Wrist Whisperer - Rachel A.
Description:
Consent bracelets are powerful tools that help support them and help communicate consent during intimacy. There will be 3 bracelets, red = NO, orange = maybe or not sure and purple= YES. Each bracelet will have different bead sizes for those in need of tactile need. They make it easier for people of all abilities, including those with cognitive, intellectual and developmental disabilities, to explore and express their sexuality.
Significance:
Making the consent bracelets was the result of my belief that everyone should have the opportunity to respond to a situation with clear and assured communication of their boundaries. I also believe that people with disabilities experience unique challenges in commands related to intimacy and, most of all, deserve tools that can make those moments of intimacy safer and more empowering. The overlap of disability and sexuality is a much-overlooked reality in the world, and people with disabilities are often taken away from that autonomy and desired voice regarding their own comfort and consent. The bracelet has the potential to bridge that gap.
Positionality:
For a lot of people, sexuality is a huge part of their identity. Yet disabled people, especially those with disabilities tied to their mind or emotional wellbeing, have a harder time finding ways to explore and understand their sexuality and feel empowered in expressing it. I’m motivated by a sense of fairness and inclusion. I want everyone to have a voice and to have access to the tools they need to form healthy, safe, consensual relationships. Disabled people’s bodies and voices are as valid as anyone else’s. It makes me want to challenge stereotypes and encourage empowerment, for example through consent bracelets.
Impact:
I think the Consent Bracelets have helped me by making me more aware of the need to talk about consent, not just to plan for sex, but to think deeply about how to communicate within relationships, to think about others’ feelings, and to make space for all identities. In designing and constructing the Consent Bracelets, I uncovered a new approach to designing accessible tools that allow people to communicate their limits in ways that best reflect and respect who they are. But working on this project has also helped me contribute toward a conversation that challenges social norms about disability and sex.
Wish List:
I hope my piece prompts the viewer to consider the necessity of consent and communication, especially for those with disabilities, and to be active participants in a community that respects autonomy and rejects marginalisation. I want viewers to think everyone needs accessible ways to communicate their boundaries and to be an advocate in creating or supporting tools to aid others in communicating comfortably. I want them to understand the difficulty a person can have in expressing consent, and to advocate, for all sexual rights, respect and parity, that anyone, abled or not, feels comfortable exploring their sexuality in a safe space.
Scholarship:
The Routledge International Handbook of Social Work and Sexualities is divided into six sections. Multiple chapters focus on the complex intersections of disability and sexuality, and are aimed at empowering social work practitioners and other professionals to reflect upon and better comprehend the intertwining of sexual identities and social factors on sexual rights, health and sexual wellbeing. Sexuality and disability in the handbook is a deeply necessary reminder that people with disabilities are the most marginalized when it comes to issues of sexual rights and intimacy, and how the handbook steps in to break down the various barriers to sexuality for people with disabilities (Dodd, 2021).
The Ultimate Guide to Sex and Disability is a groundbreaking resource that combines accurate information, positive, affirming illustrations, and detailed sexual techniques to provide people with disabilities of all age ranges with the tools they need to explore and enjoy their sexuality. By making the most intimate needs and desires of people with disabilities visible, by suggesting real world solutions to common barriers, and by talking openly about sex without shame or embarrassment, The Ultimate Guide to Sex and Disability helps fuel a growing movement to create a more inclusive society. The book encourages readers to be proud of their sexuality, to explore their bodies, thereby challenging the stereotype that often views people with disabilities as sexless. One of its aims is to validate the experiences of people with disabilities, reducing stigma, and reassuring and advising them about their unique needs (Kaufman, 2007).
"Sexual ‘Vulnerability’ of People with Learning Difficulties: A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy is a critical examination of how social attitudes, lack of sexual education and overprotective practices serve to maintain sexual dependency for people with learning difficulties. It explores the need to move beyond viewing these individuals as inherently sexually vulnerable, and to shift the focus onto their rights to sexual expression, and the need for empowerment through education and support. The book examines how societal attitudes and perceptions influence the sexual experiences of people with learning difficulties. The chapter explains how sexual ‘vulnerability’ becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because of prevailing social and institutional attitudes, and how these attitudes influence the sexual experiences of people with learning disabilities (Sauer,2015).
Visual art provides the foundation for the project by noting that text alone is not sufficient to convey the subjectivity of disabled sexuality. The power of visual and tactile communication enables artifacts like visual objects to provide a concrete sensory connection between people and abstract ideas. For disabled people, whose needs and desires can be misunderstood or unvoiced, an object such as a consent bracelet is a literal expression of their
voice (Heywood,2017).
2 Comments
I love the concept of consent bracelets! It’s definitely something that did not cross my mind until now – I think it’s an amazing tool that could bring upon effective communication for people with disabilities and also otherwise. This artifact did indeed reflect your motivation being fairness and inclusion – especially when it comes to consent and the ability to be able to communicate consent. I appreciated the shout to the overprotective practices and lack of sexual education – it is a huge part of people with disability garnering ‘vulnerability’ which leads them to have higher risks of sexual violence and subject to coercion. Overall, I’ve truly enjoyed reading your piece and the impact of this is not lost on me.
I think that this artefact was very unique, not what I was expecting in a good way. Your artefact was not only a piece describing how sexuality and disability connect, through the connection of consent and communication, and how while it may be more difficult for a person with certain disabilities to express consent, they are not inherently incapable of it, as well as finding a possible assistance to communicating consent in a fairly simple way, while not exclusively looking at it through a “black-and-white” perspective. I also very much enjoy how accessible the bracelets are, with both the colour differences and differences in bead size, in a general sense having the colours be a little more different from eachother (particularly the red and orange), and possibly playing with different shapes/grooves in the beads for easier distinction. Overall very interesting idea !! : )