Dating and disabilities

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I would definately follow the wishes on the living will. Hence why I said I want one.Maybe I typed that wrong. I meant to answer the question that I would not leave my husband/boyfriend just because he became disabled. I just commented about the living will because CBW brought up Terry Schiavo. Sorry for the confusion.

Oh....OK.In reality, a living will is a set of directions that you hope the person responsible for your care will follow. There's no legal obligation that he do so. But it's better to have your wishes known (in writing and verbally) before your unable to communicate.

Staying true to the topic, yes although the thought of passing a disability on to one of my children scares the hell out of me.

A comment was made about a blind person, I had the pleasure of escorting a blind woman around {we have lots of stairs} for an entire day. She was amazing at how she was able to overcome the loss of sight and near the end of our day she asked to look at my face.. Her touching my face was one of the most intimate experiences I have ever had.

Staying true to the topic, suppose it was a person who didn't have a congenital handicap, but had a handicap that precluded a sex life? (That would almost render moot the congenital aspect.)

hey. wanted to stay out of this, considering my profession, but i couldn't. my boyfriend, and soulmate, is disabled. he is deaf (which he lost when he was 16 and is very bitter about it because of peoples attitudes towards him) and a chronic back injury resulting from an accident at work, which affects our sex life sometimes, but relationships arent all about the sex. it is about two people fitting together emotionally, psychologically, mentally, etc. yeah sex is really nice and is something i really enjoy, but somebody should not be discriminated against just because they cant have sex.

thankfully not all people are so narrow minded about it, otherwise there would be a lot of very lonely and depressed people. i'm all for relationships for people with disabilities, probably because i am a learning disability nurse, all people should have the experience of falling in love and having that special person in their lives.

they cant have sex, big deal! what if people were so cruel about other parts of life, and refused to have relationships because of other things, no one would ever be happy coz society is saying that it shouldnt be done. its not their fault they are like they are, its one of those things, they have alot more wonderful qualities about them which will make people fall in love with them, they may be your life long partner potentially, but if you cant see beyond that disability, how will people ever feel that love and emotional attachment.

try to see past that disability and see the person underneath it. i hope that the people with disabilities who come here and read the forums havent been insulted by this topic, as for them it is a big thing ot being able to have sex and feel very low and have bad self esteem because of it, they dont need to read a topic that has people saying how off putting it is, not good for self esteem adn confidence, people have enough trouble as it is, without reading how narrow minded people are.

I couldn't agree more hon, great post.

thanks, just had to be said

Hi Deadinside; you've made some valid points, but I don’t accept that having a requirement for a full sex life makes me narrow-minded, it just makes me honest about what I need from a relationship. If I found myself paralysed after an accident tomorrow (in the case that I were single, which I'm not) I would want potential partners to be open and honest about what they needed in a relationship with me. What would be the point in getting close to and fond of someone, then finding that the relationship cannot have a future, because of something that that person was not honest about?In any case, I never said I wouldn’t consider a relationship with a disabled person; I said in order to pursue a future with someone who was so seriously paralysed as to render sex totally impossible, there'd have to be something really special going on. As it happens, there has to be something really special going on before I'll consider a future with any person, of any category or description.I understand that your partner having a disability is likely to make you a bit more sensitive toward the contents of a thread like this, and I accept that, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t practical and emotional issues that would need to be considered for some people entering into a relationship with someone who had a disability. Some peoples disabilities are much more prominent than your partners, and sex is more important to some people than others. It is an important emotionally bonding experience for me, and I don’t accept that I should be expected to make any apologies for that.

i also work with people who have disabilitie and the one thing they want more than anything is a relationship, but cant have this because of opinions of people that have been expressed.even if gavin hadnt got a disability, i would still feel the same as it is morally wrong for me to be so discriminative. if you don't have these morals then fine, but it shouldn't posted on here as people with all sorts of problems and disabilities use this forum and read what is put. suddenly they are reading that having a disability is enough grounds to not have a relationship, affecting their confidence and self esteem. people that are already vulnerable, being made to feel inadequate and inferior to others who haven't got a disability.people come on here to air their problems and seek support and answers, and yet they are the first to discriminate against others.people on here may not date those with depression or self harm issues but it isnt talked about and they aren't made to feel so bad, like this post has done to people with disabilities

I think the level of professional and personal involvement you have with people with disabilities has rendered you overly sensitive and is clouding your judgement. You might want to consider that the non-physical disabilities you have described (depression etc) are very very common among people who are not physically disabled, and I am one of those people. I've been dealing with clinical depression since I was first hospitalised because of it at eleven years old. When a man is considering a future with me he needs to know (and I make sure he knows) that there are times when I simply need to be alone, and no amount of cajoling is going to bring me around; it's something I need to come out of on my own. A man has EVERY RIGHT to consider this aspect of who I am when he is weighing up the pros and cons of a relationship with me, AS IT AFFECTS HIS LIFE TOO.If you just refuse to understand that there are serious practical and emotional issues of many different kinds that people HAVE - A - RIGHT to consider when joining their life with someone else’s, I really don’t know what else to say to you.

i'm not saying that you dont have the choice, but it shouldnt be discussed on here and have people say thats why they wouldn't be with that person, it will make people feel worse about themselves than they already do. i do understand, my last boyfriend before gav had depression really badly, so did i, still do, met him on here actually, but the reason not to be with sonebody because of their disability should not be talked about here, becasue it is used by people who have them.it would be like someone saying on here that they wouldnt be with somebody because they have other problems, like depression that is a big topic on this site, it would just make those people who suffer from it, like me, to feel worse and even more unwanted.

Well I don’t accept that view Deadinside, because there were many people (like yourself) who expressed very positive attitudes towards having relationships with people with physical disabilities, and aired the view that sex was only minimally important and way down the list as compared to the other qualities important in a person and in a relationship. Anyone with a disability reading this thread would have been heartened reading those, and the only disabled people discouraged on reading mine would have been those totally paralysed from the neck down, so I really think you have overreacted here. I also think you need to consider that nobody is talking about denigrating people because of their disability; the original question was posed in relation to whether or not people could deal with the unavoidable affect on their own lives that would inevitably come with having to accept a relational situation where sex was not possible. There was no reference to anyone coping with the disabilities of deafness, blindness, or any of the other many physical conditions that do not render sex impossible. It was a valid and fair question and I did not see one insulting or otherwise inappropriate response comment, though you are welcome to copy and paste the ones that you found offensive for my attention, especially if they were made by me.Yes, there are people in the world who will discriminate solely on the grounds of physical disability, but discriminating out of hand and considering the implications to your own life are two VERY different things.I once had a relationship with someone who had been sexually abused in his youth. Sometimes he would be so emotionally withdrawn he couldn’t bear to be touched, let alone have sex, and I had to accept that. He had an emotional disability, believe me. So there he was with his emotional disability, and there I was with my mental one. And BOTH of us had the right to consider if we could deal with one another’s issues, and exercising the right to decide that we could not would not have made either of us “immoral” as you say. You have already made the comparison between physical and mental/emotional disabilities, so please don’t try to back-track now and tell me I’m talking about a different realm of disability entirely. Sometimes the disabilities you can’t see are the most difficult to deal with.

star im replying to you only cuz your the last person to postcan i ask WHY my thread is locked,but yet this one isnt? i thought we were allowed to express our opinions on issues here, not express them,and get them locked on us.

I locked that thread because it would have turned into nothing but a bitch fest. Also, you guys made your point in that thread, so there was no need to keep restating that you disagree with my topic. Now, could you please stay on topic in my thread?

yeah but you know what, it didnt turn into a bitch fest. people were stating their opinions. which, the last time i checked, we were allowed to do on here.

Classy, I mean no disrespect to you as a person or a moderater, but listen, I have a problem with this thread as a person with a disability myself, i will not simply "get over it" as u so rudely advised before you locked that other thread, Two people have voiced that they are offended by this thread, and yet you lock their thead and say their oversensative and wrong and you keep this thread unlocked when they clearly haev a problem with it.Why? All the best, Rvb

Why do you have a problem with this thread? I simply asked a question. I didn't mean any harm with the question, like some people would like to believe.

Again I will add this here....Let me just add this statement from this websiteIt is not the intent of AfraidToAsk.com to discourage Users from taking controversial positions or expressing vigorously what may be unpopular views in AfraidToAsk.com, nonetheless, AfraidToAsk.com reserves the right to take such action as it deems appropriate in cases where AfraidToAsk.com is used to disseminate statements which are deeply and widely offensive and/or harmful. Now... statements which are deeply and widely offensive and/or harmful is a matter of opinion. It is my opinion that the threads in question were not intentionally meant to be an attack or harmful, rather a hard look at real life possibilites.

Oh I am sooo gonna get banned for this...SDP, You may be correct in your assesment that this thread was not ment to insult, I believe like you that it wasnt, but its the fact that it DOES insult thats the problem. All I'm asking is that this thread be locked to. Because when Ashley made her thread to show disaproval of Classy's thread and had it locked, it showed a lack of freedom of expression. there were no insults towards mods. infact Classy insulted Ashley, so why has this thread that I as well as Ashley both find offensive not been locked, when the non ofensive thread that meerly stated that we had a problem was? All the best, Rvb

tolerance is not locking a thread simply because it opposes your own. thank you!