I don’t often think of children and sex. But today I will.
I live in the Bible Belt. In my college program, of the students from small towns, most had attended Bible studies. At my university, at our student LGBTQ club, the Europeans were amazed —as I guess folks from New York City would be— at how gay prairie students cared so much about an honest relation with God and churchgoing neighbours.
As for neighbours and relations, the Arab viewpoint is interesting: The New York Times best seller The Walking Drum, by Louis L’Amour, is the book I think put an Arab saying into our culture, a saying that somehow doesn’t sit right for me: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
The novel has a scene that doesn’t sit right: After a night camping behind some bushes, upon seeing some Arab friends passing by, the western hero stands to hail his passing friends. The Arab heroine desperately pulls him back down into the bushes, “They’ll kill you!”
Unlike virtuous Indiana Jones and that strong American lady, the Arabs, at that time and place, assumed a young man and woman cannot be alone without transgressing the Arabian sexual code.
In my own culture, in my lifetime, someone had to write a thick book for young Christians called God Invented Sex so they would feel permission. I recall the book had something like, ‘You can cook and sew for your father but you can’t—.’
At university a lesbian, with great annoyance, told me that young gay women, when gathered away from straights, wouldn’t talk of sex—they talked at length about love. Lacking permission for sex-talk? Of course, this was way back when the terms homosexual and lesbian had a stigma, so we said gay. I guess modern nonBible Belt ladies could be different.
The term lesbian had less of a stigma than homosexual. I remember working at a day program for mentally handicapped adults where we sensed that two female clients were gay —whether they knew it or not— as they were so pleased to be beside each other. We didn’t split them up because the program director said there was less stigma for two women than for two men.
In college I took Disability Studies. I brought a scandalous book up to the library counter. The title, in bold RED letters, took up half the cover! Sex, Love and the Physically Handicapped by Evelyn Ayrault. So I modestly set it upside down on the counter. Only to find the identical letters on the back! On purpose! For that same purpose, so far, I have been circling around my topic.
Note: We don’t have to be beautiful and able-bodied to be loved.
But we may think do, we may cringe at the topic of sex—love is easier—and if we are parents then despite our wincing we want our children to grow up to be happy.
The book was meant for giving parents hope. Before reading it, I never gave any thought to children and sex. But as I dimly recall, most of that book was about childhood. Because if your innocent disabled child is to grow up to be able to give and receive love and affection, then during childhood he or she must learn to think of others, instead of becoming spoiled. The book gives a sad example of a handicapped girl. Her mother was on her deathbed. Instead of, “Oh no, poor mother” it was “Oh no, who will take care of me?”
One of the ways to avoid having a spoiled girl is, when your child asks for help, to avoid any unseemly rush. If you are busy, she can wait a minute: then the girl would know other people have needs too. Living with a disability is no excuse for being stuck in immaturity and invulnerable to emotions of empathy.
Handicapped children in Boy Scouts or Girl Guides learn the ideal of the shining knights of old who would “do someone a good turn (deed) every day.” I guess the knights could otherwise have become arrogant in their armour.
When I was a child, as we walked down our gravel road, Mum would have us be observant like a Scout to pick up nails that could puncture tires. Had I used a wheelchair she would have handed me a spring-claw cane so I could pick up litter, just like her other unspoiled children.
These days, every Saturday, I support a married husband and wife who use power wheelchairs. The wife, lacking arm coordination, struggles to construct birthday cards for people. All the handi-bus drivers like her. She calls her husband “my love.” I’m sure they were both raised by proud parents to be polite. Such a lovely couple. Would you think they make love?
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Sean Crawford
in North America where “everybody knows that God lives in the midwest”
May
2026
