All’s Fair in Love and DisAbility

Mothers don’t usually like to get involved in their children’s love lives. Lucy Baxter, however, is very different. Her son Otto, 21, has Down’s Syndrome. She’s signed him up to dating agencies, and is even considering paying for him to go to a prostitute.

She says I would have no problem if he went to a brothel in Amsterdam. Why should people with Down’s Syndrome be kept separate and pigeon-holed when they have the same emotions, desires and feelings as so called “normal” people? He has the same expectations as everybody else.

She added that she would be delighted if Otto brought a girl home after a night out.

He gets a kiss or two because he does have a way of chatting people up – but it doesn’t get anywhere after that. She said, adding that: His room is stuffed full of condoms which he buys every time he goes to the pub with his friends and his collection of pornography is staggering.

Now, the real question. Of course Mrs Baxter is right in thinking that Otto is a teenage boy with feelings and desires just like anyone without a DisAbility. DisAbled people have perfectly normal romantic feelings, although some able-bodied people may find that surprising. And we have every right to have romantic feelings and relationships. So why is Mrs Baxter considering doing something so drastic to enable her son to experience something perfectly natural?

Well, in September 2008, 1044 UK adults participated in the Observer’s 2008 Sex Poll. When asked: Have you ever had sex with someone with a physical disability?:

70% said No, and I don’t think I would.
– 26% said No, but I would not rule it out.
– 4% said Yes

When I first read these statistics, I was shocked that the percentage of negative responses to the question was so high, because I honestly thought that attitudes to disability had improved dramatically since the 1900s. However, these statistics easily explain Mrs Baxter’s view of her son’s romantic future. If 96% of adults have never had a serious relationship with a physically disabled person, and a worryingly high percentage of that 96% think they would rule out that possibility, what hope do young DisAbled people have of ever having any other choice in this matter? What choice does Mrs Baxter have, if she wants her son to experience a serious romantic relationship?

The survey wasn’t, as far as I know, restricted to able-bodied adults. So it’s quite possible that the 4% of adults who responded positively to the question were physically DisAbled themselves.

I’m pleased to say that, this year, the media seems to be accepting the idea of physically DisAbled people having romantic feelings and relationships, with Linda Gilliard’s novel, Star Gazing, which has a blind protagonist, being shortlisted for the Romantic Novel of the Year Award, and BBC Scotland’s drama, Zig Zag Love, being screened on March 16^th.

However, it seems that the physically DisAbled still face a challenge. We must remember that we have natural romantic feelings, and that this is our right. We must find more ways of bringing this fact to public attention. We must hope to lower these extremely high statistics sometime soon, so that, just maybe, we can start looking for love without our parents’ help!

This post was recently reprinted in this Newsletter.