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attention. Ask them if they consider sexuality to be an important part of an individual's life. Do they think that there is a connection between how we feel about ourselves in general and how we feel about ourselves as sexual beings? If the answer is no, ask them why not. If the answer is maybe, or yes, ask them what the organization is doing to support people's right to explore that part of their lives. Do they have any books or films, do they offer any courses? They may conduct dozens of life skills courses on balancing a checkbook (which is admittedly important), but how many times have they given a course on how to meet someone if you want to date, or what to do if you just want to have sex with someone? You can take this exercise as far as you like. You're going to get plenty of silence on the other end; sometimes you'll get lectures from people obviously opposed to even speaking about sex. But occasionally you'll get someone who is genuinely interested, and thankful that you've called to raise the subject. The more people who do this, the closer to the surface the topic will get.

    CHAPTER
    Sexual Anatomy and Sexual Response
    / get the feeling people think that because I am in a chair there is just a blank space down there.
    Underlying much of what is written about disability and sexuality is the idea of deficiency. These writings usually tell us about what we won't feel, what we can't do, and the ways we can make up for the fact that we aren't getting the "real thing." Despite what people actually experience, many of us still view sex as something that is the same for everybody considered "normal," and inferior for the rest of us. But every person needs to discover what sex is for them—how it feels, and what they respond to.
    Yeah, sex is definitely different since I got injured. Now I use a wheelchair and I don't

    always get erections when I want. Things are slower in some ways, but when I do have the chance to have sex I really like it, and figure it's probably different than it would be if I wasn't in a wheelchair. Like, there are parts of my body now that are so sensitive to touch and I can't believe how easily I get turned on by having my nipples and ears touched. So I don't think of it as bad, just different.
    Constructing a sexual blueprint that maps the places on your body where you have more or less sexual sensation, as well as what your body looks like (inside and out), its textures and rhythms—leads to a healthier sexuality. In this chapter we propose a radically different way to approach our sexual anatomy and response, departing from the ways most books write about it.
    We almost wrote this chapter without any description of what most people's genitalia look like, intending to leave it to you to discover what you look like. But we found three problems with this. To start with, you may not be able to see or feel some (or any) parts of your body. Second, with no descriptions or pictures, you don't have the opportunity to put names to the sexual parts of your body. This can make it hard to communicate with sexual partners, as well as with people to whom you might turn for advice. Third, many kids with disabilities who have the usual sexual anatomy grow up thinking that there is something different and unusual about the way they look sexually, primarily because they have picked up on the societal message that they are not sexual beings and will never become so. It can be empowering to realize that you probably do have everything that your friends have "down there." People who have differences in their sexual anatomy may be surprised at how many similarities there are. Your body may be different, in how it looks, functions, or feels, from the usual way things are, but in this book we won't use terms like normal and abnormal.
    Even though my penis looks very different than other guys, it works fine. I had several operations when I was a kid, to "fix" how it looked and so that I could pee better. There is