The intimate lives of disabled people

The Intimate Lives of Disabled People is an important addition to disability literature that bridges the gap between theoretical frameworks of Disability Studies and empirical research. Author Kristy Liddiard claims that this book locates the lived experiences of disability life. As a woman living with a disability and also a Disability Studies scholar, she finds it imperative to reveal the intimate politics of sexuality and disability. She uses stories from disabled informants who are predominantly white, British, and heterosexual and identify as having physical or sensory impairment. Liddiard recognizes that this is a limited selection of people and contends that the research may be developed in the future. As this was part of her doctoral research, it had to be more specific. At the same time, the book is quite accessible in its subject matter and the interviews presented. For Disability Studies scholars, accessibility is a strength of a text and determines its potential for change and in rejecting ableism.

The book is divided into chapters that again prove to be accessible both theoretically and in terms of the informants’ lived experiences of sexual lives and disability. The author begins the book by highlighting ways in which disabled people are denied access to their sexual lives and agency. She considers key concepts like ableism, discrimination, sexual normalcy, and disabled sexualities. Equally important is the author’s discussion of privacy and disabled individuals’ lives. White communities (also middle to ruling class) suffer less from this intrusion of privacy but many communities feel they cannot claim it. The lack of privacy is the result of the ableist gaze, the ableist mentality, and its dehumanizing of individuals living with disability. After a comprehensive literature review (and a Critical Disability Studies lens), Liddiard situates her argument in the context of agency and exploring one’s own personal life in relation to intimacy and disability. She is also able to articulate reflexivity as a researcher and negotiate the ethics of re-telling stories of pain and vulnerability.

Liddiard’s interviews show a clear difference between how women experience their intimate lives with disability and how men function in their relationships with significant others. The majority of women struggle to claim autonomy and agency in their relationships and their non-normative embodiment affected them psycho-emotionally and brought feelings of shame, disgust, and guilt. These findings are not altogether surprising, but they do remind us of how necessary it is to include gender in the discourse of disability. Disabled individuals lives are constituted by access to privileges and by oppressions such as race, class, sexuality, and nation. An intersectional approach remains necessary when considering positionality, disability, and access. The author also draws from the DisHuman Manifesto (https://dishuman.com/dishuman-manifesto/) which comes from ProjectDisHuman. Through the DisHuman lens, the author suggests alternative ways of recognizing what it means to be human and troubling these static definitions.

When considering the informants’ lives, the book also takes into account the distinction between public and private lives and the management of these selves in different environments. The author also calls to attention the intricate politics of doing qualitative research and the ways in which the researcher’s identity and embodiment can contribute to the knowledge production. There is collective work being done and emotions that become compounded (the researcher’s and the informants). The informants stories are difficult to read and yet irrevocably necessary for an intimate understanding of disability and sexuality. Many individuals who tell their stories report emotional, sexual, and physical abuse, sometimes even by their (non-disabled) partner. The stories engage the reader with their honesty and these accounts of oppression reveal society’s stigmatization of disability. The informants reveal their ability to manage these multiple sites of oppression and negotiate different meanings to their lives. Their ability to reflect and critique posits them as agents of their lives and deconstructs the dominant constructions of the disabled sexual identity as passive and victimized.

As a scholarly work, The Intimate Lives of Disabled People is comprehensive in its examination of embodiment, sexuality, subjectivity, and gender. Throughout the book, the author and the informants’ stories seek to subvert traditional definitions of sexualities, bodies, and pleasure. The book’s mission, it seems, aims to invoke different ways of existing in the world, different ways of being, and allows room to chart new futures of intimate lives. The book is an important contribution to Disability Studies as well as accessible in its structure and format, and offers a balanced blend of theory and qualitative research.

Shahd Alshammari
English Department, College of Arts and Sciences, Mishref, Kuwait
[email protected]

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This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.