Sexual Health

5. Emotions and Body

5.2. Body

Photo: Stine Kuhle-Hansen

For PWID, there is often a mismatch between the level of bodily and cognitive development (9). This makes it difficult for many people to understand what is happening with them and around them. PWID need to understand what is considered private parts of the body. It is important that they learn about this early on, so that they do not compromise, but can protect themselves.

Sexuality of is often more pronounced, and therefore easier to discover and even describe as compared to girls’ sexuality. This underlines the importance of girls in general and  especially girls with ID to be helped to understand and relate to their own body and their own sexuality.  

In the SUMO-report (10) the authors argue that it is necessary “to have basic knowledge about body-parts, sexual relations and sexual acts”.  Everyone has a right to learn about the body’s functions and being taught at their level of competence. 

Persons with ID often need more time learning new skills (11). Extra time should therefore be allocated to teaching them about the body. It is useful to look at pictures of the body. Talk about different body-parts, as well as what the different body parts are useful, too (12). You may choose to follow a systematic program like KIS (7) or KISS (8).

Picture: paintings by Schmidt-Rottluff

It is important to acquire knowledge about the body in order to recognise somatic signs. Somatic signs can include stomach ache, headache, stinging due to urinary infection, dental problems, sleep deprivation, etc. Women ought to have a gynaecology examination and men with ID ought to have their prostate checked. If there are multiple sudden somatic signs and bruises, you ought to check whether the person has been subject to abuse. 

ACTIVITIES:

• Look at body pictures in webpages below. They have different language versions, so find the language you understand most and discuss with your child/sibling/client about what you see. Listen to their understanding and tell them more if they need more explanations to understand (7): 
• Woman's body 
• Man’s body