Narratives of Personal Health and Sexual Education of Emerging Adults with Disabilities

Disabled communities’ sexualities have been historically oppressed. Currently in the Unites States, public school curricula do not include inclusive sexual education and students with disabilities are often left out of classrooms that discuss any amount of personal health and sexual education. Research on the disabled population is filled with samples of non-disabled individuals imposing their opinions for a population that they do not belong to. The purpose of this study was to understand how emerging adults with disabilities learned about personal health and sexuality. Individuals with varied disabilities were intentionally included to add breadth the research field. Narrative interviews captured individuals’ lived experiences. The final sample consisted of eight individuals (75% female, 87% white, mean age of 21.5). After analyzing interviews using thematic narrative analysis, four story types were generated. Findings highlighted the lack of formal supports and access to adequate, relevant information about sexuality for disabled communities, as well as informal sources of information, like families and media. Findings also emphasized people’s agency in seeking out information on their own, as well as variability in people’s readiness and use of information about sexuality. Individuals’ disability symptoms and personal characteristics need to be considered when crafting universally applicable personal health and sexuality education. There are also opportunities for theoretical integration of disabilities and sexuality research.