Dynamics of disability and sexuality

Abstract

Disability is a widespread, visibly existential problem in many parts of the Global South. Although there are legal institutions and protocols to protect the human, sexual and reproductive rights of persons with disabilities in many postcolonial African societies, the sexualities of disabled persons remain, largely, a historically and culturally marginalised discourse. Thus, as persons with disabilities daily struggle for identity and cognition, their sexualities are often obscured, treated as inconsequential or outrightly ignored. Writing across genders and genres, several African writers, including Soyinka, Osofisan, Sembene, Head, Dangarembga, Sow-Fall, Bulawayo and Beyala, among others, variously, problematise the corporeal existence of persons with disabilities and the oppressive conditions that circumscribe their lived experiences and sexualities. Using selected literary texts, this chapter examines some of the complexities of sexuality and sexual issues people with various disabilities have to contend with within African cultural contexts. Through an examination of Aminata Sow-Fall’s novel—The Beggars’ Strike—I reconstruct the sexualities of the disabled, poor people— the borrom bàttu, as they contend with layers of agonic socio-cultural, ethical and political issues, individually and collectively. The chapter also examines one of Petina Gappah’s short stories: “An Elegy for Easterly” calling attention to how disability profoundly intersects with gender and the implications of this for the sexual rights of persons with disabilities in Africa. (disability, sexuality, rights, African literature, gender)