Intellectually disabled people are allowed to have relationships
My partner is intellectually disabled. She doesn't have the highest support needs, but they are still there. I am both her partner and a kind of parental figure. She is kinky and she wants to kind of mix the two together and that is her active choice, but for the most part I am platonically her parental figure. She is 27 i am 30. She has a history of csa. I am one of the only people she's had that has helped her to genuinely improve her mental health. She is a person. She is allowed to have relationships. I am not inherently predatory for dating her. And I am not a predator. She just has support needs that I can fill. Don't tell me she can only be helped by a therapist, and I shouldn't support her. She is going to therapy. When you see an intellectually disabled person dating someone, don't assume that they are being preyed upon. Actually see if they are and then act. To assume because someone is mentally disabled that that means they cannot have relationships is just abelism. To assume intellectually disabled people are puritan and cannot have kinks, INCLUDING THOSE THAT INVOLVE THEIR DISABILITY is abelism and infantilizing. Intellectually disabled people who have a younger mental age ARE NOT CHILDREN. Look out for them, protect them, care for them, stop them from being preyed upon, but do not overwrite their decisions unless you actually see someone prey upon them.
