The questions you read on the previous page come from parents. We want to offer them—all of them—an answer, or at least point toward a path of peace and a reachable goal.
After careful study of various proposals, which we reflected on at length, we found the clearest thinking and greatest sensitivity toward our disabled young people and adults in the pages of a recently published book: Sex Education for People with Disabilities — Walking Toward Hope, by Vittorio Mariani.
Shortly after this author's excellent work on The Disabled Adult, the publisher ELLE DI CI presents his new book, which takes up a more specific theme of urgent relevance. We are deeply grateful to them for it.
The theme matters now because we all feel—more than ever—the need to stop denying a reality that, until a few decades ago, was dismissed as nonexistent or handled with coercive measures, often by those without proper expertise. It matters because today's dominant culture encourages, promotes, and manages a freedom of bodily expression that creates confusion, maladjustment, and often despair.
How do we respond to a person with intellectual disability who lives increasingly in contact with society, more embedded in it than in the past? How do we treat such a person as a human being—unique and unrepeatable—with their own history, needs, desires, feelings, abilities, and gifts? How do we see them whole, in all their dimensions? And how, in particular, do we help them navigate their sexuality?
Vittorio Mariani answers these questions and offers his own proposal. He brings long experience to the work. He is a pedagogical consultant for Don Orione's homes for people with disabilities, teaches "Social Pedagogy" and "Special Pedagogy" in courses for professional educators at the E.S.A.E. in Milan, and collaborates with the "Center for Studies and Research on Social Difficulty and Maladjustment" at the Catholic University of Brescia.
Perhaps it is this experience, combined with being the brother of a girl with a disability, that makes his words so clear and persuasive.
He writes for families, professionals, and volunteers. He distinguishes between people with motor or sensory disabilities and those with intellectual deficits. For all groups, he stresses the importance of sex education from childhood onward, with particular attention to adulthood. He offers guidance—based on his approach—regarding sexual expression: relationships between men and women, homosexuality, masturbation. He gives practical advice on how professionals should be trained and how they should work as a team. He clarifies what qualities an educator must have.
Pedagogical preparation cannot be improvised. It emerges from passionate, ongoing inquiry and from knowing the tools best suited to understanding and action.
The book is both simple and rich. Vittorio Mariani shows us a path of hope and gives us support and confidence. He believes in the possibility of building a better society whose model already exists in so many communities. The thought and experience of Jean Vanier strengthens many of his arguments throughout. We can only embrace his vision.
Below we offer excerpts from this book, which we warmly encourage you to read.
- Natalia Livi, 1995