Dismantling the ‘fear factor’: how to change perceptions around sex and disability with Emily Yates
Recently, we collaborated with user-led disability awareness charity Enhance the UK (EtUK) on inclusive sex-ed guides for disabled young people and their parents, guardians, teachers and carers. You can find them on our website here.
We love working with EtUK. They are a small team with a simple mission: to change society’s views on disability. They’ve built an impressive reputation and nurtured strong relationships inside and outside of the team. They’re dynamic, determined and super fun to work with. We chatted to Emily Yates, Project Manager and Disability Awareness Trainer about her work.
Hey Emily! Lovely to chat to you. Please can you tell us a bit about Enhance the UK?
Enhance the UK is a user-led disability awareness charity (meaning our trainers all have impairments themselves and speak from lived experience). We are all about changing perceptions in wider society, and building comfort and confidence in both disabled and non-disabled people along the way. There's undoubtedly a 'fear factor' that surrounds disability, and we aim to remove that as much as possible for the businesses and organisations we work with. We deliver disability awareness training, British Sign Language workshops and access audits across the UK, and further afield. In the current climate, we also deliver virtual disability awareness training over Zoom, which has just been CPD accredited!
That’s so exciting - congrats! We <3 Enhance’s Undressing Disability campaign - can you explain a bit more about the story behind it?
Our CEO, Jennie, set up Enhance the UK 10 years ago, after working in the care sector and seeing first hand that sexual needs, preferences and desires were not remotely considered or discussed for people living in care homes. Carers would barge into individuals' rooms without knocking and waiting, there were solely single bed set ups and bodies were only seen medically as things to wash and dress.
Our Undressing Disability campaign is all about empowering disabled people to have access to their own sexual expression - and sexual expression isn't always sexual, either! It's about what makes you feel good and affects the way you present yourself to the world. Whilst someone's sexual expression might involve buying sexy lingerie and sex toys, someone else's might include going to get their nails done, or indulging in a posh afternoon tea. All of these things matter and should be considered, wherever possible.
The campaign is supported by our free resources, including guides for families, carers and disabled people themselves. These include our Undressing Disability Hub (which we like to call LinkedIn's sexy sibling as it's a very similar platform for academics and professionals in this field to connect and collaborate on all things disability and sex) and our Love Lounge (an online Q&A forum of its kind where disabled people and their loved ones can write in - anonymously if they wish - with questions surrounding love, sex, relationships and disability). We call ourselves the 'non expert sexperts' and our team of brilliant people will use their lived experience to answer any queries that are submitted. We are also in the process of creating an accessible range of sex toys, and are in talks with a care home organisation to deliver training around sex and disability policies, so watch this space!
What do you hope to achieve with your work?
Ultimately, a bigger picture societal change that recognises the importance of sexual expression for disabled people, and a movement full of comfortable, confident disabled and non-disabled people that support the same cause and understand and appreciate its value. There's a lot of work to do until then, but we are on the case!
What are some of your biggest challenges?
Sex is still taboo, disability is still taboo, so throwing them both together can sometimes be scary for some! But that's exactly why we do the work that we do - because it really shouldn't be the case.
We are also a small team of great friends, and are never left twiddling our thumbs. If anything, a big challenge is putting all the great ideas we have into action, but we wouldn't have it any other way.
Why did you feel like the guides we worked on together needed to be written?
Plainly and simply, things won't change for disabled people if non-disabled people don't support these causes and campaign with us. And loved ones of disabled people need support too, sometimes.
A lot of people want to help and to do the right thing for their disabled partners / parents / children, but don't know the best way to turn and struggle to find that information in a warm, friendly and accessible format.
If you could speak directly to a change-maker in government (or somewhere else), who would it be and what would you ask?
Firstly, we'd like to see more disabled people in decision and change-making positions! But we'd ideally like to work with the government and the CQC to ensure that any classes and workshops relating to relationship and sex education, in schools and care institutions, are fully inclusive and beneficial to all.
What's one thing you wish you were taught in sex-ed?
That the best sexual experiences are often the ones with the best communication, and a few giggles thrown in. They don't have to be with someone you love, and absolutely don't have to involve penetration.
