Spilling the tea on love, lust and everything in between
Jacqueline Tedmanson, aka Diana Divine, five months pregnant, still burlesque dancing and showing how mobility aids can be really sexy. (Compass: Morgan Timms)
It's a stormy February night in Adelaide, and Jacqueline Tedmanson is at the hospital with her partner Jackson, waiting to meet their first baby.
Despite having a disability, Jacqueline isn't nervous about the birth. She's just excited to be having a child, and the couple only hope the child "is funny" rather than "healthy".
As a queer disabled person, burlesque gives Jacqueline Tedmanson, aka Diana Divine, a rare space to be sexy and powerful, without feeling infantilised or fetishised. (Compass: Johanis Lyons-Reid)
Jacqueline has Ehlers-Danlos syndromes (EDS), an incurable and frequently painful condition that causes joints to be overly flexible and prone to dislocation.
EDS is genetic, and Jacqueline knows that her son could have inherited it. But she's not worried about it because she knows how to help him manage the condition.
"There are people I know who, it barely affects them … And then there are people like me who are relying on mobility aids daily," Jacqueline said.
"I think, if at least, if he has this genetic disability, I am going to be able to support him because I've been through it myself."
Like most people with EDS, Jacqueline was diagnosed in adulthood after years of living with chronic pain and injury.
She says she will be aware if her son shows signs of the condition and will be able to advocate for him where her own parents couldn't.
Comedian Madeleine Stewart explores these stories of disability love, sex and parenting with Compass ABC TV. She talks to the disabled community across Australia to find out what the big deal is with disabled sex.
"I think we need to remind people that … disabled folk … not only can we fall in love and have sex, but we can also have children,"Madeleine said.
When Debra Keenahan found out she was pregnant, she was hoping the baby would share her disability.
Debra has achondroplasia, also known as Dwarfism.
Dwarfism is a genetic condition that occurs in about 40,000 children, and most are born to average height parents.
Having Dwarfism herself and knowing that the father was of average height, Debra knew it was likely her child would also have achondroplasia.
Debra Keenahan (right) met her husband, Robert Brindley, on a photo shoot in 2014. (Compass: Morgan Timms)
"I just had it in my head it would be easier to parent a child that was my own gender … And it would be easier to, if the child was short-statured," Debra said.
"Of course, if she'd have been a boy, I would have been perfectly happy. [But] in my family, all my nephews are massive.
"And I thought, could you imagine me, a single parent, four-foot-one, trying to parent an obnoxious six-foot teenager?"
Debra felt relieved when she found that her daughter, Sarah, had achondroplasia too.
Raising the child as a single parent had its challenges, but Debra never felt she was less equipped to handle it because of her disability.
She recalls some criticism from others when she would let Sarah struggle with navigating climbing furniture because she knew it was something her daughter would have to learn to do.
Jacqueline hasn't been criticised for her choice to have a child, but when people see her with her son while using a walker, they make assumptions about their relationship.
"Often Jackson will be carrying [the baby] if I'm using a walker, and I do sometimes feel like I am assumed to not be the parent, I'm just kind of with him and his son, maybe not even in a romantic way."
The systemic barriers no-one wants to talk about
People with disabilities make up about 21 per cent of the Australian population and an even larger percentage will develop a disability with age, the ABS reported in 2022.
Despite the numbers, having safe sex or raising a family are more difficult for people with disabilities than for the able-bodied and neurotypical population.
People with disabilities are often victims of sexual assault and domestic violence, and on occasion, forced sterilisation is used to prevent childbirth.
Loading...The Australian Human Rights Commission found overwhelmingly that young women with intellectual disability were subjected to forced sterilisation and not always in accordance with the law.
In Queensland legislation, a person with a cognitive disability, ranging from an intellectual disability to dementia to autism, is deemed incapable of consenting to sex, and their partners can be arrested for sexual abuse if they break that law.
For some people with disabilities, their only option for intimate contact is to engage sex workers, but it's an expensive option, used by few, and no longer supported by the NDIS after a change to legislation in October 2024 to make the Scheme "more sustainable".
Kyle Montgomery found the sudden lack of intimacy was one of the hardest parts of living with an acquired disability.
Seven years ago, Kyle's neck was broken in a wrestling match with a friend, and it left him paralysed below the chest.
Like many men his age, Kyle Montgomery still has a strong interest in sex. (Compass: Nisa East)
Kyle has had to get used to most of his contact coming from support workers and learn to navigate his own body again.
"That is definitely a weird area when it comes to support workers, because you're very close and intimate with people," Kyle said.
"I am naked all the time in the mornings, obviously. So, things like massage and stretching, I'm nude.
"They're helping me go to the toilet, showering me, washing my body, things like that … So there is a lot of intimate touch.
"I don't think it's very uncommon for people who have support workers and maybe not dating, and they're alone to feel an attraction to their support worker."
This is what sex therapist Patrick Rory-John calls "calcification" of sexuality.
"What can happen with people with disability is through the calcification of sexuality and its repression … it becomes an impulse because it's a need that's not being met," Patrick said.
"When a person with disability is experiencing touch during basic hygiene and care, they can misconstrue that touch as being sensual or sexual, and what is a desire becomes a compulsion."
Rediscovering intimacy after an acquired disability
A lack of intimacy inspired Kyle to start dating again, but he was nervous about how the first experience would work, so his friend encouraged him to start with sex workers.
"Erections started happening, and I was like, 'Oh, it still works. Cool'," Kyle said.
"I didn't really feel like I had the confidence to go dating and have a sex life because I don't obviously know about my body.
"I really didn't want to navigate those conversations with someone that's inexperienced and could be very insensitive, where I thought, this is a professional job."
He spent a year in hospital, coming off a ventilator and getting the use of his arms back, but Kyle said discussions of having a sex life afterwards were very clinical.
"I ended up speaking to a lot of doctors about it, but they just told me about drugs and devices that I could use.
"It wasn't just about sex, which it should have been, and sexual health … It was so clinical."
Kyle is now in a monogamous relationship, and they are considering going permanent and starting a family.
Kyle is concerned about trying for children because his disability means they will likely need to use IVF, which is not only expensive but also another clinical experience.
Loading...Disabled, intimate and starting families — the stories we don't tell
Madeleine felt it was important to tell these stories of parenting after the NDIS change of legislation prevented access to sex workers and sexual aids.
"People with disability should be given room and support to explore their sexuality. It can be a really positive experience," Madeleine said
"And we can also be amazing partners and parents as well."
Jacqueline is looking forward to raising a child and helping him learn about the world.
"I'm really excited to be a parent and to kind of help navigate the world with a little person," she said.
"I do think, being queer and disabled, I kind of have a lot of understanding of how tough the world can be, but also how nice it can be with community and with people who really love and support you."
Watch Intimate Access on Compass tonight at 6:30pm on ABC TV or stream now on iview.