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In Canada, the project on new inclusive sex toys, designed for people with disabilities

Even today, talking about sex means having to face a wall made of taboos, often unhappy jokes and general embarrassments. It is difficult to look at the theme as a simple aspect of life, and to consider well-being under the sheets as a determining factor for the overall health of the individual.
These difficulties increase enormously if attention is focused on people with disabilities, often treated as asexual subjects but who, on the other hand, obviously are not, and just like everyone has drives and desires.

INCLUSIVE SEX TOYS ARE COMING
To meet their needs also in terms of self-eroticism, and to tear the veil of hypocrisy and respectability that surrounds the sex-disabled duo, the Canadian company Venus Envy is creating a line of sex toys specifically designed for them.
The initiative is called Adaptations for Accessible Sex Practices Project and is carried out together with the Tetra Society, a nonprofit that provides volunteer engineers in Canada and the United States, to those who want to design and build custom assistive devices for people with disabilities. “Sex should be a natural part of any conversation, but it’s almost always a source of embarrassment,” said Tetra Society North American coordinator Andrew Jantzen.
To push Venus Envy e Tetra Society working on this project was the observation of how most things in the world, even today, are not designed in an inclusive perspective or also designed for people with motor disabilities, but only for the able-bodied. Objects used for sexual pleasure are no exception. “Aware of this deep gap that no one has ever dealt with until now, we decided to try to fill it, concretely thinking about how to create adaptive and innovative devices and equipment for the sexual practices of disabled users”, continues Andrew Jantzen.

DISABLED PEOPLE AND SEX, A TABOO TO BE FAILED
Second Rachele Manett, therapist, activist and researcher in the field of queer sexuality and disability, disabled people are often treated like children, cared for even beyond their real needs and considered to have no sexual desire. “The common feeling is that they don’t have sex and, above all, don’t think about it, but that’s not the case at all. For this, the project aims not only to affirm what seems obvious to us, but to improve their sex life as much as possible. This is a goal that should not only concern us but the whole of society which should ask itself: how can we make sex better, more accessible or more inclusive and how can we change our opinions about it? “.

THE EXPERIMENTATION IS IN PROGRESS
The creation of the sex toys started from a study phase conducted by Venus Envy, who interviewed a group of voluntarily recruited disabled people in the city of Halifax, where the company’s main physical store is based. In addition to asking them for clarification on needs and expectations, they were involved in the testing of the products that precedes the final work. The chosen people have various types of disabilities and very different sexual ideas, tastes and orientations. This is an aspect, strongly desired by the promoters of the project, who, trying to approach as many sensitivities as possible, aim to create products that are truly for everyone, which do not make anyone feel wrong for their body or tastes under the covers.
“Until five or ten years ago, most of the sex toys were designed for penetrative sex and this, in addition to not meeting everyone’s preferences, excludes and limits their use to many categories of people with non-conforming bodies or with movement difficulties. – Rachele Manett continues – In addition, sometimes the sex toys are too heavy and the buttons are difficult to access for those with certain types of mobility restrictions ».
After having collected the information and suggestions of the people recruited for the preliminary tests, the engineers will move on to the actual operational phase.

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