My mate fancies you...

A friend of mine is involved in disability sport. He's able-bodied himself, and his mates were always very positive about what he did. Then he met his partner, who is a wheelchair user. Suddenly, there was a sense of awkwardness. His friends weren't quite so comfortable with this level of involvement with disability. It's like they thought he was taking advantage, even though his partner is an adult with a career and her own apartment. Or perhaps it was a bit like that awful, worn out cliché that used to be thrown into discussions on homosexuality. You know, the one that goes, "I don't mind what they do when they're in the privacy of their own home, but it's when they're so public about it. It's disgusting, etc."

On the other hand, during my recent spell in rehabilitation, I observed that there are many female members of staff in spinal units up and down the country who have partners with spinal cord injury. It's very understandable. There are more female than male staff, rehabilitation can take many months of intense therapy sessions and it is often a very emotional ride. But there is also the image of women as nurturing, supporting, alright mothering. It's sort of socially expected and acceptable, has been for years.

The Spinal Injuries Association magazine, Forward, recently published an excerpt from the regular newsletter of Lyme Green, a residential care home for injured military personnel. The piece came from 1950, and the whole newsletter was full of 'who's copped off with who at which dance, etc'.

The page also contained a black and white photograph of a man in a wheelchair snogging a woman who was sat on the arm. I was struck by the sense of passion revealed, and how positive it is to see someone in a wheelchair caught in the throes of such a feeling. It is an image that I have used as inspiration for some drawings, and one that I will no doubt return to in the future.

But I wonder how many able-bodied men would feel comfortable, even now, chatting up a disabled woman, or perching on the arm of her chair for a snog. Would they fear being perceived as predatory in some way? Or is it that men are more attracted by physical appearance than women?

I know that there are... well, specialists who are attracted to particular physical attributes. I found this out when looking for wheelchair user tips on Youtube, only to come across clips with titles like, "Sexy amputee removes leg". Now there's nothing wrong with this, anymore than magazines with names like 'Big Jugs' or 'Forty-plus'. I don't know if these titles exist, but you get my point. I'm sure that on some level, and like any other fetish, it is a guilty pleasure, and not one that is celebrated publicly.

I'd been married for seven years when I had my accident and became a wheelchair user. When you are in a relationship, and one or other person becomes disabled, you both try and find ways of getting round, over or through it, and enjoy your partner as intensely as you did before. This is different if you are single and stepping out for the first time as a disabled person, especially if you are joined on your date by the extra baggage of a negative attitude towards disability from the potential new partner.

So. I'm genuinely curious. What's the difference between forming a lasting relationship and, to use a technical term, 'rumpy-pumpy'. Is the former easier to find than the latter if you are disabled? Do people have to be attracted despite the disability? Or can you appreciate an attractiveness in disability in the same way you might appreciate long legs, big breasts, hairy chest, high cheekbones, muscular arms and a winning smile.

I'd be interested to read your experiences. You are the experts after all.