Prudy Sutherland

“Handicapped people are forbidden, and sex is forbidden, so it’s no wonder that the sexuality of handicapped people is doubly forbidden.”

Published in the April 7, 1987 Village Voice, New York, NY

For years, because of my cerebral palsy and certain other physical difficulties, I doubted my ability to give and receive pleasure in sexual intercourse. For a long time I did not want to ask my doctors about sex because I felt a negative answer would make me regards myself as non-human - such is the value our society places on sexuality. But I got to the point where I felt I owed it to myself to find out. Besides which I was mighty curious! So at a routine physical evaluation, attended by my nurses and my physical therapist, I asked the doctor, in what I thought was a simple, forthright manner, if I could give and receive sexual pleasure. Extremely nervous laughter ensued - but no answer.

At various times after that, the hospital instituted sex-education programs which dealt with such topics as birth control devices and the unwed father, amazingly irrelevant to the institutionalized handicapped person. Several times I asked my question, with similarly depressing nonanswers.

Finally, since I was extremely hazy about what physical movements were involved in coitus, I decided to go to a porn movie. I reasoned that a movie would provide an uninhibited graphic illustration. But none of my friends took me seriously.

One dark night, with a young man with whom I was just getting acquainted, I took off and pulled up at a sleazy, red carpeted theater complete with groaning old men in raincoats. They let me in for nothing, and I am not sure whether that was because I was a woman or because I was a cripple. After the first ten minutes I got the idea down pat and saw I was perfectly capable of performing. My self-image skyrocketed. I, just like other women, had something sexual to offer a man!

Perhaps the most amazing thing about this educational adventure…

to be continued…