Atypical sexualities face oppression

Accidents will happen — and they could happen to you, warns M. Erik Wright, a sex therapist who advises people who work with the physically handicapped. Thus, Wright recommends an awareness of atypical sexualities as "a psychological prophylaxis, a preventative medicine."

"It's really preparing for accidents," he said. "All of us have abilities and disabilities. It's just a matter of degrees. If we live long enough, we may be the object of all the negative attitudes people project on people with disabilities."

In discussion the handicapped, Wright emphasized that they are "people with disabilities, not disabled people." Celibates, another category of what sex therapist Dennis Dailey labels "sexually oppressed," have made "a conscious choice not to express their genital sexuality," said Dailey. And the terminally ill, another group of sexual outcasts he's concerned about, are still very much alive but usually also very much ignored.

"THE TENDENCY to asexualize people is like the crime of robbery," Dailey said. "It's stealing something from them. If we can accept our own sexuality, then we can react with acceptance and understanding and grant sexuality to others."

"The person with a disability has the full range of needs," Wright said. "Sex is part of their life. That person has not been 'desexed'."

Wright said that progress is being made in that rehabilitation workers now no longer avoid the topic of sex, "but it's still not like in Holland, where there is active provision in hospitals and residences to facilitate sexual interaction and intimacy.

"In general, we in American have a much more puritanical official view of sexuality," he said. "Our attitude toward the disabled has been more fear and uncertainty. We've been very slow to accept the right of such a person to a full life. Why, not more than 10 years ago, Kansas had the nation's highest rate of sterilization of the mentally retarded."

IF PEOPLE generally have trouble granting sexuality to people who face physical and logistic obstacles, what's the reaction to people who've voluntarily given up genital sexuality?

"If you consider them asexual, you are oppressing them," Dailey said. "Most of us who are not religious celibates spend large chunks of our time in celibacy. We're not having genital sex all the time. But that doesn't mean we don't have sexual thoughts and feelings, but we don't act on them all, for crying out loud."

Dailey said a lot of celibates "right a war in themselves because they accept society's attitude that they are asexual."

But, he said, "my own work with people who have chosen celibacy is very intriguing. Most of them respond very positively to my affirming that they are sexual beings, that their choice is a legitimate one — making a life commitment to work that is much more important than sex.

"PEOPLE CAN survive quite easily without sexual intercourse. I've never known a person to die without sexual intercourse or masturbation. You can still enjoy being physically close to others, holding them, hugging them."

Turn to the terminally ill and, for people who are dying and are in a relationship, the issue of sexuality becomes a real difficult one, Dailey said.

"They're preparing for their death, but they're still alive. And a vital expression of life is expression of their sexuality."

The dying person may be suffering from pain and a declining self-image. The spouse may be working on letting go of his or her partner in death, yet experiencing the conflict of wanting to stay close.

"AND SOMETHING that can bring great joy right up to death never gets talked about by people working with the terminally ill in hospitals," Dailey said. "That's very sad."

Still, weighing all the prejudices faced by the sexually oppressed and the special problems they present to the therapist, the post difficult clients to work with, Dailey concluded, are "able-bodied heterosexuals."

"The disabled, the oppressed play a lot fewer intellectual games," he said. "They've got a lot more at stake."