But it’s not all about the sex: mothering, normalisation and young learning disabled people

Abstract

This paper is about mothering, young learning disabled people, their sexualised and relationship lives and normalisation – not through the lens of the disabled person, but via a mothers perspective and theoretical discussion. As a mother who has a learning disabled daughter, a feminist and an academic my own mothering experience, my Ph.D. research and social theory are woven throughout this paper with the intention of opening up debate about sex, intimacy and normalisation, and how these impact upon young learning disabled people. I suggest that the relationship between sex, reproduction, intimacy and intellectual impairment and a project to decipher what it means to be human in all its dirty glory are also part of the discourse that needs to be discussed experientially and theoretically. So much so that the messy world within which we all live can be variously and differently constructed.

Keywords:

• intimacy
• learning disability
• mothering
• normalisation
• sex
• youth

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the anonymous referees for their engagement with the paper and their insightful comments. I would also like to thank Eamonn Carrabine and Ian Rivers for their useful comments on earlier drafts. However, ultimately I am solely responsible for this final paper, for good and ill. Importantly, I would also like to thank my daughter for being part of this journey.