Disabled girls just weren’t expected to have sex, let alone enjoy it
My friend Lana was 17 while I was 14. Both in wheelchairs, we were in hospital together with a rare childhood illness. She was ahead of the game because she had a boyfriend.
I was curious – had she done it yet? Our bodies weren’t that happy with moving, so what position was good? Lana would laugh. “You find your own way, it just happens with the right person.”
She loaned me adult books – Fear of Flying, The Women’s Room and Delta of Venus. I was shocked they turned me on but wished some of the stories were about disabled girls.
We weren’t expected to have sex let alone get horny and enjoy it.
We were told no one would want us and it was better not to have expectations. Quite simply, the disabled did not have sex. This was hard to challenge even while I wanted to believe it was lies.
My next awakening was punk. The infamous Sex Pistols TV slot with presenter Bill Grundy in 1976 opened me up to rebellion. Though
I was stuck at home in Slough, Berkshire, with a crappy wheelchair, I was determined I would get my own place and have a sex life.
My next best friend was Tamsin. It took four years to convince social workers to let us live in our own flat in East London. We hooked up with other disabled people, demanding rights and ready to talk s-e-x.
I formed a band – Spiral Sky – and met BF One, who became my manager. I fancied him rotten even while scared of rejection.
Those earlier voices nagged – I was an ugly, disabled girl and no one would want me. I drew on my punk spirit. Before I knew it, he made a pass and I married him two years later.
Through writing stories, poems and songs, interest grew in my work. I won an award and £500, presented by Terry Wogan, spent on a home recording kit and a new bondage dress.
Writing saucy stories, I spoke
out about disabled people and sex. On my Spiral Sky LP, I sang Marriage of Inconvenience – ‘I’m told I’m not enough. Don’t I know it’s different for people such as us?’ – exposing the prejudice
Margaret Thatcher was in power and we hated her. My first punk poems were rants about the Tories. Disabled people didn’t have rights. There was no real social care.
Even going on a date was difficult because steps were everywhere. I had been on only a single date with BF One and that was because he dragged my wheelchair up a step. When we sadly divorced, I
threw myself into single life
just as the internet came along. Disability sex briefly hit the mainstream. I was on a few TV shows, one with award-winning actor Mat Fraser, another campaigner for disability an Erotic sex. And Oscar. I won I enjoyed doing what nondisabled people take for granted. My unique shape was adored and explored by
“f*** buddies”.
Each experience taught me to love and accept myself.
I learned boundaries of self-respect. These experiences were worth sharing in the hope they might help other disabled people lead a full life.
I won a creative arts bursary to self-publish my disability erotica.
Desires was published in 2003 – fictional stories covering many aspects of disabled people’s relationships, their hopes and dreams, their fears and disappointments.
It also features explicit sex as I never forgot the time I wished for something I could read in this way.
My publicist Tony Cowell, brother of Simon, tried hard to get Desires out there but the world wasn’t ready.
Over the years, I’ve worked hard to tell stories we don’t hear about disabled people, including our sexual experiences. Desires, as the e-book Desires Reborn, was reissued in 2012 and is still available.
I unexpectedly passed an audition to train with the famous Graeae Theatre Company. Next thing, I’m learning burlesque with artist Jo King. Sassy disabled women twirling tassels.
Lots has changed since I was a teenager, but this Tory Government is much the same. Many rights taken from us. They seem to hate the arts and creative people.
The internet is a massive resource for sharing. It’s surprising that disability sex still makes people nervous.
Disabled writers like myself keep struggling to get into the mainstream with disabled characters, let alone ones who have sex.
Change is slow. We have awardwinning actors – such as my friend Liz Carr – smashing barriers. The more we are allowed to be seen across the media, the more acceptable our sex lives will become.
Now I happily live by the seaside with a new partner, working hard on several writing commissions.
If you want to know more, my memoir First in the World Somewhere is available. I’m still a punk at heart and intend to grow old very disgracefully.
www.pennypepper.co.uk