A Right to Sexuality?

In discourses on the sexuality of people with learning disabilities, there is one voice that goes unheard: that of people with learning disabilities themselves. Hence the motivation for the study described here. The author went to ask people with learning disabilities to enquire about the way they perceive their relationships and their sexuality, what they think of these topics and what is important to them in this respect. There is one major constant in all this information: that the circumstances of people's lives shape their perceptions of sexuality and relationships. Many service facilities have too many structural and organisational problems to allow relationships between service users, let alone value them. Professionals should be creative in finding ways to minimise the structural pressures exerted by the service facilities on the personal needs and wishes of people with learning disabilities.