Topics: YouTube, Podcast, Sex and Relationships
An interabled couple have revealed the truth about their sex life as they challenged heartbreaking misconceptions about disability, sex and 'online trolls'.
Shane Burcaw and Hannah Aylward had been dating for years before deciding to tie the knot in September 2020.
While dating, the happy couple said they soon realized that people find their relationship 'pretty peculiar,' since Shane has a severe muscle wasting disease and requires a wheelchair while Hannah doesn't.
As such, they launched their YouTube channel, Squirmy and Grubs, and more recently a weekly relationship podcast, 'Junkyard Mayhem', to document their life and the trials and tribulations of relationships in general.
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Now, Shane and Hannah have sat down to address some of the outlandish and often cruel misconceptions, particularly around disability and intimacy.
In particular, they said a common belief is that disabled people 'don't have sex' or enjoy romance, to which the couple quickly slammed as point-blank 'not true'.
Navigating the topic frankly, they admitted there is a 'caveat' in that some disabilities can affect sexual function, but 'that is not the rule' nor the 'overwhelming majority'.
In any case, they agreed it was the way society continues to 'frame' sex in interabled relationships that is 'the problem'.
"When Hannah and I began our channel, we never really considered the idea that people would question our love or romance," Shane added. "And boy did they."
Revealing they were 'trolled' for a while about their sex lives, Hannah also said she was accused of being 'inappropriate' for being intimate with her partner, and has even been called 'a pedophile.'
"Like, because [Shane's] smaller, like there's no way - that should be illegal," she said. "And I often see comments that are like, if the roles, the genders were reversed, this would be illegal, meaning a disabled woman and a non-disabled man, that would be illegal."
She continued: "It's just wild to me that people think that disabled people can't consent to intimacy and I think that kind of policing happens a lot more with mental disabilities but it also does happen with physical disabilities."
Hannah explained how the couple are often flooded with the sex question in the comments of their videos and became shocked to see just how many people think Shane, and any disabled people, 'can't have sex or doesn't want to.'
Shane added: "We're seen as asexual beings," to which Hannah queried why and if it was under another misconception that his 'physical organs' don't work.
"Well that," Shane continued, "and they see my attraction, my ability to attract a parter as non-existent."
"And even if you did, it wouldn't work," Hannah added. "There's no physical way - because we get a lot of like, 'there's no physical way that they could, so they're lying.'"
Shane, who also wrote a book called Strangers Assume My Girlfriend is my Nurse, suggested such misconceptions come from an ignorant belief that disabled people 'are not full autonomous beings' or 'adults'.
"This is going to sound silly, but disabled people can have sex. They can be amazing romantic partners. They can be really good at sex. We are just as sexual as our non-disabled counterparts."
In fact, the couple said through research and interviews with other interabled couples that they believe disabilities can enhance intimacy because such partnerships require 'creativity' and 'communication'.
"I thoroughly believe that my disability makes our sex life better, and this is a topic that we don't want to give too many personal details but like, it has required more communication, more creativity to find ways that work well for us," Shane said. "And so without kind of that need to experiment differently we probably never would have arrived at those new ways of doing things that are great for us.
"Interabled relationships are just as full of passion and romance and love as any other."
