How Young People with Disabilities Conceptualize The Body, Sex and Marriage in Urban India: Four Case Studies

Abstract

Historically in India as elsewhere in the world, there has been a deep-rooted cultural antipathy to persons with disabilities. They have been portrayed as medical anomalies, helpless victims and a lifelong burden for family and society. While today there is a general recognition in India of the need to enhance educational and employment opportunities for persons with disabilities in order to promote economic self-reliance and independent living, their sexual needs, dreams and aspirations are more or less invisible. Sexual and reproductive rights are considered irrelevant for persons with disabilities. Using qualitative data, this paper discusses notions of sexual identity among urban Indian youth through four case studies of college students in Delhi. Gender emerges as a key analytical category in perceptions of sexuality among young men and women with visual and loco-motor disabilities. The paper does not claim to capture the complex reality of disabled sexuality in India, but highlights some key issues in a hitherto largely under-research domain. But the author’s analysis carries added value, since she herself has low vision; thus conferring a reflexive angle to the research.