basics, okay? (for those who recognize my icon? that is a good example of what NOT to do.)
So You're Dating Someone With a Mental Illness or Developmental Disability! Or perhaps you Want to Hook Up With Someone Who Might Have Ingested a Mind-Altering Substance Earlier in the Evening!
And you're wondering: can this person, in fact, consent to sexual relations?
The answer is maybe! Ask yourself:
-Is the person unconscious or unresponsive? Do ( Read more... )
And you're wondering: can this person, in fact, consent to sexual relations?
The answer is maybe! Ask yourself:
-Is the person unconscious or unresponsive? Do ( Read more... )
I can't say that I would ever describe you as developmentally disabled or mentally ill
The problem is that I technically am , according to DSM definitions.* (And...I have spent enough time in environments intended for such people to know that there are a lot who are generally very self-aware and smart and etc. and wouldn't "seem crazy" or disabled or whatever in a casual conversation, at least to someone who didn't know the person had a diagnosis of fill-in-the-blank. But a person like that might still have difficulties that had a serious negative impact on their life, and with which the majority of people do not have to contend...okay, this is another thing that gets really complicated. How do we define these things? Should a person's self-definition be respected over all? Should a doctor's diagnosis be respected over all? Should the opinion of a layperson who thinks they "know it when they see it" be...etc. For example. I know people who say, "There's nothing wrong with me, it's society that's screwed up," which I can respect; I know people who say, "I'm not insane, I have a mood disorder, which is as physical and chemical as anemia or diabetes and can be corrected with medication," which I can at least respect as their choice about how to define themselves. And then there are people who might say something like, "I don't really know what to call this, but it's obvious that most people don't have some of these problems I have, and they seem to stem neither from controllable personality flaws nor from a clear physical malady, so...")
Sure, I think there are people whose developmental disabilities and mental illnesses render them unable to really consent to sex, but...making an umbrella statement isn't helpful, and "well, okay, what I meant was that people whose developmental disabilities and mental illnesses make them unable to consent to sex can't consent to sex" wouldn't be helpful either. It's just a tautology. I agree that this is a confusing issue sometimes; this is why I think it would be better to define what constitutes "consent" from anybody, rather than just assuming that certain groups of people are incapable of giving it, ever.
*Yes, both! Even developmentally disabled; it makes more sense when you understand that the term can refer to delayed or abnormal social and emotional development (actually, up until recently I'd probably have been broadly classified as "emotionally disturbed" while a child, and as having a personality disorder as an adult... which I think sounds substantially awfuller, and which also says something about the weird fickleness and shamminess of trying to place strange, slow, and troubled people in specific medical categories of disease and acting like it means something objective and unchanging), or to the delayed acquisition of a specific skill set. It does not necessarily mean a person has a broad intellectual impairment/low IQ. "But you're really smart!" doesn't apply as an argument against this diagnosis.
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hmmm. and that people with developmental disabilities and mental illnesses are... people? Whoa. What a crazy idea.
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