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Double Sexual Standards: Sexuality and People with Intellectual Disabilities Who Require Intensive Support

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Abstract

More than four decades after the onset of deinstitutionalization in the Nordic countries, people with intellectual disabilities in Iceland are still being prevented from engaging in intimate and sexual relationships. There are changing attitudes towards sexuality based on people’s rights to live free sexual rights. However, because people with intellectual disabilities often require daily support, they commonly lack opportunities for privacy and safe sexual expression and relationships. In this article, we present findings from qualitative research about the sexuality of Icelandic people with intellectual disabilities who require intensive support and communicate with non-spoken language. The aim is to demonstrate how the sexuality of people with intellectual disabilities who require intensive support is shaped by socio-cultural sexual scripts and the support they receive in every-day lives. Participant observations were carried out in the homes and daily lives of 25 individuals, demonstrating their reduced opportunity to make decisions. This can affect how they communicate their identity or the image of masculinity or femininity. As a group, they have limited access to education, work, and leisure and thus few resources to draw upon when forming their own sexual scripts. Therefore, they commonly rely on other people’s sexual scripts, for example those of staff and family. We discuss the pathologization of sexual behaviors and how the sexual expressions of women with intellectual disabilities have remained hidden. The findings also describe the inabilities of social and legal systems in dealing with sexual abuse among people with intellectual disabilities who require intensive support. We suggest that people with intellectual disabilities who require intensive support are seldom consulted about issues relating their personal lives, such as menstruation suppression or who assists them with personal care. We conclude by arguing that it is of vital importance to respect people’s self-determination and language.

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Notes

  1. There is a shift in terminology in the CRPD, where people with intellectual disabilities who have previously been labelled as having severe or profound intellectual multiple disabilities (PIMD) are referred to as “those who require more intensive support”, thus placing the focus on supporting people’s needs instead of emphasizing their impairment. In this article we use the CRPD’s term of requiring more intensive support when we refer to people with PIMD.

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  1. Department of Education and Diversity, School of Education, University of Iceland, v/Stakkahlíð, 105, Reykjavík, Iceland

    Kristín Björnsdóttir & Guðrún V. Stefánsdóttir

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  1. Kristín Björnsdóttir
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  2. Guðrún V. Stefánsdóttir
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Björnsdóttir, K., Stefánsdóttir, G.V. Double Sexual Standards: Sexuality and People with Intellectual Disabilities Who Require Intensive Support. Sex Disabil 38, 421–438 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11195-020-09643-2

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