aus10england's review against another edition
informative
fast-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism
violetbooklover's review against another edition
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
tylertylertyler's review against another edition
3.0
I wanted to rate this higher, but there’s too many gaps.
While it gets a ton of points for broaching the myths of us disabled people being sexless and some of the awkward things like ‘don’t touch someone’s accessibility aids,’ which you’d hope are obvious to abled people but often aren’t, I felt the content was a bit lacking. I’ll give it some grace for being ‘a quick and easy guide,’ and admitting in its own pages there’s way more that they don’t have the space to cover, thus four stars still, but there’s some big gaps I’m seeing. I was a little annoyed at first at the amount of abled people saying that this book is really for everyone—can’t disabled people have like... one thing? that’s actually for us?—ultimately that’s... not wrong. Many of the topic, while through the lens of disability, are mostly tangential to disability. It doesn’t get much into unique challenges for the most part. Communication is, of course, key. But specific challenges to communication aren’t discussed, really.
In particular, I was quite disappointed to not see myself reflected in the pages at all—I would think that sensory disabilities would be important to talk about if there’s such a heavy emphasis on communication. Instead, sensory disabilities are mentioned as an example of invisible disabilities (not necessarily true) and then never brought up again. Deaf/HOH people have unique challenges to communication. So would the blind.
I feel like it was taken for granted that if you’re communicating with your partner with a sensory disability outside of the bedroom, then you know how to communicate IN the bedroom. An obvious example: would abled people necessarily think about the impact of “mood lighting” on a Deaf/HOH person’s ability to be in the moment? Would that Deaf/HOH people be comfortable and able to properly communicate how something as simple as the visual aspects of play impacts their enjoyment of sex? I have my own experiences with that, even. What an abled (or at least hearing) person might think of as ‘setting the mood’ could be a huge turn-off, or worse, to a Deaf/HOH person.
Just an example. Again, I know it’s a ‘quick and easy guide.’ But not mentioning sensory disabilities at all when your emphasis is on open lines of communication seems like a major gap.
While it gets a ton of points for broaching the myths of us disabled people being sexless and some of the awkward things like ‘don’t touch someone’s accessibility aids,’ which you’d hope are obvious to abled people but often aren’t, I felt the content was a bit lacking. I’ll give it some grace for being ‘a quick and easy guide,’ and admitting in its own pages there’s way more that they don’t have the space to cover, thus four stars still, but there’s some big gaps I’m seeing. I was a little annoyed at first at the amount of abled people saying that this book is really for everyone—can’t disabled people have like... one thing? that’s actually for us?—ultimately that’s... not wrong. Many of the topic, while through the lens of disability, are mostly tangential to disability. It doesn’t get much into unique challenges for the most part. Communication is, of course, key. But specific challenges to communication aren’t discussed, really.
In particular, I was quite disappointed to not see myself reflected in the pages at all—I would think that sensory disabilities would be important to talk about if there’s such a heavy emphasis on communication. Instead, sensory disabilities are mentioned as an example of invisible disabilities (not necessarily true) and then never brought up again. Deaf/HOH people have unique challenges to communication. So would the blind.
I feel like it was taken for granted that if you’re communicating with your partner with a sensory disability outside of the bedroom, then you know how to communicate IN the bedroom. An obvious example: would abled people necessarily think about the impact of “mood lighting” on a Deaf/HOH person’s ability to be in the moment? Would that Deaf/HOH people be comfortable and able to properly communicate how something as simple as the visual aspects of play impacts their enjoyment of sex? I have my own experiences with that, even. What an abled (or at least hearing) person might think of as ‘setting the mood’ could be a huge turn-off, or worse, to a Deaf/HOH person.
Just an example. Again, I know it’s a ‘quick and easy guide.’ But not mentioning sensory disabilities at all when your emphasis is on open lines of communication seems like a major gap.