Dateable
Swiping Right, Hooking Up, and Settling Down While Chronically Ill and Disabled
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected Jul 9, 2024
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- $11.99
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- Pre-Order
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A much-needed guide to dating--from apps to hooking up, sex, long-term relationships and more--from disabled essayist and author Jessica Slice and bioethicist Caroline Cupp.
Disabled people date, have casual sex, marry, and parent. Yet our romantic lives are conspicuously absent from the media and cultural conversation. Sexual education does not typically address the specific information needed by disabled students. Mainstream dating apps fail to include disability as an aspect of one’s identity alongside race, ethnicity, gender identity, and sexual orientation. The few underutilized disability-focused apps are paternalistic and unappealing. Bestselling dating books do not address disability, and the few relationship books marketed to disabled people focus on the mechanics of sex rather than the complex interactions that create the conditions for it.
In Dateable, disabled authors Jessica Slice Caroline Cupp team up to address the serious gap in the dating space. Dateable is the first book on disabled dating and relationships; it’s a dating guide made especially for disabled and chronically ill people, that also calls in nondisabled readers. Jessica and Caroline take on everything from rom-com representation and dating apps to sex and breakups with a strong narrative underpinning and down-to-earth advice. The book is as much a practical tool as it is an empowering guide.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Essayist Slice and minister Cupp (coauthors of the picture book This Is How We Play) team up for a noteworthy relationship guide for disabled people. Drawing on personal experience (Slice's dysautonomia began at 28, and Cupp was born with cerebral palsy) and enlightening interviews with people across the ability spectrum, the authors tackle such challenges as disclosing one's disability on dating apps, discussing caregiver duties with partners, and having sex in spite of physical limitations. The guidance takes a flexible rather than prescriptive approach—for instance, the chapter on sex advises readers to "expand what sex means" beyond penetrative intercourse and experiment with new strategies, positions, and devices. Other sections explore the intersection between disability and queerness and the higher incidence of sexual assault against disabled people. Throughout, the authors are candid about the difficulties of dating in a society that prizes "spontaneity... and effortlessness" yet is riddled with access limitations for those with disabilities. With plenty of useful tips, stories, and encouragement for readers to fashion their own approaches, this is a valuable resource.