I'm like, you say you want this thing and
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: then you do this thing that is the opposite of
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: those two. And I'm just trying to understand, like where
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: the disconnect is for you that you're like, your ideas
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: about policy are so counterproductive they like border on self
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: destructive some of the time, right, right, Like I just
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: don't understand how you get from A to B.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: It's so bizarre. It's so bizarre.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: Anyway, the point here that we would make is that
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: all people should have information about safe, affordable and accessible
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: contraception options, whatever they may choose, whatever they think they need,
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: whatever is going to make the most sense for their lifestyle.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: And because all people have a right to their reproductive health,
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: they should have options to actively and safely participate in
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: their reproductive health and reproductive activities if they so choose.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: So access to contraception is something that will prevent unnecessary pregnancies,
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: prevent unnecessary STIs, prevent different harms that may come up
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: as a result of this. So yes, all people, not
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: just young people, old people, people disabilities, people without disabilities,
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: All people should have access to information about contraception because
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: it will be the safest route to protect them and
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: everybody else in the community at large.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: Man, this feels like a whole nother like episode that
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: we could do again just digging into the research on this,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: because there's so many people who are like providing contraception
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: or information about contraception just leads to people having a
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: whole bunch of ramp and sex. I'm like, no, first
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: of all, ninety percent sure that that's completely wrong, if
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: not the opposite. But also like in places where we
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: have done this, where we like provided education and contraception
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: and information and we gave people the choice to live
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: their lives the way that they want. But informed. Then
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: what they tended to have is people who deliberately chose
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: to have families when they were ready to have families,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: and they did so safely and responsibly, and they had
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: a more robust system of care and support and intentionality
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: and if things just work better. So it's like we've
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: kind of done this expand more than once. Like this
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: has been policy that has been rolled right in other
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: countries where because they provided access to contraception, they provided
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: access to information, like everything in that country worked better
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: because of that. And when people choose to just instead
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: thrive in chaos thinking that they're thriving an order, right,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, this is not order, this is chaos
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: because look around you chaos.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: Chaos completely.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: All that is to say one to number five, yes,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: all right. Remember this is a myth. So people might
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: sometimes say or believe that people of disabilities are confused
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: when they think that they are gay or buy or trans,
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: or that they're just copying somebody else. Incorrect. Yes, that
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: is a myth. It is is a myth because it
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: is wrong. That idea is incorrect. Of course, people with
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: disabilities can be on the spectrum of sexuality in terms
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: of their preferences.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so where do we even start with this? It's
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: so exhausting, Like I am so sick of the they're
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: confused about their orientation argument in general, Like whoever it is,
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: it's a ridiculous argument. And so first of all, let's
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: unpack this.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: So what here? Here?
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: What if they were confused?
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: Agree?
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: Like, gender, identity and orientation fall along a spectrum. It's
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: a lifetime of discovery. It's a lifetime of exploration. Let
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: people explore and learn more. It's not about being confused sometimes,
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: it's not about Sometimes it's actually about not having the
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: language to describe complex feelings. Like some people may feel confused,
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: or they may say that they belong to a certain group,
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: and they may not actually belong to that group because
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: they don't have the language you describe some more complex
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: or more specific group. We talked about a sexuality earlier,
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: and some people may feel like they are they're asexual,
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: but they may actually discover that they belong to part
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: of a spectrum that's a little bit more specific, or
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: like a subset of a sexuality that's a little bit different,
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: and they haven't learned the language you describe that yet.
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: And it's true for all people, not people with disabilities.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: So this is a lifetime of discovery.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: I love this so much, and it's it's sort of
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: a position I've had on this for a while where
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: people the argument they'll have is like being gay is
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: not a choice or it is a choice. Where we
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: fall in that, I'm like, who cares? Right, Right, If
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: that is a choice, that's not your business.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: If it's not a choice, it's still not your business.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: Like you don't need to have an opinion about someone
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: else's sexual orientation or preferences, right.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: And also just to be clear, so we're we're all
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: on the same page. We don't believe that it's a choice.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: We believe that it is like an experience. Like I
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: just want everybody to like know that, Like it's not like, oh,
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: you choose to be gay, Like it's one of those
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: things where it's like it's more complicated than that.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: But if you didn't choose that, I would be in
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: supportive it because like, of course, you choose whatever whatever
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: path you want to be on. Yeah, and that's not
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: any of our reason to police there. Of course, I've
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: got to say this because I know the people will
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: who don't have any contexts will hear this and come
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: out of the woodworks when I say things like preferences
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: you cannot have, like that does not include partners who
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: cannot or do not consent, right, so like that's always
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: consent does everything, So does not include children, It does
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: not include animals. Those are not those are not places
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: where the consent can happen, So like those are not
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: viable partners. And we've talked about this a little bit
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: in our episode on paraphilias, so if you're getting interested,
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: go check that out. But yes, like it's like I said,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: like whether or not it's a choice doesn't matter.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: It's relevant.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it is totally irrelevant. So we can have
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: thoughts about whether or not it is and that's fine,
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: but like it kind of it doesn't ultimately matter. And
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: even still, the point is that like someone's just exploring,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: they're figuring out what kind of life is comfortable and
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: works for them, and good on them for doing that,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Like this should not Again, nobody's nobody's business, but there
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: isn't the people that they choose to that they find
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: companionship with.
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, And the second thing that we have to unpack
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: here is that there is a high gender variation among
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: folks disabilities, specifically among autistic people. So anywhere between fifty
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: to sixty percent of autistic people report some level of
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: gender nonconformity or gender variation. So it's we're finding that,
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: like there is a broader spectrum of LBGTQ or LGBTQ
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: plus population folks, and that people identify in that space.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: There is a higher percentage among autistic folks, So like
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: you're gonna see a little bit more expiration in this space.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: That was a fact that I did not know coming
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: into this.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there you go.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: I did know that we were going to play ads. Okay,
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: we are back. We're onto myth number six of twelve.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: We're halfway through after this.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're so close, so myth number six. This is
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: what people believe. It is the responsibility of the parent
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: or the careers to make decisions for their child or
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: their clients when it comes to relationships or babies.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No, absolutely no. And this is a complicated discussion
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: because of a variety of reasons, especially when we may
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: have folks who are so really impacted they might be
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: at risk of exploitation. Where guardians are evolved these decisions.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: That is legally approved abstinence and restrictions around sexuality. They
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: seem like their safe choices, like they're intended to be
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: safe choices, but they often neglect to include the person
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: who is directly impacted. So it's people making choices about
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: them without them. Yeah, right, and then they will sacrifice
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: autonomy and freedom for what they perceive to be safety.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: And there is there is another way. We don't have
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: to give up those things. We can involve them in
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: those decisions, We can try and give them. There are
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: people sometimes who they struggle to communicate and like in
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: those spaces, what we just need to do is do
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: our best to give them choices so that they can
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: try and participate in a way that is as autonomous
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: as they can be.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Nearly eighty percent of people with disabilities report some
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: level of sexual exploitation or harm yikes from people that
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: in their life, and much of that has to do
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: with finding out after the fact because they didn't get
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: the sex education to give them any sort of safety
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: like body autonomy, safety consent information, stuff like that, So
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: you're gonna find it. That's that's part of why we're
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: having this discussion. You know, bad, Yeah, real bad. Now
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: number seven people believe that people living with a disability
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: are not attractive or desirable. I'm just gonna say, get
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: them out of here with this nonsense. This is patently untrue.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: It's just absurd. And a lot of this comes with
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: you know, cultural views on beauty and stuff like that,
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: and that's also just probably another conversation that we have
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: to have at some point, but it's a lot of
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: that comes from that space, which is just unfortunate.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we're not going to use this episode to
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: unpack the unrealistic and toxic topic of beauty and standards
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: of beauty and culture. We don't have time for that.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: But we'll say briefly, everyone is deserving of love, sex, relationships,
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: or whatever combination of those things works for them, whatever
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: they prefer. Everybody deserves to break free from sort of
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: normative beauty standards and find beauty and whatever it is
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: like that they are attracted to, like whatever works for you.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: So like, we don't need to spend all this time
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: cultivating like what is and what isn't beautiful, and let
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: people just find what they like and like fall in
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: love with whoever they fall in love with, or you know,
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: find attractiveness, attraction to whatever they find attraction to. Yeah,
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: again always considering the issue of consent.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: But other than that, yes, of course, all right, mid
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: number eight. People believe that people living with disabilities can't
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: have real sex.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: Okay, So most of the time they just never get
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: the opportunity because a they've never come into contact with
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: real sex education, so they're just uninformed about how and
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: what to proceed here, and be legal restrictions or service
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: protections prevent folks from accessing opportunities. I've probably shared this
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: on this podcast before, but my very first job working
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: inside of behavior analysis was working with adults who had
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: pretty significant impact with cognitive or developmental disabilities or intellectual disabilities,
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: and the topic of them engaging in sexual behavior at
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: home came up quite frequently because they're adults. Most of
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: them were like over thirty, many of them were over fifty. Yeah,
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: and they'd have these issues where they're like, you know,
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: they're they did go in the room and they would
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: just they would be doing things themselves and they would
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: come out naked and that would be distressing to the staff,
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: and they would try and do that sort of thing.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: And like they'd be people who like in the middle
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: of the day at sort of the day habilitation place,
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: they'd be touching themselves and they'd get you know, prevented
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: from doing that instead of like given an opportunity in
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: an outlet and like taught like here's you know, wash
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: your hands before and after, and like here's how to
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: do it safely, and let's not grind on things that'll
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: give you splinters. Yeah, whatever the case might be. So
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: it's I've seen that like play out in real time
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: when I was very very new to all of this,
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: Like I didn't really understand, but I always thought it
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: was I I was quite amused by the fact that
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: like these people would like find a way and like
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: people would try and put them down and they're like, no,
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: I know what I want, and they go for it,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: And I thought that was very funny.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Staff are just they they're
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: It's just always comes up in that space. So like, actually,
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: I'm glad that you brought that up because like that
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: was also my first experience working in this and and
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: what you'll learn is that there are sometimes state laws
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: that actually and actively prevent this type of thing from happening.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: So as an example, in the state of Florida, which is,
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: you know, this lovely, sunshiny place. But there are some
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: things where I gotta say this, Florida does some things
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: right for disabilities, like they there are lots of services
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: available for folks with disabilities. There's lots of like resources
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: like comparative to some other states that I've I've had
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: the pleasure of consulting in, Florida does some things pretty
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: well in this space.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: However, first time anyone's ever said that.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: I know. It's like, we have beautiful beaches and sometimes
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: we take care of our people sometimes. But it is
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: written into the handbooks for group homes specifically and group
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: home services, the individuals cannot have sex in their group homes.
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: Not that they can't be provided opportunities, but they are
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: not allowed to have sex in their group homes. The
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: home that they are living in, the home that their
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: services pay for, the home that their benefits actively pay
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: for the staff to be there, for the home to
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: be open, for these services to be rendered. The homes
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: that they live in day in and day out, they
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: are not allowed to have sex in. That doesn't mean
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: they can't masturbate, but they can't have sex in those homes,
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: and when.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: We say group homes, we're talking about these are homes
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: for people with some type of impairment where to support
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: their I guess mobility around the world.
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: They've been Yeah, it'shabilitation services.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, they have been placed in a home
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: where other people with similar sort of situations live and
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: then the hell home has staff. So that's why when
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: they say group home, that's what they're talking about with
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: respect to them having laws about them having sex right,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: which again is also completely acidine.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, agreed, all right.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: Myth number nine people believe that people with spinal injuries
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: no longer experience sexual desire. This is incorrect. Regardless of injury,
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: the desire to experience sexual activity or intimacy may remain,
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: and maybe even often remains. There may be some unique
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: difficulties for them, especially if their experience is an acquired injury,
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: and it depending on where impacts the spine. However, intimacy
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: may still be a predominant desire to them. And I'll
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: actually bring up here the book Bonk by Mary Roach.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: She gets into this because they have specifically experimented with
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: ways to I guess you would say maybe reprogram the
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: sort of neurological pathways that were stimulated, because it's true
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: that in some of these instances with acquired spinal injury
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: that the sexual organs no longer receive they no longer
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: produce like stimulation to the brain. And what they do
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: is they actually will train up another part of their
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: boyody that serves a similar function so that they can
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: receive sexual stimulation. It's just no longer through their sexual organs.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: Kind of a really interesting thing to think about that
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: they can even do that. And I don't remember now
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: from the book whether that was something that the sort
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: of medical doctors did or the person did on their
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: own or figured out, or if it just sort of happened. Yeah,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: but is a thing that can happen in that space.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: It was either the chapter around spinal injuries and neurological injuries,
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: or is the chapter about defining what an orgasm is,
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: because that was such a big part of that conversation,
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: was like what is an orgasm and where? Like why
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: does it have to be oriented in the in sexual organs?
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: Can it be in other parts of the body.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: I feel like it was that one.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, It's super super fascinating book. Everybody go
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: read Bunk. It's like one of my favorite books. It's
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: so good, it's incredible. So, going back to having no
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: desire for sexual experience, myth intimacy and desire are not
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: necessarily related to the act of sex. And I think
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: there's also this larger discussion about unpacking what any this means.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: Things like massage, physical touch, personal conversations. All of these
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: are types of social engagements that could be intimate, and
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: you could have sexually explicit intimate relationships inside of these spaces.
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: That doesn't haves toarly have to be centered around an orgasm.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: All of these fall within the realm of sexuality as
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: it pertains to healthy relationships. So sexual desire and feeling
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: desire doesn't necessarily have to result in the act of
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: sex or the or the resulting orgasm.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: Okay, so is myth nine. We have myths ten, eleven,
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: and twelve post ad. Yes, all right, we are back
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: with myth ten.
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: And a little post ad clarity.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: And a little post ad clarity. Love that great joke
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: in there.
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: It's you know, it's the little things here and there.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: It is man and now I want to use that
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: more often post add clarity. Okay, So Myth ten, and
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: this is very related to myth nine, is the idea
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: that sex organs don't work after a spinal injury. This
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: is not necessarily true, although, as I said, there can
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: be some spinal injuries where they don't necessarily receive sensation.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that they don't work. Yeah, spinal cord
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: injuries are very interesting and complicated. They're complex. Some nerves
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: may be severed, but not all of the nerves. Some
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: nerves actually self repair, but maybe only kind of. Sometimes
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: the nerves can be entirely severed, but the body does
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: weird things. So for more often than you'd probably think,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: even with spinal injury, the sex organs actually will work
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: kind of as they've always worked. Yeah, the sensation or
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: experience for the person might be different, how they go
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: about a using that might be different post acquired injury,
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: or you know these congenital things. People I think sometimes
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: have these ideas. The point being that like a lot
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: of times, the body is going to do what it's
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: going to do even with a spine injury, and stuff
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: can just work. So yeah, that's that.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Also, what a weird question to ask someone with
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: a spinal injury, right, Like when you think about this,
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: you go like, hey, can I see you can't walk?
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: Does your vagina work? Yeah? Like, what is strange? Can
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: I see? Show me?
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: What do you mean?
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: Like, it's a really strange thing. But in many instances
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: and some instances, the person sexual organs can still work,
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: like you mentioned, they can still have orgasms, they can
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: experience them differently or in different parts of the body
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: like we mentioned earlier. Yeah, and their entire industry is
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: dedicated to developing adaptive sex toys and equipment to help
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: folks with physical disabilities engage in stimulating sexual activities with
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: their partners, which we kind of briefly touch on in
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: the mini that came out this week that goes along
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: with this, which is really cool.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, go check out that many for more on the
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: adaptive sex toys. All right, myth number eleven women with
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: disabilities don't need sex? Oh my gosh. Okay, So this
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: is not the first time nor the last time that
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: patriarchical viewpoints real their ugly head within this realm. I mean,
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: in early conversations about this, there's this idea that women
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: don't want or don't need to have sex. I think
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: you look at the partner that they had and that
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: might have explained.
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: It better, explains a lot.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this comes from the idea that male ejaculation is
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: the goal of sex. Let's just be clear here it's not. Yeah,
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: and that women don't have similar functions. Let's be clear
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: here they do.
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: So this is just it's asinin and this long, this
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: long held tradition of like feeling like women are second
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: consideration around sexual spaces. That's just it's so absurd and
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: so unnecessarily over the top bigoted. I'm like, there're half
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: our species as women, and this is how the system
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: gets designed. It's just wild.
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: It's nuts. I mean, so the important point on this
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: one is that sex isn't always about the orgasm, and
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: certainly shouldn't focus on the male orgasm, and sexuality and
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: sex is about intimacy, all of those things, and whether
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: it's alone or with another person. It's really it's just
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: really unfortunate that women are still seen as kind of
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: like just I don't want to say undeserving, but that
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: feels like it. It feels like they just go like
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: this is not the focus, Like they're well being, their
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: care their pleasure is not the focus of these types
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: of interactions.
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's the myth. By the way, we're not
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: saying that that should be the case. It's the myth
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: is that they don't need that or want that, or
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: have should have that, or whatever.
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So that brings us to the last myth that
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: we want to unpack, which is myth twelve, and that
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: is women with disabilities are quote over sex. And basically
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: what this is saying is is that any expression of
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: sexuality in women, especially with disabilities, is seen that they
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: are hyper sexual. They're perverted, they are deviant, and expressing
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: sexual interest, preferences or fantasies does not mean that the
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: person is hyper sexual. It simply means the person is
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: advocating for what they like or they prefer. It's so unfortunate,
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: and I've seen this happen time and time again, especially
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: working with adults. Is that if there is like an
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: adult who is vocalizing their preferences, there is more attention
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: on the women who express this than the men, and
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: they are more likely to be criticized. It's more likely
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: to be a problem among staff, and it shouldn't be.
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: It's absolutely absurd.
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to speculate a little bit here because
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: I don't actually know this is the case, but I
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: would guess that one of the things that happens here
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: is that in these situations, a lot of times people
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: with disabilities, like they have some kind of staff around them,
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: like all waking hours, and so they engage in sort
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: of a normal sexual routine. But because they have sort
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: of eyes on them at all times, it looks like
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: there is a greater amount of attention paid to the
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: fact that it happens at all, right, and then is
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: seen as being like hyper sexual, And I'm like, actually,
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, for one thing, like if they're awake, you're there,
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: and most of the time when they're having any kind
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: of sexual experience, they're awake, right, So like you see
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: how they overlap. There is like basically one hundred percent,
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: like there's no point which they could have a sexual
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: experience where you wouldn't be there, and that kind of
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: sucks for them. But like they also like they've never
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: been taught anything, so they don't have a plan for
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: anything to do. I think that's one of the reasons
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: that this shows up in the space. And then I
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: think there is this continual underlying discomfort around sexuality with
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: women that comes from. I think there are women who
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: have that because this is a culture that has fostered
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: that kind of attitude, and I think men definitely have
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: that because of the culture that is very patriarchy oriented.
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: That's my guess at least for one of the reasons
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: that might appear to be hyper sexual. And then another one,
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: as I was saying earlier, is because they've not really
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: been given any support or instruction around like what might
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: be considered a safe Maybe I'm gonna do air quotes
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: here appropriate time to do it, I'm going to Granted,
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: I feel like there are times there are going to
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: be less appropriate in public spaces that we don't generally
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: favor people doing that in public spaces for variety of reasons. Sure,
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: but don't know any different, Like no one's given them
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: anything because as we've mentioned before, like this education has
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: been withheld from them, so like it looks hyper sexual
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: because it might show up in a place where you
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: like weren't expecting it to and again because you're with
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: them at all waking hours of the day, So those
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: might be I think the situations that arise that have
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: people say they're hyper sexual, and I'm like they're just
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: normal sexual that's just not convenient for.
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: You, right, right, right. It makes you uncomfortable. It's your problem,
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: not theirs.
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. But those are the myths that we have
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: about this. But we also have some interesting tidbits, which
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: we also sometimes called tid points.
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: Yes, so you know, these types of topics, I would
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: imagine that if you have never dipped your toes in
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: or you're uncomfortable with it, they can feel overwhelming in
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: their scope and then a problem. Right, you know, we're
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: talking about large cultural factors, we're talking about all these things. Personally,
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: I think you know, when I leave these topics, I
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: leave them going. Sometimes the problem is too big? What
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: can we do? So we wanted to give you a
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: few ideas to start helping this kind of solve some
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: of the problems of these myths that some of the
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: things that we talked about above. One of those things
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: is donating organizations like seekis which is spelled Siecus. Canada
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: has a version of this as well, and these organizations
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: you can donate to and they help provide information into
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: se many information about sexuality, and they help fight for
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: disability rights related to sexuality as well. So they help
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: kind of work to overturn laws that are too restrictive.
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: They help with body autonomy in those different types of
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: human rights that exist.
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: Another thing you can do is get involved in legislation.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: There are some minority groups consist of very few people
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: who represent a very tiny fraction of opinions, but they're
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: organized and they're allowed. And so if you get involved
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: in you critique sex education laws, you fight against organizations
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: like the Nazis, I mean the Moms for Liberty that
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: are actively dismantling education around sex. Like these are a
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: group of people who feel like they need to police
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: other people's lives and behavior, and that they they're going
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: to throw every name that they can. They call it perverted,
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: they call it like exploitative. If they have all these
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: names and they are just wrong. They're just a group
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: of people who are committed to being wrong and policing
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: other people's lives, and they suck frankly as an organization
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: as people. Yeah, so if you're listening to this and
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: you're Moms of Liberty, I understand that, like we don't
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: know who our audience is, they might be someone listening
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: to it. I'm going to just just be very clear
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: here because I do prefer to be diplomatic. You suck,
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: start over, you're on the wrong path, Like, you're not irredeemable.
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: You could be a better person. But get out of
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: there because that group sucks.
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're awful, They're awful. Absolutely. But another thing too
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: is that I think it's really important to communicate with
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: sex education advocates and disability advocates. This also includes self
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: advocates to see if they have if they have any
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: specific concerns or avenues of engagement that they prefer they
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: like as well, where do they see value in interactions
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: because I think sometimes what will happen is like you'll
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: get people that come in with like a little bit
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: of a savior behavior savior complex that come in and
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: want to swoop it and want to do all these things.
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: I think it's so important to have conversations with the
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: folks that are doing this work. Now, if you're feeling overwhelmed,
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: get in with some of these organizations. Get in with
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: people who are doing this work and ask them what
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: they find value in and importance in, and then that
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: way you can give it a little you can get
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: a little bit of direction in that space too.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think, you know, just coming just listening
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: to this here, you've already sort of taken some steps
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: in doing something. And maybe you don't have much of
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: a choice because someone's forwarded this to you or you
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: are just subscribed to the feed and it just happened.
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: But like, I think, just getting more informed. Just listen
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: to more podcasts like this one. Yeah, you know, go
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: have conversations with this with people. Books, look into the law. Yeah,
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: read books about this topic, like go talk to Yeah.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: I think it's just learn, learn what you can, share
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: what you know, and participate in the system, because like,
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: the people who don't know what they're doing are loud,
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: and they are good at getting legislation moved, and they
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: represent the worst of us as a species, and so
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: we need to just be louder than them. What should
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: be easy because there's not very many of them, Like
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: they're grossly outnumbered. Yeah, if we even put in a tiny,
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: tiny amount of effort, we'd easily overwhelm those numbers. The
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: other thing I guess maybe I could say is just
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: in general, being advocate for this this topic for these people,
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: even if it's just like holding that opinion and standing
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: up for it, like that still does more than you
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: might know. You can be more active or more passive,
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: but if you just have the opinion that, like we,
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: you choose to support people with disabilities and being in
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: support of their rights around their sexuality, you're on the
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: right side of things and you are helping absolutely. All Right, well,
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: I think that is what we have to say about this.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: You have anything else you'd like to add before we
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: wrap this one up and move on.
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: Uh?
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: Nothing on my end, Okay, perfect. If you're joining us
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: for the first time, something we do at the end
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: of our discussions is we recommend some things. So I'm
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: going to get through the credits. Then we want to
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: do our fun recommendations, and I think the recommendations are
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: like one of a very fun thing to look forward to.
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: Maybe people don't care. We do tend to recommend like movies,
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: music experiences, board games, that sort of thing. Then maybe
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: people are sick of hearing it, but we tend to
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: come up with new ones and they tend to be fun,
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: I think. But yeah, I agree, all right, perfect? Well,
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: then I was thinking maybe we'd do an ad break,
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: but we're so close to the end, maybe it doesn't
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: make sense. Maybe just wrap up here and then we'll
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: let the ads play out at the end.
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it sounds that sounds good.
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: All right, let's just do everyone a favor. We're in
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: the Christmas spirit and we won't do the ads, so
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: let's do the credits first. Thank you so much everyone
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: for listening. We appreciate you being here. Thank you so
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: much to my team of people writing in fact checking
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: from Shane and myself. Thank you so much for putting
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: together the notes on this. Shane.
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, this was a lot of fun to
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: work on, so thank you for letting me.
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: Our social media coordinator is Emma Wilson, and our audio engineer,
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: technician producer person is Justin who is very good at
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: his job.
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: Yes, he's the best at his job.
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: All right now, if you would like to support us,
• 56:43
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• 56:45
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• 56:47
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• 56:50
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• 56:53
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• 56:55
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• 56:56
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• 57:02
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• 57:11
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• 57:14
  Speaker 1: at the end of our full length discussions, of which
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: this is one because we're already at over an hour,
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: we thank the people. We go through the list of
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: people who have taken that leap to support us and
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: have helped us be a show, and we just really
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: appreciate all of you for what you've done. So a
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: giant thank you to Mike, m Megan, Mike t, Justin,
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: Kim Brad, Stephanie, Brian, Ashley, Kiara, and Charlie. Thank you
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: so much.
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: You're the best ever.
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: We appreciate you all very very much. You can have
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: your name read on that list. If you go over
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: and support us, you can pick up some merch from
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: our merch store, which is still broken, but I will
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: I am intermittently trying to work on it. I think
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: those are most of the things I miss anything in
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: terms of supporting us.
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: No, all those things are supportive.
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: If you have things you'd like to tell us about
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: sexuality and in the disabilities specifically. You can email us
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: directly at infowwdwwdpodcast dot com. We're also happy to engage
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: in a constructive critical argument with you. Through that space.
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: You can go in and tell us that we're done
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: and you hate us, and I'll just ignore you. Please
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: don't do that, because I don't like getting those emails.
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: But you can also tell us very nice things that
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: are positive and glowing, and I'll just say big things,
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: and if you have something really meaningful to contribute, I
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: will read that on a future episode, which we do periodically.
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: We get a lot of really good emails, so I
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: appreciate our listeners who write in frequently.
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're the best.
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: You can also read us on the social media platforms.
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: But I think that is what I have to say
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: about this. So shall we get some recommendations.
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: Let's do it recommendations, all right? So I am so
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: excited about this because this last Friday at the time
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: is recording. This last Friday, two of my bands put
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: out releases. One was a surprise. I didn't know we
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: were putting out the release, and that was a surprise
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: for me, which is kind of fun. But the other
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: one I plan for some time. So the first one
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: I want to talk about it is a band called
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: cyber Bully that I'm in. It's a joke carcore band
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: that is expressively writing from the perspective of a keyboard warrior,
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: and so every song is about just like being on
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: the internet and being in chat rooms and like bullying
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: people and like how they're all terrible. It's a lot
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: of fun. It's seven minutes, it's seven songs, and it's
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: just real quick. One of them is a cover, which
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: is a lot of fun and I think it's a
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: really cool fun I did. It's a fun little demo.
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: It's a very low fi and I play based on
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: it and my buddy plays guitar and it's a really
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: good time. So also my favorite fun fact about this
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: is that one of the members of the band played
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: and Sublime for a little bit, so this band is
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: ex Sublime, which is very funny to me. Wow. And
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: then the other one is my solo music, which is
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: called god Man. It's stylized as good and backslash backslash
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: m an So if you search it there, but the
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: best place to find is on band camp. I'm gonna
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: we'll include both the band camp logos. So I put
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: out my EP, Dreamseeker. I play everything on this and
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: it's the first time I've ever written music by myself,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: recorded music by myself, and released it by myself. So
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: I feel pretty great about it, and hopefully you guys
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: like it if you give it a listen. So that's
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: my recommendation is listen to my bands fantastic.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: I pulled up god Man and Money to actually listen
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: through it, so I will, I will get on that.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: I genuinely want to know what you think about it,
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: because I think that you'll.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: Think it cool, very good. Yeah, awesome. All right. So
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: your band's god Man, god slash slash Man and Cyberbully,
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: and those are both on band camp.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: Yes, Godmn is on Spotify as well's I think that's
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: released everywhere right now.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: So oh cool, hi, very goet. All right. I am
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: going to do the thing that I do, which is
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: recommend to board game. This is more card game than anything.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: It's called Origin Story, and this is about becoming a superhero.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: This is a trick ticking game. So if you're familiar
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: with Hearts or Spades, Uker, I guess yeah, basically play
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: out a suit and then people have to follow suit.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: If they can, the highest card in that suit wins.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: But there is also so like a suit that sort
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: of dominates. And then this one, the Suit of Love,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: Love beats all. So if you cannot play the lead
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: suit and you play the love suit, then Love the
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: Love suit will win. But importantly in this one, what
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: makes this particularly interesting is that as your superhero, every
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: round you're acquiring new abilities that mostly allow you to
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: break the rules around the trick ticking game. Sure, there's
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: one that we encountered that said like once per round,
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: so for just one trick and there's eight tricks in around,
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: once par round you can just say I win and
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: you just get the trick no matter what happens, which
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: just kind of wild but pretty cool ability if you
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: can if you can land it and get it to work.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: So anyway, you acquire all these abilities, and then you're
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: just acquiring points throughout the game, and whoever is the
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: most points in the end wins. It goes five rounds.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: It's a really good game like and it's really not
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: very complicated. It's just you're just playing cards and acquiring
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: abilities for your superhero. You choose which of those abilities
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: you're going to use each round. Yeah, sometimes you can
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: use most of them. Sometimes you'll have to focus on
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: just a couple because you kind of a restriction in
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: terms of how much you can do. Yeah, that's it.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: That's the game Origin Story. It's from publisher stone Meyer Games.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: So you can order directly from their website. They have
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: a really good web store. It's like really easy to
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: use and really comprehensive and well set up. So yeah,
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: Origin story very cool.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: Cool. All right. So yeah, that's a god Man Dream Seeker.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: Is this an EP or like a full album?
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: It's an EP. It's a five song EP.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay cool. God Man and Cyberbully, both of those
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: on band camp. God Man is on Spotify and other platforms.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: And then the board game Origin Story and those are recommendations.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: And then there's the all the stuff that we talked
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: about in this episode around sex and disability. And I
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: think that that is what we have to say about
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: this topic, unless there's anything you'd.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: Like to add.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: Nothing else, all right, As I said, thank you all
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: for listening. We appreciate you.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: This Abraham and this is a Shane. We're out see.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you've been listening to Why We Do What We Do.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: going to WWD w w D podcast dot com. Thanks
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: for listening, and we hope you have an awesome day.