During the summer, I was randomly surfing YouTube and I came across a TED Talk about people with disabilities. A woman with a physical disability (I'm not sure what type) spoke about her dating experiences. She talks about how society seems to view people with disabilities as asexual, meaning either they're not interested in sex or they can't have sex. She goes into detail about how they're not viewed as valid romantic and sexual partners. To be honest, I had no idea society viewed people with disabilities this way. I was always around people who didn't have disabilities, and no one seemed to mind. The only truly rough times I had were in middle school and high school, but those years are tough for a lot of people. I was raised by supportive parents who have always believed I'm more than capable of finding love and intimacy. In my adult life, no one has ever seemed intimidated by me; everyone has always been very open and accepting. No one is ever surprised when they find out I'm interested in being in relationships and having intimate experiences. No one has ever seemed to care about my disability because they see me for who I am. So if they didn't care, why should I? But after I watched her TED talk, I would be lying if I said I didn't worry that people may sometimes overlook me because they don't think I can "do it", or they don't know what their friends and family will say and they're just not telling me. I became really passionate about educating people about dating and sexuality with a disability. It's something that isn't talked about, and it became a research project for me throughout the year.

I decided to focus my research project on women with physical disabilities, dating and sexuality because when I was doing research through media analysis, there were a lot of stories about men with disabilities and their struggles with finding girlfriends. There wasn't a lot on women. Not that their stories aren't valid, they are. But I felt as a woman, I could talk about it more effectively. I find that men with physical disabilities struggle fitting the social standard of masculinity. Personally, I look at masculinity as a trait of personality or character rather than just appearance by itself. Women with physical disabilities have a hard time fitting the social standard of beauty. A lot of women can hide something they don't like about themselves if they choose to. They can dye their hair if they don't like their hair color. If she feels she's too heavy, she can lose weight. If she doesn't like her breasts, she can get implants. The bottom line is, she can get rid of a trait deemed "undesirable" by society. It's harder for a woman with a disability, I think. I know no matter what I do, I'll never be beautiful in the eyes of society. It doesn't matter what kind of clothes I wear, it doesn't matter if I wear make up. It doesn't matter how much weight I gain or lose. I can't get rid of my wheelchair or my walker. I can't get rid of traits that are deemed undesirable. In the eyes of society, my wheelchair makes me ugly and undateable.

I wanted to share my story in my presentation so people could learn something from it. I did my research by looking at how women with physical disabilities are left out of positive body image campaigns, inaccurate portrayals in media, aggressive sex scenes in movies and sex being everywhere in our society. I was very happy with people's thoughts. People told me about how my story and evidence opened their eyes. I shared the video from my first presentation, and it got seven shares from friends. The first share got over 430 views within one day of the original post. I was also thrilled to get a lot of questions about advice. All in all, I've had a great experience teaching others about this subject. I'm thrilled I've gotten so much support and people are willing to talk about something that in some contexts could be considered taboo. I'm really looking forward to other opportunities this will provide me. I'm really hoping it'll encourage feminists to include women with physical disabilities in their positive body image campaigns. I've started the conversation, but it's up to others to help broaden it.