Disability, Desire, and Digital Platforms: Examining Self-Representation and Connection Online

Abstract

This chapter explores how disabled individuals experience online dating, focusing on access barriers and the negotiation of sexual capital within digital sexual fields. Drawing on sexual fields theory and semi-structured interviews with seven participants, this qualitative study identifies two key findings. First, participants described both personal and structural challenges, including internalized stigma, financial barriers, and logistical constraints. Second, participants engaged in complex evaluations of sexual capital—both their own and others’—navigating desirability through strategic self-presentation. These findings reveal how online dating platforms can reinforce hierarchies of desirability while also offering spaces for connection. This chapter underscores the need for more inclusive and accessible digital spaces that affirm disabled people’s desires, identities, and right to intimacy.