The Social Model of Disability and Sexual Rights under the UN Convention

Paradigm Shift Toward the Social Model

The pedagogical foundation for addressing emotional well-being in the context of functional diversity requires a definitive conceptual shift from the medical-welfare model toward the perspective of the social model.

While the traditional approach addressed disability from the perspective of pathology, infantilization, and the need for guardianship, the contemporary approach maintains that actual limitations are the result of physical, attitudinal, and communicative barriers imposed by the social structure.

In this context, sexuality is no longer viewed as a biological risk or a behavioral problem but is recognized as an inherent, healthy, and valuable dimension of the holistic human condition.

People with functional diversity are reaffirmed as legal subjects fully capable of exercising their self-determination, exploring their physicality, experiencing eroticism, and managing their own emotional lives with complete autonomy, requiring specific supports rather than prohibitions or protective guardianship that violate or restrict their basic freedoms.

The UN Convention and Sexual Rights

The international legal basis for this emancipatory perspective is found in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

This binding legal framework commits institutions to guaranteeing sexual and reproductive health, privacy, and sovereign decision-making free from outside interference.

Its provisions expressly protect the right to form intimate relationships, start a family, preserve fertility, and become a mother or father with the necessary functional support.

Likewise, international law categorically prohibits any abusive practice that violates bodily integrity, such as forced sterilizations, imposed contraception, or pharmacological treatments aimed at suppressing libido.

Educational initiatives must, therefore, empower people with knowledge of these legal safeguards so that they can demand their active enforcement and defend themselves against any institutional or familial violations or coercion within their everyday environments.

Demystification and Accessibility in Eroticism

The full exercise of eroticism requires the deconstruction of social myths that stigmatize people with functional diversity.

It is a priority to dismantle both the myth of asexuality—which infantilizes the individual by denying their desires—and the myth of hypersexuality, which pathologizes natural erotic expressions by considering them aggressive or uncontrollable.

Furthermore, it is essential to adapt affective-sexual education to ensure cognitive, physical, and sensory accessibility through tools such as easy-to-read materials, pictograms, tactile models, and augmentative communication systems.

These methodological adaptations make it possible to convey content on consent, abuse prevention, body awareness, and emotional expression in an understandable way.