Comedian Rosie Jones: I want to show disabled people are sexual beings too

Stand-up comic Rosie Jones has said she wants to show disabled people can also have healthy sex lives.

The comedian, who has cerebral palsy, has written for and appeared on shows including The Last Leg and 8 Out Of 10 Cats, and fronted TV programmes such as From An Angel, about her view on the world.

Jones, from Bridlington, East Yorkshire, said she had struggled with being both gay and disabled growing up because she found people with disabilities were treated like “victims” who “didn’t have a sexuality”.

Speaking on the BBC Sounds podcast Duvet Days, she said: “Growing up, there was nobody in TV or radio that looked like me – that sounded like me.

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“There was Francesca Martinez in (BBC One TV show) Grange Hill, but that was the only person really.

“And also my sexuality came into that, like when there was a disabled person they were very much the victim and they didn’t have a sexuality, they were very much the stock disabled person.

“That meant growing up, I didn’t accept my sexuality because I thought I’m not gay and disabled.”

Jones said she wanted to show through her stand-up routines that disabled people were also “sexual beings”.

She added: “It sounds obvious, but even for me, and I’ve been disabled all my life, I questioned a lot of what I could and couldn’t do.

“There was nobody I could follow and look up to so I decided to be that person, to be the leader.

“If we were in the media more, it would make disabled people’s lives much easier.”

– Listen to Duvet Days, in which podcaster Abby Hollick gets into bed with musicians and artists, on BBC Sounds.