A Review Of The Outsiders Club :: Free Essay Writer

A Review of "The Outsiders Club" Screened on BBC 2 in October 96MA Diploma Disability StudiesINTRODUCTIONI decided to salvage a review on the social group known as The Outsiders. Thegroups main aim is to enable disabled adults to form personal relationships,including specifically familiar ones (Shakespe be 1996), either with each other orwith non-disabled members. The group has been in existence for several geezerhood,and has attracted a great deal of attention, including reaction from present andformer members, and in particular from within the Disabled Peoples Movement .Many of the comments made by former members of the group have been critical,sometimes highly condemnatory, and frequently made by disabled women (Rae 1984).In both my professional and private capacity I am interested in sexuality anddisability, and specifically in the ways in which disabled adults can establishmeaningful relationships with other people (disabled or on-disabled). Issuessuch as sexuality and the forming of relationships are regularly discussed inmainstream youth and confederation work, but rarely with regard to disabled people(which is not surprising since disabled people are often absent from mainstreamgroups). Indeed, it is only in the remainder few years that disabled peoplethemselves have been in the forefront of this debate, and the leadingprotagonist have usually been activists within the wider disability movement,who are soundly aware of other social and sexual issues such as gender, sexism,homophobia, and so on. The Outsiders was set up (and is still fronted by) anable bodied woman who for many years has been well known in the controversialarena of sexual liberation and soft-core pornography, so it is hardly surprisingthat her group has both supporters and critics. A recent BBC-2 nonsubjectiveseries (From the Edge) devoted a whole programme to the group, and this essaypicks up the main themes that were aired.SEXUALITY AND DISABILITYMorris (1989) writes & quotonce we first become disabled we are usually denied anyform of sexual identity." It is certainly true that among the many negativestereotypes of disability some of the most commonly held views are that disabledpeople are non-sexual, or sometimes asexual beings, or that they are likely tobe attracted only to each other.THE OUTSIDERS CLUBThe Outsiders Club was established by Tuppy Owens in 1979. Tuppy, a self-proclaimed stalwart campaigner for sexual equality, and a trained sex therapist.She conceived the idea of a social group for disabled adults after her sloppedmale friend, Nigel, became blind. Fearful of the effect of disability everafflicting her own life - and blindness in particular - she became determined to