Eva Sweeney Is ‘Cripping Up Sex’ with Accessible Sex Ed Workshops [VIDEO]
SexForEveryBody.com is supported by our readers. We may earn a commission if you buy through links on our site. Learn more.
Thanks to a new online mini-documentary, we can glimpse inside the life and work of Eva Sweeney, a sex and disability educator with more than 15 years of experience.
The short film “Paving My Own Way – Episode One” profiles Sweeney, a woman in her late 30s with cerebral palsy, and their accessible sex education services. It was created by Chelsea Javier and Paul Sprangers of American Lagomorph.
After failing to find adequate sexuality resources as a queer teenager, Sweeney decided to become a sex educator. Today they provide online classes and private consults through their business Cripping Up Sex With Eva. with a website featuring various course offerings.
With the help of Barbies, Eva teaches different sex positions that can work for people with disabilities. Eva also reviews sex toys with a focus on their accessibility on the blog Cripping Up Reviews.
Being non-verbal, Sweeny communicates with the filmmakers with the help of an aide. Sweeney points to words and letters on a board with a laser-pointer light attached to their hat, and their aide reads them out.
Throughout the film, we get to know Sweeney as a funny, smart, and confident person who isn’t bogged down by societal expectations surrounding women and sexuality.
When asked whether they feel pressure to live up to certain ideals, Sweeney shares pearls of wisdom:
I am lucky becasue from the get-go I don’t conform, so I did not have that pressure to be what everyone else expect’s of a woman. So trust yourself. I know it is difficult to ignore society’s ridiculous standards, but think about what would make you happy.
View the documentary embedded above or on Vimeo to learn more about Sweeney. You can also help support her sex and disability educational services by contributing to their Patreon page.
Image source: American Lagomorph
Jenna Owsianik is a Canadian journalist and sex tech industry expert. She is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sex For Every Body®.
Her expertise covers state-of-the-art sex technologies and the major fields driving innovations in intimacy: robotics, virtual reality, remote sex (teledildonics), haptics, immersive adult entertainment, human augmentation, virtual sex, and sexual health.
A trained journalist with a Masters of Journalism from The University of British Columbia, Jenna’s reporting has appeared on Futurism.com, Al Jazeera English, CTV British Columbia online, CBS Sunday Morning, CBS 60 Minutes, Global News, and CKNW Radio in Canada and the United States.