For folks who navigate the world with a disability, sexual pleasure is often harder to navigate because of both physical and societal restrictions. Sex toys are one way to address barriers to achieving sexual pleasure, especially for people who are restricted from doing so by any other means. However, many toys are not designed with the intention to aid people with disability. They are often inaccessible.
One of my goals with the SSN blog is to review different sex toys and share my thoughts about their practicality and benefits from the perspective of my complex disability. For context around my disability, I have limited physical capabilities: I only have one functional hand, I am unable to stand or walk, and I have below average fine motor skills. With my lived experience and capacity, I believe I can provide realistic insight into the accessibility of these toys from this perspective. The products that I will review are a combination of toys that I already own and others provided to me by different companies to review. The toys will include those made for male pleasure and those designed for couples to use together. I am close to partnering with a business for this project and hope to announce the partnership soon. I hope I can expand to work with other businesses in the future as well.
I am aware that people have different needs for their self-pleasure and stimulation and the overall experience can vary from person to person so I will do my best to take this into account with my reviews and speak mainly from my own perspective. Using my own capacity as an example, if the toy is too small it is difficult for me to use because I have physical restrictions with moving my body in the motion required for effective stimulation. If the toy is too big, it may be heavy and awkward for my one functional hand to operate. Even when a toy is the right size for me, the structure can still render it impractical to use, because of my fine motor skills. My challenge in finding the right toy is two-fold: the right choice needs to accommodate my sexual desires as well as be accessible to use with my disability.
An additional consideration is the maintenance of the toys. As I rely on my support workers to clean my toys after I use them, I consider how easy cleaning would be before I purchase them. A few of the toys that I have previously used had crevices that are hard to reach and clean and I’m meticulous about maintaining the hygiene of the toys and believe it should be easy to do this.
In the past I have prematurely labelled toys as too impractical to use so moving forward, I have made it a rule to try a new toy at least two to three times. This way I can experiment with the different functions and attempt different methods of positioning to give the most extensive review I can. In the past, I let some time pass between attempts and found that upon trying again — when I was less impatient — I actually enjoyed using that certain toy and it even became a favourite.
Product reviews will be coming first Sunday of every month and will discuss everything that I have mentioned in earlier, from accessibility to maintenance, with any additional tidbits that I believe may be of benefit to share. I hope these provide some guidance for you.
Disclaimer – I will always strive to be as inclusive as possible in my reviews, however I can only offer opinions based on my own disability and experience. Everything that I write in these reviews are my thoughts only and they are based on how I have experiments with the toys. Beyond these reviews, I suggest that — if you are considering purchasing any products — you talk with your OT beforehand, to confirm that the product may work for you.