The Sexual Subjectivity of Youth with Physical Disabilities: An Arts-Based Study in Toronto, Canada
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BackgroundYouth with physical disabilities are often perceived as sexually vulnerable, incapable, or abnormal and sexuality information and support are therefore restricted. As a result, youth with physical disabilities may struggle to develop and assert their sexual subjectivity. To better understand the sexual subjectivity of youth with physical disabilities, we conducted a critical qualitative arts-based study. MethodsThe arts-based method of body map storytelling was used. Youth with physical disabilities (13 – 21 years) in Toronto, Canada engaged in virtual interviews while creating a map of their bodies. A critical visual methodology guided the interpretation and integration of the visual and verbal data, alongside a reflexive thematic analysis of the verbal data. ResultsEleven youth with physical disabilities participated, who were diverse across disability, race, gender identity, and sexual orientation. Youth with physical disabilities were rarely able to access disability-specific sexuality information and therefore had to form their sexual subjectivity alone. Some participants found support in countercultural spaces (e.g., 2SLGBTQIA+ communities), which were typically online. Their sexuality was validated in these spaces because differences were embraced rather than stigmatized and excluded. Youth with physical disabilities often experienced constant pain, so they had to find ways to integrate it into their sexual subjectivity. For some participants, markers of their pain (e.g., scars) became markers of their strength and sexiness. In contrast, pleasure was framed as their responsibility to others and not considered for themselves. ConclusionThe sexual subjectivity of youth with physical disabilities was restricted by society, where they were seen as vulnerable and therefore, not as sexual beings. Youth in our study had to navigate this desexualization and find creative ways to form their sexual subjectivity. To support the sexuality of youth with physical disabilities, their invisibility at the social structural level must be addressed and they must be integrated into the social imaginary as valuable and desirable sexual beings.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".