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Let’s talk about sex education and disability

A man sits on a wheelchair. He is balding, and is wearing a white shirt and plain blue trousers.
For years the need of disabled people for sex and relationship education has been ignored. Campaigners want this sweep-it-under-the-carpet attitude to change

Danny Jarvis says that he was never taught about sex and relationships at school. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian

Danny Jarvis is a football coach with a degree in leisure management. He is funny, has an independent mind and loves his job. He also suffers from cerebral palsy and relies on a full-time carer to wash and feed him. At 32 he was still a virgin until his friend, Jennie Williams, took him to a brothel in Amsterdam.

For Jarvis it was a sexual awakening; for Williams, it was a wake-up call. Speaking to Jarvis after his first sexual experience, he told her he was worried it had gone badly because he didn’t climax immediately. This surprised Williams, who is also managing director of the disability charity Enhance the UK. “In every other way, Danny is sociable and knowledgeable,” she says. “But when it came to sex he didn’t know anything because he’d never experienced it and no one had ever told him about it.”

Continue reading the article where it was originally posted: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/apr/20/lets-talk-about-sex-education-disability

This post was originally published here.