Astrid challenges stereotypes about sex and disability
Thursday 8th October 2026 on 15:15 in
Denmark
Astrid Siemens Lorenzen says people with disabilities should not have to justify their sexuality. The 25-year-old student, who has cerebral palsy, described her experiences to DR’s P1 Morgen.
At a gynaecology appointment, a doctor asked her assistant whether Lorenzen was sexually active. Lorenzen uses a wheelchair and communicates with an eye-controlled computer, but it was not with her that day. She nodded in response to the question, yet the doctor continued speaking to her assistant and referring to Lorenzen in the third person.
Lorenzen says the doctor asked, “Who has given her permission to do that?” She says the appointment was one of many experiences in which her sexuality was overlooked because of her physical disability.
“I was lying there with my genitals exposed, while being treated as if my sexuality was something other people had to give me permission to have,” she told P1 Morgen. “I have a right to my own body, my sexuality and my relationships, even though I have a significant disability.” She also described the incident in an opinion piece in Politiken.
William Korte, chair of the Association of Young People with Disabilities, says such experiences are common. He describes as outdated the assumption that disabled people have less need for a sex life than others, or may be asexual.
The association has no figures on how many members encounter these attitudes. But Korte says stories from young people show that the assumptions can make them question whether it is acceptable to be interested in sex or to have sexual desires. He wants disabled young people to be more visible in the media and says the healthcare sector should do more to challenge prejudice.
Lorenzen says the stereotypes affected how she viewed her own sexuality. For years, she did not feel entitled to a sex life and thought she was asexual until she met her partner. Conversations about sex and desire began then, though she remembers them as awkward because people did not know what to say.
“It was almost as if my disability took up so much space that people forgot I was also just a young person who could fall in love and desire my partner,” she said. Between 8,000 and 10,000 people in Denmark live with cerebral palsy.