Pictures and Silences: Memories of Sexual Abuse of Disabled People

Abstract

Female sexuality remains a topic that is misrepresented and falsely constructed in the media. An often poorly known fact is that it is females with disabilities that are at most danger of sexual abuse. This article looks to de-individualise the debate about the sexual abuse of disabled people, especially women, by showing that both the sexual and the asexual identity of the disabled people are invariably fashioned within the institutional arrangements of domination, repression and subjugation. It will show that no matter whether disabled people are seen to be asexual or if they are sexualised, they cannot escape sexual violence, which must be seen not an aberration but as intrinsic to the social construction of disability. Ignored sexual abuse in this context serves to perpetuate discrimination against the disabled, especially women. The article includes personal testimonies of women with different disabilities from Slovenia who were abused either at home or in while in public care facilities. It also provides some of the responses from professionals and caregivers who minimise the importance of abuse; revealing that ignoring the memories of sexual abuse is part of a subtle and unintentional discrimination that reflects a unity of prejudices and hatred toward disabled children and adults in the private realm as well as in public care. People from ethnic minorities, such as Roma, are still today more likely to be diagnosed as mentally disabled, which shows that the disability diagnosis has to be seen as part of general cultural responses towards economically and socially marginalised groups. The author uses different perspectives: historical, social work theories, cultural studies and feminist analysis. What emerges is how the social construction of the disabled can work to liberate sexual predators from guilt, as their victims are ‘asexual’. Disabled rights movements have some way to go to change this image.