CULTURAL PERCEPTIONS ABOUT BUILDING RELATIONSHIP WITH A DISABLED PERSON
At this time and age, there are people with physical disabilities who are stereotyped as lacking of romantic and sexual aspect of their lives because of their physical condition. And, other people think that these special people do not have any interest or desire to mingle or even have an intimate relationship with the other sex. Honestly, it is hard for the normal individual to imagine how a disabled person has the capacity to engage in any sexual activities while seeing most of them having a hard time to move the other parts of their bodies. But, please… all men are created by God with human hearts and souls, therefore, all human beings are capable of loving and being loved even under any condition or circumstance. Still, people with disabilities are human beings; they are still the same individuals who know how to love and even longing to be loved by someone who does not look for the outer attributes of a person.
(http://www.sexualhealth.com/question/read/283/)
Furthermore, this study deals with the factors that keep the people with disabilities from the idea of being sexually active or “asexual”. Many people have misconceptions about the romantic and sexual condition and capacity of those people who have disabilities. In general, building a relationship with other people really requires a lot of challenges sometimes, especially if the other person has a very challenging attitude or behavior. However, the bottom line here is how the people with disabilities could even cope with the challenges of building intimate relationships with other people, especially with those people with non disabilities. How are they able to cope with all those wrong perceptions of other people about them? According to the theory of Grentz, 1990; the individual maleness or femaleness of a person does not connote that human beings are created completely by God. God still allows that particular part of human being incomplete; as to let the human beings build relationships with one another; to be able to fill its empty part. In other words, human beings need other human beings in order to survive in this world. In addition, every individual has the need to extend his own world to another individual just to share his inner thoughts, and feelings that could help the person feel that he is not living alone in this earth. The same principles must be applied to the people with disabilities; but, they are obviously viewed as incomplete humans who are not capable of sexual and romantic intimacy.
(http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb6566/is_3_30/ai_n28950666/)
Moreover, these stereotypes affect those people who are around with these disabled people such as parents, physicians and educators. In most occasions parents of disabled adolescent and young adults always think that their children must be stayed away from the society in general; because of the stigma that they feel whenever they are with other people. Additionally, there are schools for disabled young children that do not give sex education to them; as well as the adult disabled women are not given basic knowledge about reproductive health. For this reason, there are many disabled teenagers who are not oriented with what to do during their first menstrual cycle. In the same manner, disabled women are given less Pap smear test due to the assumption that disabled women are not sexually active. As a result, there are many disabled adolescents and adults who are susceptible to sexually transmitted diseases, unplanned pregnancies, undetected cancer and more than anything else is the prevalent of sexual exploitation and abuse among these disabled people in the society. As a result, these disabled people are somewhat not really aware and prepared for the significant changes in their lives.
(http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb6566/is_3_30/ai_n28950666/)
However, in today’s society, there are more agencies which doing their efforts to help and guide appropriately all these special people. There are contemporary approaches and strategies that are being implemented by social workers, counselors, educators and psychologists in dealing with disabled people such as behavior modification, giving directions, discussions, modeling and role playing; as well as proper grooming and personal hygiene. All these programs are all designed to promote social skills and social consciousness among them. More important is the joint effort of the different agencies to promote self awareness among the disabled person about the beauty of having intimate and sexual relationship with the opposite sex. They are even provided now with the proper sex education, as well as they is encouraged to mingle with other peer groups in order to develop their social skills as well as their self confidence. The contemporary world opens the door for these special people to learn how to adapt with the new paced- environment as well as to learn how to become self-reliance and act independently when it is needed. Above all, they are being taught in building relationship with other people without any feeling of inferiority about themselves and about their physical condition.
( http://www.wheelchairdatingclub.com/Agency%20Help%20Improves%20Dating%20Skills%20Of%20Disabled%20Young%20People.htm)
References:
(http://www.sexualhealth.com/question/read/283/)
(http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb6566/is_3_30/ai_n28950666/)
(http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb6566/is_3_30/ai_n28950666/)
( http://www.wheelchairdatingclub.com/Agency%20Help%20Improves%20Dating%20Skills%20Of%20Disabled%20Young%20People.htm)
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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