Professor Longmore Discusses Sex, Disability

MEDICAL DAILY -- Paul Longmore, director of the Institute on Disability at San Francisco State University, said physiological conditions have historically suggested people can’t function properly in society, from being students to someone’s sexual partner. It’s presumed they’re sexually and romantically disabled, too. “Those expectations, those views of what [disabilities are], point to the fact that disability isn’t not simply medical or physiological — much more importantly, it’s social and cultural,” Longmore said. “It’s a constructed identity, so certain physical and mental traits … get stigmatized. … The stigma is globalized to engulf their entire identity.”