Disabled Sexuality: Toward Rights and Recognition

Looking back at the development of disability sexuality studies, there is a need for a social model of disabled sexuality. However, this should be sensitive to difference, including the impact of impairment. Disability sexuality studies necessarily challenge notions of sexual normality. There is a danger in overstating the importance of sex, as opposed to friendship and intimacy. Honneth's work on relations of recognition may offer a way to conceptualise sexuality issues within the disability rights agenda.