“What does abstinence mean to you?
It means that you are abstinent from having sex, that you are not having sex because it could be many reasons. It could be your own personal choice, could be because of virginity, because of your faith or
because many reasons but mostly I think it’s about you and I always try me because I do abstain for sex. I don’t have that much experience with it. So I usually don’t do, I’m not as active as some of my self advocates and I abstain from it because it’s just, it’s not for me. That’s my personal choice.
Why might a person choose to be abstinent?
Because sometimes they’re not ready for it, which is okay, maybe it’s just religion stuff sometimes.
Also it’s the way you grew up, it’s your culture. Also a lot of factors for me and my experience, because I know that word, is about me. I don’t think I’m ready for all the sexual activities or anything like that. Doesn’t mean I don’t, doesn’t mean maybe in the future I would not want to do it, just right now I’m not doing it.
If someone doesn’t want to participate in sexual activities, what are other ways they can be close to their partners?
That’s a good one. That’s a great one.
Talk to each other, find out. My best advice for that is talk to each other. See what works for you guys as a couple. Maybe touching hands sometimes that might be a way of expressing how you feel about a person and touching hands could be holding hands touching hands, you don’t have to have to have that.I just say communication is number one in those situations. Talk to each other about what make you guys comfortable with it.
The most important thing to remember that you are not alone especially for us with disability out there. That sometimes people take advantage of us because we have a disability, and they think that we don’t know.”