Disability and Sexuality—Who Cares?

This chapter focuses on the question of why the sexual lives of people with disabilities is an issue of ethical engagement and social justice. Philosophical writing by scholars like Iris Marion Young, Jacques Derrida, and Emmanuel Levinas is reviewed, as is work in disability studies that highlights the significance of intellectual and physical “impairment,” as opposed to socially created “disability.” The chapter offers an explicit moral evaluation of the data discussed throughout the book, and that evaluation is grounded in the capabilities approach to social justice. The chapter explains this approach and discusses why it can provide a revitalizing basis for more general discussions about sex, disability, and the ethics of engagement.