Madeleine Stewart

Like this is your future.

And whether you're going to take these issues seriously or not is dependent on you and how committed you are to your future self and like the world you want to live in when you are disabled.

So like stop thinking about us as, you know, people that are different to you because we are you and you will be us.

And we don't say that to frighten anyone.

Like a lot of disability that's acquired, it can be like a big range of things, like a lovely spectrum.

Some have quite intense disabilities and some are not as much a barrier in their life, but everyone will experience it.

I think it's wild because they kind of contradict each other.

You know, we can be objects to fetishise or we can be objects to pity.

We can be hypersexual or we have no sexuality.

You know, it's so ridiculous and confusing, these misconceptions, but most of them are

very, very incorrect.

We are regular human beings just like you.

We aren't doing weird stuff.

We're just doing normal stuff as you.

When we think about disability and sex and dating, misconceptions are that we don't want to have sex, that we don't want to date, that we can't date, that we couldn't possibly understand what love and sexual attraction is, that we can't be trusted to navigate that, that

You know, I think there's a lot of misconceptions even with us getting married, us having children.

You know, to be sexual in any way can either be a taboo or completely fetishised.

It's really confusing to be a person with disability in the world with these things being said, knowing that the true reality of your lived experience and the experience of your friends are vastly different.

Well, that's such a big question.

I think it's very complex because on apps, it's all based on what you look like and assumptions about the person.