Jamie F
A three-day online festival about sex and people with disabilities is set to take place on 20-22 October 2021, with relationships, logistics and sextech set to be discussed across its sessions.
The Love Abilities International Virtual Festival 2021 will feature over 45 presenters appearing across 24 sessions, with attendees encouraged to join a private Facebook group to continue discussions raised across the event.
Live captioning will be made available for the recordings, and festival organisers are seeking funding to be able to provide sign language interpreters for some sessions.
The third day of the event, 22 October, will feature a sextech product ‘box opening’ session hosted by Loraine Stanley, founder and managing director of Sex With a Difference: a training organisation specialising in disability and sex based in Dorset, in the UK.
The festival is set to be kicked off on 20 October by a session titled ‘A Celebration of Disabilities, Sexuality, Kink and Culture’. It will be hosted by Stradley and Dr Mitchell Tepper: a sexuality educator who is living with a spinal cord injury.
Other topics set to be explored across the sessions include the development of dating app and website profiles, safety and consent, sexual health and legal issues related to sex work and kink.
The 2021 event will be the second time the festival takes place, having debuted in 2020. Tickets cost a very precise £37.24 via Eventbrite.co.uk.
The online festival will take place at a time when sextech startups are helping place more focus on sex and pleasure for people with disabilities.
Handi, a startup based in Sydney, Australia, is developing sex toys for people with disabilities. It was co-founded by disability consultant and activist Andrew Gurza.
The company said it conducted a survey and found that over half of the physically disabled people who took part said they struggled to achieve sexual pleasure on their own.
TouchBot is another startup entering the field of sex and disability. The company is currently fielding input from potential product users about what they want from products designed for people with access needs. You can sign up to fill in a questionnaire on the site.
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