Table Of ContentThe Intimate Lives of Disabled People
Disabled people are routinely assumed to lack the capabilities and capacities to
embody and experience sexuality and desire, as well as the agency to love and
be loved by others and build their own families, if they so choose. Centring on
the sexual, intimate and erotic lives of disabled people, this book presents a rare
opportunity to understand and ask critical questions about such widely held
assumptions.
In essence, this book is a collection of sexual stories, told by disabled people
on their own terms and in their own ways – stories that shed light on areas of
disability, love and life that are typically overlooked and ignored. A sociological
analysis of these stories reveals the creative ways in which disabled people
manage and negotiate their sexual and intimate lives in contexts where these are
habitually denied. In its calls for disabled people’s sexual and intimate citizen-
ship, stories are drawn upon as the means to create social change and build more
radically inclusive sexual cultures.
In this groundbreaking feminist critical disability studies text, The Intimate
Lives of Disabled People introduces and contributes to contemporary debates
around disability, sexuality and intimacy in the twenty- first century. Its argu-
ments are relevant and accessible to researchers, academics, and students across
a wide range of disciplines – such as sociology, gender studies, psychology,
social work and philosophy – as well as disabled people, their families and allies,
and the professionals who work with and for them.
Kirsty Liddiard is a Research Fellow in the School of Education at the Univer-
sity of Sheffield, where she also co-l eads the Institute for the Study of the
Human (iHuman). Prior to this, she was the inaugural Ethel Louise Armstrong
Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of Disability Studies, Ryerson University,
Toronto, Canada. Kirsty’s research spans disability, gender, sexuality and
intimacy and youth. As a disabled feminist, she has a particular interest in how
disablism and ableism both inform and shape these experiences in the everyday
lives of disabled people and their families. She tweets at @kirstyliddiard1
To read more about Kirsty’s work, please visit kirstyliddiard.wordpress.com
The Intimate Lives of
Disabled People
Kirsty Liddiard
First published 2018
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2018 Kirsty Liddiard
The right of Kirsty Liddiard to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Names: Liddiard, Kirsty, 1984– author.
Title: The intimate lives of disabled people / Kirsty Liddiard.
Description: New York : Routledge, 2018. | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017033565| ISBN 9781409460909 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781315556598 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: People with disabilities–Marriage. | Interpersonal
relations. | Intimacy (Psychology)
Classification: LCC HQ1036 .L53 2018 | DDC 305.9/08–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017033565
ISBN: 978-1-409-46090-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-55659-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
This book is dedicated to Jacky Lee (1946–2011), who never got
to read the final draft. You are the determination in every page.
Contents
Preface viii
Acknowledgements xi
1 Exploring disability and sexuality 1
2 Theorising disabled sexualities: constraints and
possibilities 15
3 Reflections on the process of researching disabled
people’s sexual lives 41
4 ‘Can you have sex?’ Intimate citizens and intimate selves 56
5 ‘I need to stick with this because I might not find anybody
else’: the labour of love 77
6 ‘If I ever wanted an affair I’d have to send my lover to
lifting and handling classes first!’ Sexual normativity and
othered bodies 98
7 ‘…They finish off with a blow job’: politics, power and the
precarity of pleasure 128
8 Drawing some conclusions 161
Bibliography 180
Index 210
Preface
‘Right, imagine you’re in Toronto in a bar. You’re pissed [drunk], but not too
pissed. How would you explain your research to someone?’ This was the first
question put to me by my then- external examiner, Professor Dan Goodley, in my
viva voce (the thesis defence for North Ameri can readers). Thoughts of the viva
had made my blood run cold for nigh on three years, but as soon as I heard that
question, I knew all would be well. As someone who has since examined others’
PhDs, I now see that was the point! But up until the viva, my PhD had been an
empirical research project, which I had painfully ‘written up’ as a doctoral thesis.
It is thanks to both of my examiners then, Dan Goodley and Cath Lambert, and
their suggestion that my thesis already was a book, which caused it to be written
at all.
I wrote most of my thesis from the tiny back room at my mum and dad’s
house – my partner and I had moved in with them, after years of having our own
place, to save enough money to emigrate to Canada so that I could undertake the
inaugural Ethel Louise Armstrong Postdoctoral Fellowship at the School of Dis-
ability Studies, Ryerson University. I had seen the advert randomly in the oddly
warm spring of 2011 on the Disability Research Discussion email list run out of
the Centre for Disability Research at Leeds. Upon seeing it, I immediately rang
The Boy (my partner) and said, ‘You could live in Canada, right?’ Instantly he
replied, ‘Go on, then.’ At that point, both of us would have struggled to point to
Toronto on a map. Within a month I had applied for the position, survived a tele-
phone interview and had got the job. Within two months we had packed up our
little home and moved into the ‘granny annexe’ at Mum and Dad’s, where they
very kindly brought me cups of tea as I wrote. My father proofread every single
page. A reserved English fellow – a man who oft takes the British stiff upper lip
to the extreme – confessed me so much love and support with every slash of his
red pen through my terrible grammar. We were to leave for Canada in January
2012, with me submitting my thesis in December 2011. I had just eight months
to complete writing, and I did.
Turning my PhD thesis into this book has not been nearly as quick and easy:
it has been an enormous challenge. I have struggled. Like so many ‘early career’
scholars, I have found the Academy a precarious place to work, which has meant
shelving writing on more than a few occasions, despite lots of support from
Preface ix
colleagues, friends and allies. I have also found the (neoliberal) Academy relat-
ively precarious to one’s sense of self and wellness, particularly in terms of self-
confidence and esteem. Disablism, ableism and the Academy can be a toxic
combination at times, and can erode self-c onfidence. As a disabled woman,
gender and disability can intersect in ways that encourage an attrition of self-
belief and pride, which gets magnified by the hypercompetitive and disabling
environment that is higher education in the UK. Regardless, it is this shortage of
confidence that proffers the (also helpful) ‘disclaimer’ below.
What this book isn’t…
This book isn’t a grandiose theoretical text, but a reporting of empirical research.
This is not because I undervalue the transformative potential of theory, or that
this book is atheoretical. As Braidotti (2013) says, if we can’t do theory, then we
are really just drowning in hard data; or as Goodley (2014) affirms, we should be
able to draw upon social theory without apology. As both a disability studies
scholar and a disabled woman, it is crucial for me to continually locate the lived
and material realities of disability life into my theoretical reworkings. As such,
the politics of location are very vital to my work (see Chapter 3). While I relish
postconventional theory, at times I am unapologetically materialist: acknow-
ledging that the richness of the stories in this book emanate from an understand-
ing that they are lived, felt, experienced and ground in the mundane and
everyday. Sometimes this brings inconsistencies and tensions. Instead of making
attempts to write these out, I purposefully write them in and – as Mike Gill
(2015: 8) artfully puts it – ‘eagerly await challenges, complications, and expan-
sions of my work here by others’.
This book isn’t an all-e ncompassing text that covers all facets of sexual and
intimate life: what is contained within the covers of this book emerges only from
the stories disabled informants told. Informants were predominantly (though not
exclusively) White British, cisgender and heterosexual and identified as having
physical and/or sensory impairment. All lived within the community, although
many had experienced institutionalisation in one way or another in the past and/
or frequented respite care in hospices in the present. Therefore, the stories I
interpret in this book are inherently shaped by these intersections, experiences
and histories. They are further shaped by the context of doctoral research. Doc-
toral research is bound by time (UK PhD students have a maximum of three
years and three months before funding stops), (a lack of ) money and the emerg-
ing research skills of a PhD candidate, all of which I’m sure are imprinted on
these sexual stories in some way. Further, the intimate politics of sexual story-
telling in marginalised communities means that I am rightfully imbricated within
and through these stories. In short, this book is also piece of me: as a researcher,
scholar and disabled woman, it speaks to my life as well as the lives of
informants.
This book isn’t a complete lesson in co- production. While I am very proud
that the doctoral research that underpins this book made use of participatory
