Feeling ‘Happy, Loved, Cherished, Desired’ and ‘Hopeful for the Future’: Disabled Women in Nigeria Talk About Sex and Pleasure

Abstract

When Jumai told her cousin, she wanted to get intimate with a man, her cousin replied that as a blind woman she should not be thinking about things like that, but instead should be on her knees praying. Disabled women in Nigeria often experience this kind of pushback if they express sexual desire. Sexual and reproductive health interventions for disabled people in Nigeria usually exclude desires and pleasures, and only address vulnerabilities to sexual violence or ill-health. Beyond Nigeria, pleasure has also been missing in health and policy discourses regarding disabled people and regarding African women. Now research, activism and advocacy have started to bring pleasure into the discourse in relation to both disabled people and African women. However, for disabled African women, the possibilities for pleasure continue to be side-lined. This article starts to address that gap by presenting qualitative research with five disabled women in Nigeria about their experiences of sexuality and pleasure. A sexuality education program inspired by the findings of this research is presented.