Dating someone with an intellectual disability

Dating is already difficult, but people with disability face more barriers

With respect to the potential for having and raising children, individuals with IDD have the right to:. Adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities IDD have the legal right to make their own choices, including the right to choose to date, live with a significant other, and get married. They have the right to exercise choices regarding sexual expression and social relationships. The presence of IDD, regardless of severity, does not, in itself, justify loss of rights related to relationships or sexuality. All people have the right within interpersonal relationships to: Develop friendships and emotional and sexual relationships where they can love and be loved, and begin and end a relationship as they choose; Dignity and respect; and Privacy, confidentiality, and freedom of association. With respect to sexuality, individuals have a right to: Sexual expression and education, reflective of their own cultural, religious and moral values and of social responsibility; Individualized education and information to encourage informed decision-making, including education about such issues as reproduction, marriage and family life, abstinence, safe sexual practices, sexual orientation, sexual abuse, and sexually transmitted diseases; and Protection from sexual harassment and from physical, sexual, and emotional abuse.

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Cheek to cheek, they danced so slowly their feet barely lifted from the floor, the cover band playing "When You Say Nothing at All. The old country song is an apt description of Rosemary and Coy Maness's love story as they celebrated their one-year wedding anniversary. It distills the essence of true love into its most basic expressions: a smile, a touch. Around them at the spring dance were others with similar disabilities — people on dates, people hoping to find a date, people socializing with friends. Asked about her marriage, Rosemary Maness patted her chest and said, "He's just Yet the rights of people with intellectual disabilities to date, to choose an intimate partner and to marry remain controversial. Decades into a movement to recognize that people with intellectual disabilities should live as independently as possible and make their own decisions, sexuality and relationships remain among the last frontiers, advocates say.

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Most people dream of finding their soulmate and falling head over heels in love. But for the Even people with high functioning mental disabilities struggle in the dating world. Every relationship requires work and dedication but dating with a mental disability calls for a few extra steps.

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Dating with intellectual disabilities: Is it a right?

I have been diagnosed with cerebral palsy and lived with this everyday-present disability since my childhood. I am no stranger to inter-ability relationships. However, finding the right person to be able to handle me and my disability has been difficult, to say the least.

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